Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

The amendment is seconded. In speaking on the Future Drought Fund Bill 2019 and in particular on the second reading amendment, I want to make clear what has happened in the parliament in the last half an hour or so. This debate that we are having today is about a bill to set up a fund that won't see a single dollar flow to farmers until the 2020-21 financial year. And it's not going to be an amount of $5 billion flowing to farmers. It's not even going to be the $3.9 billion flowing to farmers for drought. It's $100 million in the 2020-21 financial year and $100 million in the following financial year. It's $200 million. That is what this debate is about. This debate is about $200 million going to farmers.

There is absolutely no doubt that the Australian Labor Party supports $200 million going to our drought-affected farmers. In fact, we have said that these farmers need help now. They need help today. They can't wait for another 12 months. In fact, they have already been waiting the six years during which this government has not taken action to actually try and provide relief and started to look at the infrastructure that is needed to ensure that these droughts are not continuing to affect so many of our communities into the future. That's what this bill, at the crux of it, is actually about.

The government has, of course, decided to trash procedure in this place by introducing this bill and debating it immediately—having not introduced it in a previous sitting period of parliament where 26 or so bills were introduced in the Senate—but also by not according the opposition, members of their own backbench, our backbench and the crossbench the opportunity to actually look at this bill properly. From the outset, I want to say that Labor does support all and any actions being taken to support drought-affected farmers and, of course, the communities surrounding them. As a very proud regional Australian and as someone who travels extensively throughout rural communities across this country, I have seen the effects of this drought firsthand, and I have been devastated, frankly, by the lack of action that this government has taken over the past six years. There is absolutely no reason that the government cannot make an appropriation for drought funding now. We're talking about $200 million in the term of this parliament.

There is no reason at all that the government couldn't make that appropriation now. In fact, doing so would have the same budgetary impact that drawing down on the Building Australia Fund would have. So there's no difference in terms of the impact on the budget. They could've done so anytime during the past six years. They did not. We stand ready to support them if they do, and not only $200 million—we've said, 'If you want more then we stand ready to support that.' That's pretty unprecedented in this place.

But we think action does need to be taken now to alleviate the social and economic costs in drought-affected communities. A strategic plan should have been developed—not just in the next 12 months, which is partly what this bill says is going to happen; it should have been done over the past six years. It needs to be done transparently and on the basis of science and the best available advice to government as to what will work. And that is partly the problem with this bill. The government is not serious about tackling drought. It is seeking to politicise the plight of drought-affected communities to do what it has been trying to do since it got elected: get its hands on the Building Australia Fund, a fund that has a fair bit of rigour around what it can fund, including funding infrastructure projects in regional communities. What this government wants to do is basically open it up for ministerial discretion. That is what this bill is about. It's not about drought. This underhanded attempt by the government to play politics with drought as a means to get rid of the Building Australia Fund is dressing it up as trying to do something about drought in 2021. That's what those opposite are doing.

It's not the first time that the government has tried to dismantle the Building Australia Fund. Since being elected three terms ago, the government has tried on four separate occasions to dismantle it. The BAF was established in 2008 under the Nation-building Funds Act. The purpose of this fund is to finance capital investment in transport infrastructure—roads, rail, urban transport and ports; communications infrastructure, such as broadband; energy infrastructure, desperately needed; and, of course, water infrastructure. We established the fund to try and stop some of the political pork-barrelling, frankly, that had happened under previous governments, to try and take infrastructure funding out of the political cycle that we see, where some communities benefit and many communities do not. It was about taking the politics out of infrastructure funding.

Under the Nation-building Funds Act, criteria were developed which must be applied by Infrastructure Australia before projects can be recommended for funding, and the criteria are set on four important principles. I think it is important to take some time to reflect on the extent of rigour that was built into the Building Australia Fund as a way to ensure that the funds were spent appropriately and that they delivered best value to the Australian public, free of political interference. This is particularly important at a time when the Reserve Bank is highlighting the need for infrastructure spending to support Australia's flagging economy. The opposition believes that the Building Australia Fund could be used in these current economic conditions to help stimulate and support the very communities that are affected by drought. Instead the government is seeking to take $3.9 billion—and frankly it does not make sense that they are not drawing down on the Building Australia Fund now for projects that have been recommended by Infrastructure Australia to get investment into the economy now in communities across the country.

The fund is based on four key principles. Principle 1 is that projects should address national infrastructure priorities. Under this principle, projects need to demonstrate a positive impact on national productivity and on economic growth. Principle 2 is that projects should demonstrate high benefits and effective use of resources. Under this principle, projects must stand up on their own merits and be justified on the basis of evidence and data. Principle 3 is that projects should effectively address infrastructure needs. This principle seeks to ensure that projects are delivered efficiently and that they are able to leverage co-investment where possible. Principle 4 is that projects should demonstrate that they achieve established standards in implementation and management, and the project goes to risk—in particular, this principle goes to risk—against ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent in an open, transparent and efficient way.

These principles demonstrate why the Building Australia Fund was set up by the former Labor government and they demonstrate exactly why the government hate it. They want to get their hands on this money with ministerial discretion to do what they want in their communities without actually having any proper rigour in the process. What I note in particular, I know that the crossbench and the former member for Indi worked with us to try and put—where we thought we wouldn't obviously have the numbers to do what we wanted to do with this bill—some rigour into the process, and I acknowledge that the government has attempted to do that. But I've seen this playbook before. I've seen it with the Medical Research Future Fund, where medical researcher after medical researcher, including some who are on the government's own advisory panel, will come to me—and I'm sure they're now coming to the shadow minister for health, Chris Bowen—to tell us that they are extremely concerned about the lack of transparency, the lack of any proper application process and the lack of any peer review for projects and government decision-making that surrounds the Medical Research Future Fund. So, I caution those crossbenchers who think that, by having an advisory committee and the requirement that there be a plan into this legislation, that will somehow stop what we know this government does time after time after time—pick pet projects in the seats that it wants to target, that it is interested in, and not actually looking at where regional communities need assistance with drought and doing something about that equally across communities.

So I caution the crossbenchers very strongly that I have seen this playbook before. This bill, the establishment of the Drought Future Fund and the way in which the government has set up advisory committees and requirements around a plan does nothing. At the end of the day, this is a bill that enshrines ministerial discretion in the way this fund will be spent. And that is what the government will do. And that is what the minister will do, and there will potentially be very little rigour. That is what the government is proposing.

It was important when we set up the Building Australia Fund to take the politics out of decisions relating to infrastructure. It was critical for the economy and it was particularly critical for many National Party seats that had projects funded. They included things like the Pacific Highway in New South Wales, the Ipswich Motorway in Queensland and the Regional Rail Link in Victoria that my seat, the seat of Corio, the seat of Corangamite and the seat of Bendigo absolutely benefit from improving regional rail infrastructure.

The Building Australia Fund was not a political slush fund, and that's exactly the government's problem with it. It was a major economic reform. It was a sensible, transparent means of allocating scarce resources to achieve maximum benefit to the community. Labor supports the government in addressing the impacts of drought on farmers and on regional communities. We've supported all recent and immediate drought measures put forward by the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, including the additional supplementary farm household allowance; increasing the farm household allowance extension from three to four years; increasing the farm assets threshold from $2.6 million to $5 million; and increasing the farm management deposit scheme to $800,000. That's what we have supported, and we're also saying we're willing to support further appropriations for drought funding for sensible infrastructure projects to mitigate against drought. However, this bill is not doing that. It doesn't put any money onto the table until the 2020-21 financial year, some 11 months away. If the government was serious about assisting our farmers, real money would be on the table now. The Building Australia Fund would not have been left to sit idle, frankly, for six years, not drawing down on the dividends—you have to actually go and ask them for a dividend if you want to do that; the government doesn't appear to have even realised that it needs to do that to get one—to fund projects. And without it being able to do that, it creates significant problems for regional communities going forward. The government needs to develop a proper plan, as it should have done during its six years so far in government, to help drought-affected farmers.

Droughts are a reality of life in many parts of regional Australia and have been for a long time. The government has had plenty of opportunity to bring forward real funding to support farmers and their communities, but under these bills farmers in regional communities have to wait until at least 1 July 2020 for any of these funds to be able to flow. Not a cent will be flowing next week, or next month or in fact even in the next year. Sadly, action is needed now if many of our drought-affected communities are to survive. I note that the government, as I said, claims that they're going to establish consultative committees around this bill. But, again, I say to the crossbench; be very careful with what you wish for when it comes to that.

Again, we say to the government that we stand ready and willing to support bringing forward appropriations for our drought-affected communities. But the abolition of the Building Australia Fund will hurt regional and rural communities. I don't think many of the regional MPs have really thought through the implications of abolishing this fund and what that will mean for the future funding of infrastructure. That is why the member for Hunter and I have moved the second reading amendment, and I commend that amendment to the House.

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