Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for her response. I want to come back to what we've heard our Prime Minister say, in this chamber, in the last month or so. The Prime Minister clearly articulated the principles when he told the House:

The legislation that is before parliament, moved by the infrastructure minister, will make sure that there's transparency and will make sure that there's proper analysis. That's because there's a finite level of resources, and that is why we should make sure that productivity drives that agenda going forward. That is what my government is committed to, and that's what we will get on with …

I would respectfully offer back to the minister that the legislation goes so far now as to identify that Infrastructure Australia is required to consult with government, commercial, industrial, consumer, academic and professional bodies and organisations. Why not add community to that list? What is it about community that makes it the exception rather than the inclusion? I am yet to feel that there's been a compelling reason given for why community continues to be sidelined, particularly when community, as we all know at the moment, is contributing a significant—if not the most significant—portion of revenue to the government when it comes to the money that we are actually spending.

To the second point, Minister, you make your point now that the reason Infrastructure Australia's advice can't be tabled is because if that level of transparency were to be brought into this process it would mean that the government would stop seeking the advice. Can I just stop there for a minute and just say how ridiculous that is. Sincerely, the best way to bring light to this is to mandate that Infrastructure's advice is tabled in parliament, where all Australians can see it. Then, I would suggest, what that actually does for the government is to then give you greater power to go back to others across the infrastructure environment to say, from a non-political perspective, 'We have independent advice here that is based on feedback from government, commercial, industrial, community, consumer, academic and professional bodies and organisations, and for this reason this advice can be valued above all others that may be offered with political merit.'

It's not that I believe that you personally don't want to do this, Minister; it's really not. But I fear that what we have at the moment is a situation where your government has been granted this opportunity to lead our nation, off the back of a significant backlash against how we saw the last government behave, and, rather than reassure Australians that you are going to do it differently, that you are going to live this ambition that our Prime Minister has stated time and time again—politics done differently—all you've actually done is shift from one side of the chamber to the other, and the only group in this House that is actually interested in doing politics differently is sitting here on the crossbench.

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