Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak on the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023. One of the crucial things that we all get as federal MPs is requests for more infrastructure, whether it's roads or rail in our electorate. It's absolutely crucial to make sure that in a country the size of ours, which fills a continent—I see the member for Dawson laughing over there, because he knows exactly what I'm talking about—it's absolutely vital that we make sure that decision-making on infrastructure is done in a merits based process that is empirical and evidence based. It's absolutely crucial.

One of the things that we saw in the previous government was that too often, as the minister for infrastructure has said, press releases were ordered and announced and nothing was done when it came to the road infrastructure. There were too many delays. Consumers, including commuters, get frustrated. State governments get frustrated. Local councils get frustrated. If you've ever had a conversation with a mayor or a local council on local road or infrastructure projects, you know how frustrating it is.

We established Infrastructure Australia when we were last in government. Anthony Albanese, now Prime Minister, was the infrastructure minister, and I might add that, through large parts of his tenure, the current infrastructure minister was his deputy. Under the previous government, I think, the integrity of that infrastructure process was compromised. I think the appointments to Infrastructure Australia, in terms of quality, were nothing like the people that we appointed to that body.

What we saw was a growth in Infrastructure Australia's reporting in terms of the projects that had to be looked at. That's what we saw—a blowout. You often had projects that were shovel-ready, that deserved funding, that deserved to be looked at and funded by state, territory or federal governments, that had councils involved, that were not funded. At times, to get on the Infrastructure Australia priority initiative list was the key to open the door for you to actually get your project looked at by a state or territory, so councils around the country did this. This is not necessarily the right way to go about it, in the sense that, once you opened the door, they felt their project deserved to be looked at and examined in detail. So when we came to office, having seen a situation where Infrastructure Australia established that merit based and evidence based and empirical decision-making, an independent body largely compromised in part by the former government, we saw the need for reform and review, as this legislation does. We saw the need for it, and that's why this legislation is before the chamber.

We also saw the need for change in terms of personnel and in terms of review. We've got a situation now where the government is undertaking review of various projects because many of them have just been announced and not progressed. Review of Infrastructure Australia and its operations in terms of that book is absolutely crucial. I can recall when that book was much smaller. Now it starts to look like War and Peace. Now it looks like the moment you get on the priority initiative list, all of a sudden the pressure from media, from community, from councils, is there for you as an MP. Sometimes these projects really should be funded and should progress their way up the process, from the business case and the options analysis to the shovel-ready project. But other times it's just opening the door.

So this process of review, which looks at everything, which looks at the way this operates, is totally the right way to go. Without it, I think the integrity of decision-making at federal and state government levels in infrastructure is compromised. I think what's happened to infrastructure in this country since we lost government in 2013 was really a case of ministers in the former government getting up and saying, 'We've got a pipeline of $110 million dollars, whether it's the heavy vehicle safety and productivity legislation, black spot funding, roads to recovery'—that stuff goes on all the time because it's worked on at various levels in a bipartisan way.

But the big projects we're talking about here, the big projects that Infrastructure Australia's talking about, the ones that are hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars—like, for example, the Ipswich Motorway between Ipswich and Brisbane. That's a huge project that was designed, built and completed from Dinmore to Darra under the last Labor government. Now, with a bipartisan approach, it's progressed from the Oxley roundabout to Suscatand Street, the last stage of that motorway. This has been on Infrastructure Australia's list all the time. That's not the kind of project I'm talking about here. That's a project supported at every level of government and by every peak organisation from RACQ to others. But there are other projects that seem to get through the door, and you really wonder why they're there.

So this whole review that we need to undertake in relation to Infrastructure Australia, I think, is something that is really vital. I think we need Infrastructure Australia and infrastructure projects and spending and funding in every state and territory in this country back on track. I think it lost its way due to the decision-making of the previous government on the appointments they undertook, the expectation that was raised, and a whole range of things that were done. So I'm pleased to speak on Infrastructure Australia reform and independent review, because I think this is the sort of thing that we really need to examine, that we absolutely need to look at. All of us 151 members of the House of Representatives and the people who live in the other place—I don't always know how they operate over there—in the Senate get it all the time. We have to deal with mayors, with state governments, with local councils and with community organisations. We've all been to progress associations who say: 'This is an Infrastructure Australia priority initiative. This is something we should be funding.' Initiative on how this is done is absolutely vital. As a federal MP who has been here for a fair while now, I reckon this is one of the things that absolutely need to be done.

I commend the bill. I thank the minister for initiating it. Infrastructure is absolutely vital in the place where I live, a big regional and rural seat where road is king. I'm resisting the temptation to talk about a few projects in my electorate right now. I would love to do that, but I know it's not within the confines of the bill that we are dealing with today. But I'm telling you, these projects on the Warrego Highway and the Cunningham Highway need to be done, and I've just walked out of a meeting where I was talking about it.

I look forward to this review and this legislation passing. I hope it's done with a bipartisan approach, because if we get right the integrity and efficiency of Infrastructure Australia and the whole process, then all of us as MPs and senators will benefit and so will our communities, and they will know that their criticism of us as MPs and of the process will be negated in large part. I'm pleased to support this legislation.

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