Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the ministerial statement that you make when you are not really making a ministerial statement, because there are no real initiatives in the ministerial statement on the government's response to the Harper review's recommendations on road pricing. There is nothing additional and there is no new, specific action outlined in that statement. We have a number of ministerial statements this morning, essentially because the government appear to have run out of business! Indeed, for this afternoon they have listed 'annual ministerial infrastructure statement' but no speakers in case the bills are all concluded, because the bills that are there on the program are not particularly controversial.

It says something about this government—that it has run out of steam after just two years and that it does not have a sense of purpose, apart from members' individual advancement over each other, and we are seeing that played out in the civil war that is going on between the Abbott supporters and the Turnbull supporters in the government. The junior minister, the Minister for Territories, Local Government and Major Projects, who presented this ministerial statement is one of the people who were promoted recently with the change of leadership.

The road user charge debate is not new. Like the minister's recent discovery of smart infrastructure, there have been projects like Labor's managed motorways program that were put in place and provided with funding. That program was then cut by the coalition government, but it has been 'rediscovered', with some funding reinstated to pretend that it is new. This debate is not new either.

The issue is a serious one. It has been canvassed in earlier reviews, including the Henry tax review in 2010 and the Productivity Commission report into public infrastructure of 2014. Many of these official reports have noted the widening deficit gap between revenue and expenditure on our national road network, which is approximately 800,000 kilometres in length. In the latest available figures from BITRE, the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, spending by all governments on roads in 2012-13 was just under $24 billion. BITRE estimated that federally, mainly via excise, and in the states and territories—mainly via registration, stamp duty and tolls—combined revenue was about $18.4 billion. However, that should not be used as an excuse to not fund projects that have merit and that will actually help economic growth after proper cost-benefit analysis.

I am concerned that since the change of government, if you compare the September 2013 quarter, the last quarter under the former government, and June 2015, the latest quarter available, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show public sector infrastructure investment has fallen by more than 20 per cent. That is of real concern.

Consideration of how to address the road deficit was part of the former government's microeconomic reform agenda, and it was being progressed at COAG. The Heavy Vehicle Charging and Investment reform project looked to migrate from a fuel based road user charge system established in 1992 to a commercial, more directly user based system, rather than relying on fuel excise and registration charges. It was reporting through the transport ministerial council. I note that last month, at the ministerial council, ministers agreed to further work to develop asset registers and expenditure plans for key freight routes as a significant step towards developing a model for our road system.

I think it is also significant that Jay Weatherill, the very innovative Premier of South Australia, when he spoke in Canberra in July, offered to host a trial of mass-distance-location charging for heavy vehicles in South Australia. I understand that the Commonwealth has agreed to work with South Australia to keep momentum around this project. South Australia, in consultation with industry, has identified two heavily used road networks that also form part of the national network. Participants in the trial will be direct-charged based on their actual use of the network and will be eligible for rebates on the tax paid for the fuel used. Work is now starting on developing a direct-charging model for the trial.

Separately, Transurban, the operator of the majority of our nation's toll ways, is trialling different charging methods for volunteer users on the Melbourne road network. This work will, hopefully, provide new insights into the costs and benefits of different charging methods. I know that Victoria and New South Wales were keen to have a trial based on heavy vehicle user charging as well. In particular, the New South Wales roads minister in my time as minister, Duncan Gay, was very keen to provide leadership on this issue.

The decision at the 6 November 2015 ministerial council meeting was to freeze rather than reduce the current road user charge for heavy vehicles. I note that the trucking industry, through the ATA, have expressed concern that this decision will result in an overcharging of the heavy vehicle sector for their use of public roads, by some $500 million over two years. We do need to make sure that the pricing mechanisms are appropriate if there is to be that ongoing support.

I want to raise the issue of the Bingara Accord that was promoted under the leadership of Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia released a report under the then Infrastructure Australia coordinator, Michael Deegan, called Spend more, waste more, which was highly critical of how roads are funded in Australia. Under Mr Deegan, Infrastructure Australia took a very assertive approach, which was often an approach that I did not agree with, but that is precisely the role that an independent body like Infrastructure Australia should be able to play. For example, on one occasion, Infrastructure Australia advocated a toll on the Pacific Highway, something that I certainly did not support. But it is up to a body like that to put forward ideas and to ensure that there has been proper scrutiny of government decision making. The Bingara Accord, also known as the national road asset reporting pilot, was, I think, quite extraordinary. The pilot involved eight local governments spanning the New South Wales-Queensland border, working with Infrastructure Australia. Seven of the eight local governments produced condition reports for every road in their jurisdictions. Individual condition reports for those jurisdictions are included in annexes to the report, which the interim Infrastructure Australia chief, John Fitzgerald, told Senate estimates he had not bothered to read. Indeed, the report was never released publicly, unfortunately, and it should be. The pilot showed that, with access to accurate condition reports such as these, rigorous business cases can be produced for the road funding proposals. This was very much a local community initiative working with the private sector and business, particularly in agriculture, trying to work out how you could actually secure funding, particularly private sector investment, based upon usage of roads across those local government areas. This was an innovative initiative which, unfortunately, seems to have been shelved. I would say to the minister that this sort of initiative from the ground up, supported by Infrastructure Australia, is worthy of further consideration.

I will conclude with this: my concern about these issues is that we need to take equity into account. Poor people do drive cars, contrary to what Joe Hockey told the parliament. The fact is that people in our regional areas and in the outer suburbs have less income than many in the inner areas of our cities, and we need to make sure that there is equity in terms of not placing an increased burden on those people who can least afford to pay. That has to be part of any analysis if a shift in road pricing is going to occur.

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