Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We hear 'hear, hear' from the member for Mackellar, in Sydney. He thinks this is a great deal. He loves dealing with Senator Xenophon. I wonder why? I wonder why we hear 'hear, hear' from Sydney. I have a bit of time for Senator Xenophon, because he is not a bad sort of fellow to have coffee with, but maybe his national vision has become a bit to national and he is not doing what South Australians expect of him. South Australians are voting for him as a regional party and a regional block, and, if he is going to horse-trade, they expect him to get good horses. This must be the first time that we have swapped the cow for the magic beans for the magic beans for the cow, or maybe we just walked away with nothing—$10 million! Maybe we could sell Senator Xenophon a harbour bridge in Sydney or something like that—I don't know!

An honourable member: A monorail.

That is right. A monorail—that famous episode of The Simpsons. The reality is as my friend Tom Koutsantonis, the Treasurer of South Australia, said: 'Of the $70 billion dollars allocated for infrastructure, South Australia received no new funding. No new projects, no new roads, no new spending.' The reason it is so important to have infrastructure spending in South Australia in the period between now, literally, and 2020-21 is that that is when we are leading into the shipbuilding. So, if everything goes to plan, OPVs and the build-up to the frigates should be occurring at that time. It is this middle period in which people are going to be looking for work. We need to keep a trained workforce in the field, working, earning money and keeping their skills up. We had that cruel hoax on The Advertiser front page. On 10 May, we had the headline 'Budget 2017: South Australia dudded, Weatherill, Xenophon say'.

Mr Falinski interjecting—

I hear the laughter from the member for Mackellar—somewhere in Sydney—the nice bit of Sydney. I had a bit of time for his predecessor. She was a gracious stalwart of the Liberal Party. On occasion she took issue with my behaviour in the house, but we won't talk about that now!

But we then had Senator Xenophon bagging the budget a few days later. Listen to what the Civil Contractors Federation SA said—and nothing gets Senator Xenophon moving like a bit of a contrary view. He will shift is position right the other way around. He is highly responsive and agile. He went from backing the budget to running a mile from it, and he ran a mile from it because it is terrible for South Australia. The Civil Contractors Federation SA said there had been a 'dire lack of funding' in the budget for key infrastructure projects in the state and it 'threatens to impact the chances of the SA Liberal Opposition winning next year's state election'. Not that it should be about elections, I might add. That should be the last thing. They obviously are trying to put a bit of pressure on. But it should actually be about people's jobs. It should not be about politicians' jobs; it should be about people's jobs. It is sad that we have to remind ourselves of this.

There are a lot of infrastructure projects to choose from in South Australia—the Adelaide-to-Tarcoola rail upgrade; the Eyre iron road infrastructure project for the new mine on the Eyre Peninsula; the Adelaide north-south corridor; AdeLINK, which is the tram network; the Strzelecki Track; the South Australian regional mineral port upgrade; the Sturt Highway high-productivity vehicle capacity enhancement, including the Truro bypass—I used to go to Truro in my youth; it is a great place, but a lot of trucks go through there—the Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth upgrade; and, most importantly, as this project has capacity to lead to jobs quickly, the Northern Adelaide Plains water infrastructure development. I know that project is favoured by the government. The government are interested in this project. They funded a study into it. Federal Labor said that we would commit to it because there are thousands of jobs in agriculture on the Adelaide Plains waiting to be created and probably hundreds of jobs in putting that water infrastructure in place.

There are great economic outcomes and great environmental outcomes, because it takes sewer water from the Bolivar sewerage works and turns it into water fit for agricultural purposes. This has already been done in Virginia and it can be done in Two Wells, which is the area north of it. I know something about it because I have been involved in water projects in my electorate in the mid-north of my state since I have been elected. We have had quite some luck and these projects have survived even the transition in government. I happily acknowledge Senator Birmingham's role in that. He is from the same part of the world as me and he understands the importance of water to agriculture, agricultural productivity, and the jobs and the like that are created. There is a fair bit in it for urban dwellers as well because it creates supply chains, economies of scale, and economic growth and wealth in my state.

We have to finish on a keynote. In Senate budget estimates on Monday Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development Secretary Mike Mrdak said that there are no additional new projects in South Australia over and above those that were previously committed. What a sad indictment on the government and what a cruel hoax that they have perpetrated on our state. They go out in the media and pump up expectations about jobs, growth and infrastructure, but what do we find? The reality is they give South Australia a big fat zero. We are getting terribly used to it, but this means that a clear message must be sent to the federal government over and over again that they will not prosper and get a vote in South Australia if they continue on this path.

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