Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, these amendments are new to us, and I have not really had an opportunity to examine them in any kind of detail. For that reason alone, the government will be opposing these amendments today. I have given an undertaking to the opposition spokesman that I will have a look at them between now and when they go to the Senate to see whether they can be accommodated. There has been a degree of bipartisanship in trying to deliver elements of this reform to Infrastructure Australia and as far as I can continue in that atmosphere of bipartisanship on it I will do so. However, we cannot really support them without having examined their full implications.

I will make a couple of points in response. It is certainly the government's intention that all projects for which we are contributing funding of $100 million or more will be subject to Infrastructure Australia's approval. The exception to that list is Defence—we have made that quite clear right through the process—but the intention is that Infrastructure Australia will have the ability to make its own decisions and that every project will be submitted to it. We want that examination to be independent and thorough. Of course, no government guarantees it will always accept Infrastructure Australia's advice in the end, but the public has a right to know what the independent authority thinks about the worth of projects and their relative merits. The purpose of the changes is to make sure that Infrastructure Australia can do that in a way that they are ahead of the decision-making process.

That has not been the case in the past, largely because Infrastructure Australia is new and it has not been able to get out in front of the decision-making process in the way it ought to. Our 15-year planning program, I think, demonstrates a commitment that we want to do that. There is no question that the East West Link will be subject to IA's scrutiny. There is no question that that will happen.

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