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

I thank all members for their contributions on this High Speed Rail Authority Bill 2022. I do want to acknowledge the Leader of the Nationals and the members for Higgins, Riverina, Newcastle, Sturt, Perth, Ryan, Kingsford Smith, Lyne, Fisher, Braddon, Kennedy and Forde. There are a lot of people who really love trains in this place, which is lovely to see. I thank them all very much for their very thoughtful contributions in relation to that.

This bill, of course, does establish the High Speed Rail Authority to develop, advise on and plan for the high-speed rail system in Australia. It will of course deliver on our election commitment and will plan for high-speed rail along Australia's east coast, from Melbourne to Brisbane, but in particular concentrating, in that early phase, on the connection between Sydney, the Central Coast and Newcastle. They'll be progressed as a first priority.

I want to respond to a couple of contributions, particularly that of the member for Braddon. The coalition have signalled they're supporting this bill. I understand that may not have been the position he wanted to take, but that's what's happened. Faster rail will continue. That work will absolutely continue. I do recognise how important that is. It's why I have been at pains, when I've been working with state and territory colleagues, to ensure that money for heavy rail projects in particular continues to be in the budget.

I also welcome the contribution from the member for Fisher and acknowledge his thanks for keeping that money within the budget. I also say to him that that was also at the request of the Queensland state government, so there is a commitment to the project. Obviously, there's some longer term work needed, particularly as part of the Olympics in terms of the entire public transport network and how people are going to move around. In relation to that, we want to make sure that we leave a long-term legacy for people to use the systems and the transport long after that. So I welcome that.

I particularly want to say thank you very much to the member for Ryan, for your again thoughtful contribution and your engagement with my office, respectfully and collegiately. I think that's a very good model to have when working with government. I do acknowledge the sentiments of the amendments that you have proposed. As you know, we have signalled before this that we won't be supporting them.

The purpose of the bill is simply to establish the High Speed Rail Authority as the statutory agency. Our position is that the funding, financing, construction and operation of the rail network is not for this legislation in and of itself to determine. Obviously, if you look at our record and, certainly, if you look at the Prime Minister's record, privatisation of these sorts of assets has not traditionally been something that we are keen on. Certainly, it's not for this legislation to determine, but it should be considered part of the planning work of the High Speed Rail Authority once it's actually established. The authority will be charged with advising the responsible minister on environmental matters. Those are important issues in terms of any planning, both at the federal and state level. The authority will be responsible for consulting stakeholders to ensure adequate consideration of both the environment and community interests during that consultation, and that the operation of high-speed rail network occurs as well.

The government is committed to delivering a national rail manufacturing plan as well, which is something I'm particularly proud of and keen to see happen. It will ensure more trains are actually built here in Australia by local manufacturing workers and that federal funding spent on rail projects is used to leverage those jobs within rail manufacturing in particular. I have a particular interest in that, Ballarat having a rail manufacturing workshop which I think is now almost 150 years old. That was manufacturing trains originally, but it is now continuing to service them. It's for these reasons that we won't be supporting the second reading amendment today. I acknowledge again the contribution of the member for Ryan in that process. I do again want to thank members for their contributions here.

High-speed rail opens up choices. It is not an either/or: do we do faster rail or high-speed rail? It's about saying very clearly that we know we have to do significant improvements on our rail networks in many areas, including in my own constituency. It's over a hundred years old. It was set up for people to head from regional areas to do shopping in town, in some instances. It wasn't set up as big commuter lines. We want to try to make sure that we can do that.

But being in government and having the capacity to sit on this side of the chamber is also about vision. It's about what you think the future of the country should look like. I would say to the member for Braddon that that is epitomised by his contribution. It was 'let's just do this bit'. But what's the vision for the country? What do you want the future to be? What are the settlement patterns that will open up around the east coast with high-speed rail? If the point of government is just to manage and to do a little better—that's not how we think of government. We think government is an opportunity to change and shape the nation. I understand; this is a 20-, 30-, 40-year project. But imagine what it will do for new communities, new opportunities and new settlements all along that corridor and the opportunity it will provide to change the nature of the relationship between our cities, our regions and our rural communities in a way that will allow people to live and work in the magnificent and beautiful places of Australia, one of which I happen to live in, as do many others on all sides of this place.

It will allow people to live closer to where they work and stop people having to commute so much, and it will offer choice. That's really what this bill is about. It's about a vision for the country. It's the start of a process to do the work that is needed to establish a high-speed rail authority, while we continue the important work of improving our rail network, through fast and faster rail, and continuing to work on projects like Inland Rail and others that are important to our nation. I thank all members for their contribution to this debate.

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