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

I thank the many members who've contributed to this bill for their contributions. I also want to thank members for really putting quite a lot of thought into those contributions, and I know there are a number of amendments that people wish to move in addition to the second reading amendment. From the speeches we've heard, people are very passionate about their own electorates, very passionate about what's happening in terms of infrastructure in their own electorates and also very passionate about the programs that we all know are important for funding infrastructure.

Of course, the reason the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023 is before the parliament is that it is a response to the independent review that I asked to be undertaken into Infrastructure Australia, conducted by Nicole Lockwood and Mike Mrdak AO. The bill delivers on our commitment to restore Infrastructure Australia as the Commonwealth's premier adviser on major nationally significant infrastructure when it comes to communications, when it comes to water infrastructure, and when it comes to transport infrastructure and transmission infrastructure. The bill makes important changes to the act to provide the framework for implementing the government's response to the review's recommendations.

The changes proposed by this bill are very much part of the government's response to those recommendations of the review, and the bill's amendments will provide for a better alignment between Infrastructure Australia's work program and the advice that government needs in order to make informed decisions about where we put scarce taxpayer dollars. It will provide Infrastructure Australia with a clear mandate and enhancements to what it produces for government. Infrastructure Australia will regain its authority as an expert adviser to the Commonwealth government and will deliver a more refined and targeted infrastructure priority list, linked to government priorities, to its audit and to Australia's needs. These changes will remove unnecessary processes and build on our strong relationships with states and territories, harmonising these processes and leading to better advice and recommendations. As we know from the review, since the establishment of Infrastructure Australia all the states and territories now have similar IA bodies themselves, and the review also went to that point.

Importantly, Infrastructure Australia will retain its independence, ensuring that it continues to provide impartial advice to the Australian government, particularly on infrastructure project selection and on prioritisation for investment in projects that are needed the most. The new governance model will ensure that Infrastructure Australia has the eminence, the authority and the standing to be a national leader and to coordinate amongst Infrastructure Australia bodies. The three commissioners will collectively have strong and relevant expertise and be responsible for the delivery of IA's functions.

Whilst the bill implements the recommendations of the independent review of IA, requiring legislative changes, a new statement of expectations will be issued to Infrastructure Australia to implement the remaining recommendations of the review. Together these changes will re-establish Infrastructure Australia as the Commonwealth's expert adviser on infrastructure of national significance. I'd like to again thank members for their contributions.

Before I go to the second reading amendment, which the government will not be supporting, I also want to say that a number of members, during their contributions, have taken the opportunity to talk about broader government decisions that we're making at the moment, and I want to clarify a couple of things. The very reason that we are undertaking a review of the infrastructure investment pipeline is twofold. One is to make sure we maintain $120 billion of a rolling 10-year program. At the moment, because of decisions of the previous government, there are just under 800 projects sitting on that infrastructure investment pipeline, and they cannot all be delivered. It is as simple as that. To do so would require billions and billions of dollars of extra investment that we simply do not have because of decisions of the previous government. So, if I am to deliver major nationally significant infrastructure investments that actually add to productivity and enhance our freight routes, I've got to make some hard decisions.

When I hear members opposite complain that we haven't delivered this particular project or that such and such is a problem, I say to them: if you want me to deliver those, then I need to have the headroom to look at cost escalations. There is nothing for that at the moment in the pipeline that you left me, and there is no capacity to bring in new projects at all. That is the problem you've left me. The reason for the review is to make sure we have a sustainable pipeline and that it is deliverable. You spent a lot of time doing press releases. I've seen the Twitter accounts of members opposite. You were standing beside road signs and making a big palaver about the announcements you were making. You substantially underfunded these projects. You did not have partnerships with the states and territories about the delivery of them, and they are simply not able to be delivered. That is absolutely the problem. We tried to clean it up in October. We started that process, and they were hard decisions to make. I don't like having to make them, but we have to do this if we're actually going to have a sustainable pipeline into the future. That is what the review is about.

In terms of programs that are important and were funded in the budget—Roads to Recovery, the Bridges Renewal Program, the Black Spot Program and the Heavy Vehicle Safety Initiative—all of that money is in the budget, and those programs will continue. The review is looking to see how we can sustain them in the future and whether there is a better way of delivering them. We've also got a request from local government to increase the amount of money for them, so the review will look at that. Do we need to put more money into these programs? We're not looking to cut those programs or to abolish them; we're looking to make sure they're sustainable and they deliver what they should. That is what the review is doing. Again I say to members opposite: we have been left with a legacy of your having used the infrastructure investment pipeline for electorate purposes.

There are now 800 projects sitting in the infrastructure investment pipeline, many of which will simply be unable to ever be delivered, and that money is sitting inactive in that infrastructure pipeline. There are many communities that would be desperate to get hold of the money for projects that are important for their communities, but they are sitting there totally and utterly inactive in that pipeline at the moment unable to be delivered. That is the legacy that you left because you made the decision to politicise the infrastructure investment pipeline. That is what you did. Because of that, we're now in the position where we actually have to make sure we can deliver the projects that we committed to, because that's what we got elected to do. We were elected to deliver the projects that we promised that we would, and we've got to make sure that the infrastructure investment is actually deliverable, that we deal with cost escalations and that it's actually sustainable into the future.

We have a number of infrastructure projects which are currently underway and which will continue to be under construction. In responding to the coalition's second reading amendment, I particularly want to say: I'm not going to be lectured to by you guys about infrastructure investment. What you did to infrastructure is actually a disgrace: the pork-barrelling decade of government with Leppington Triangle, sports rorts and the Urban Congestion Fund. Inland Rail is now estimated to cost six times more than the Nationals originally estimated. Frankly, you left us with a mess, and I'm not going to be lectured to by any of you as to how to deliver infrastructure investments with integrity and how to make sure we don't have an infrastructure pipeline full of zombie projects that never started because you thought a press release was a good idea.

Despite being a federal government, the Liberals and Nationals did invest in a large number of projects that were not nationally significant, and they failed to deliver appropriate economic and social benefits. They also set up unallocated buckets of money to announce small projects such as traffic lights and culverts. Under the Liberal and National parties, the number of projects blew out from 150 to 800. Almost 500 of them are under $50 million, and only 19 per cent of those are in Labor seats. And that's not pork-barrelling? Really?

Honoura ble members interjecting—

They may well be good projects, but apparently Labor seats don't have good projects as well!

There's no better example of the coalition's failure, frankly, than the Urban Congestion Fund—full of imaginary car parks in marginal seats, projects that would require 200 or 300 per cent more investment to actually deliver, and years and years of delay before you saw a single car drive on any of them. The coalition didn't invest in nationally significant projects. They did not. They used the infrastructure investment pipeline as a massive electoral pork-barrel. That is what they did. They had form of doing that.

I'll address the other amendments that will be moved to this bill in the second reading amendment. I commend the bill to the House, and we won't be supporting the second reading amendment as moved by those opposite.

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