Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is an immigrant nation. Unless you are an Indigenous Australian, all of our families were migrants to this great country at one point in time. Indeed, there's nothing more Australian than being a migrant, and in recent times the Australian family has been growing at a rapid clip. The Australian population grew by 2.8 million people in the first decade of this century, more than any decade back to Federation, and it's already grown by 2.7 million in the current decade, and we still have a few more years of growth to go. The vast bulk of this population growth has happened in Australian cities. This is a great thing. It's human nation building that benefits our economy and our community.

But, to misquote Kevin Costner: 'If they come, you must build it.' My electorate is on the front line of this population challenge. Melbourne's west is booming. Its population is growing at twice the state average, and nearly one in five Melburnians now call Melbourne's west home. Infrastructure Australia's Future cities: planning for our growing population report recently modelled three scenarios and projected that the region will grow by between 76 per cent and 120 per cent over the next 30 years. One in five Melburnians is a big baseline to grow from.

Unfortunately, those opposite don't understand the need to invest in the infrastructure needed to allow us to support this growing population. The conservatives have never been the nation builders in this country. They don't have the vision to imagine a different world or the courage to pursue the change. They spend a lot of time sleeping, but they don't spend much time dreaming. When a conservative government is elected, they hit the snooze button on nation building. That's what we've seen in Australia over the last 30 years. When the Howard government kicked off the current high-population-growth era, it invested an average of only $29.1 billion a year in transport, energy, telecommunications and water infrastructure needed to support this growing population—nowhere near enough. When the federal Labor government was elected under stewardship of the member for Grayndler in the infrastructure portfolio, he effectively doubled the average annual infrastructure investment to $57.7 billion. This investment delivered city-shaping investments for Victoria and Melbourne's west in the form of the Regional Rail Link project and a $3 billion commitment to the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel.

Unfortunately, the election of the Abbott-Turnbull government hit the snooze button once again, slashing average annual infrastructure investment by 17 per cent to $48b billion. Investment in transport infrastructure alone—roads, bridges, railways, ports and harbours—fell by even more: 22 per cent. The Turnbull government's latest budget is more of the same: no new funding. Federal infrastructure grant funding, the money that goes to the states, territories and local governments to deliver these roads and rail projects, will in fact fall over the next four years to its lowest level since the Howard government. Incredibly, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, federal investment in Australia's rail and road infrastructure will halve over the next decade. I can tell you population growth isn't halving over this decade. It hasn't fallen by 22 per cent. It's not at the lowest levels since the Howard government. As Infrastructure Partnerships Australia said about this budget:

It's concerning to see that the Federal Budget has cut real infrastructure funding by $2 billion over the forward estimates.

At a time when our population is growing and our cities are more congested than ever, we need to see infrastructure dollars trending up, not down. The out-of-touch Turnbull government doesn't understand the urgency of the challenge here.

Nowhere is this more true than my home state of Victoria. After more than four years in office, the federal coalition has initiated only one new major project in Victoria: the Murray Basin Rail Project. Every other federally funded project currently underway was identified and funded by the former Labor government four years ago. It hasn't initiated a single transport infrastructure investment in Melbourne's west on the front line of this population growth. In 2017-18 Victoria's share of the federal infrastructure budget fell to a record low of eight per cent despite Victoria being the fastest-growing state and having 25 per cent of the Australian population. In the last year of the federal Labor government preceding it, Victoria received 26 per cent of the federal infrastructure budget.

Even worse, the projects it has announced for Victoria all rely on funding that is already budgeted for, not new money. For projects like the airport rail link, North East Link, Monash rail and the electrification of the rail line between Frankston and Baxter, 80 per cent of that money—80 per cent of the funding for those projects—won't flow until the second half of 2022 at the earliest.

The out-of-touch Turnbull government just doesn't get it. It doesn't understand the impact of population growth on our major cities and it's not making the infrastructure investments needed to support it. A Shorten Labor government won't hit snooze on nation-building infrastructure investments in Australia. At the next federal election we'll offer the Australian public a vision for a better future of the country and give them a choice of a government that invests in the nation-building infrastructure we need.

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