Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023. Considering the chequered history of this body, those two words in the title—'independent review'—have a lot of work to do. I'm therefore very pleased to see that, as a first step, this bill establishes a new governance structure by replacing the Infrastructure Australia—IA—board with three commissioners who will become responsible for ensuring the performance of IA's functions. As we know, IA's impartiality was called into question during the last parliament, the 46th Parliament, when the Tamworth mayor, Mr Col Murray, was appointed chairman while former branch presidents and candidates from the Liberal and National parties were appointed to its board.

In 2022, the federal electorate of Kooyong voted in an Independent for the first time in its 122-year history because our community wanted transparency in government. Kooyong voted in an Independent because it recognised that the legacy of the Morrison government was going to be a toxic miasma of disingenuousness, disappointment and debt. The people of Kooyong wanted transparency in government, they wanted transparency in procurement, they wanted transparency in expenditure, they wanted our grant structures to be transparent, they wanted transparency in appointments to important government roles, and they wanted transparency in their allocations.

We need an independent advisory body which will advise the government on where and when infrastructure investments should happen, and we need a government that listens to those recommendations so that better decisions about essential infrastructure projects can be made. To that end, I welcome the change in the objects clause that establishes Infrastructure Australia as the government's 'independent adviser on nationally significant infrastructure investment planning and project prioritisation'. We need an independent body that can implement and guide rigorous assessment of projects, so I'm pleased that the bill redefines IA's functions and products to be as follows:

We need to ensure that Australia has an infrastructure priority list which ensures that public funds are invested in a methodical and considered way. I welcome the push to make IA's priority list smaller and more targeted. It's appropriate that IA will have a more positive focus on nationally significant infrastructure investment proposals rather than smaller projects more appropriately managed and planned at a local government or state level.

I look forward to enhanced cooperation between IA and the government so that the government actually listens when this independent body tells us that cost and time blowouts are under extra pressure from supply chain challenges—a government that listens when it's told about the rising costs of materials or about problematic shortfalls between available labour and demand. We know that we need greater coordination across project sequencing so that major and proximate projects are not conducted concurrently. We know that we have to develop a smarter approach to training and to growing our workforce. We know that we need to change the culture in and around our workplaces.

It's essential that we attract a diverse workforce and grow opportunities for women to participate fully and at scale in the construction industries. We know that women face barriers to entering, accessing and remaining in the construction industry. At a recent gender equity roundtable in this place, we heard from many engaged, knowledgeable and highly skilled women from the construction industry—women like Jo Farrell, the founder of Build Like a Girl, and Christina Yiakkoupis, the chair of the National Association of Women in Construction—who enthusiastically told us about the large numbers of women who could and should be employed in this industry and how we as a parliament can help to make that happen.

I also welcome recent comments from the minister for infrastructure that there will be a net-zero focus for the government's infrastructure investment decisions and that they will be guided by the goal of decarbonising the nation's essential industries 'from road to rail to water and in the air'. As the minister concluded:

Investing in greener technologies and getting to net zero isn't something we can pick and choose. It's an obligation on all of us.

She had earlier said:

The future is clean. The future is coming and we need to ensure that it comes with jobs and investment here in Australia. This is an attitude that is now spread across my department and … across Government.

I fully support those sentiments. As a crossbencher, I see my role as helping to make sure that this actually happens and that the government is held to account on how and where new infrastructure programs are supported around the country.

Improvements could be made to this bill. It would be better if improvements were made to incorporate a charter of investment objectives which could set out the government's national infrastructure investment objectives and intended performance standards, and I understand that amendments to that effect are in place. It would be better if we had better long-term certainty and guidance regarding the outcomes to be expected from Infrastructure Australia. I would also support a provision regulating annual statements from Infrastructure Australia to the government to inform the annual budget process and to report on performance outcomes being achieved from the investment program and existing projects.

Overall, though, this bill is an exciting and important step in the right direction, and so I conclude by endorsing the words of Jennifer Westacott from the Business Council of Australia: 'Australians need the right infrastructure, in the right places and delivered at the right time, and that means government needs to have access to the best independent advice.' I commend this bill to the Chamber.

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