Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the member for Wentworth's motion urging the government to commit to a better, more transparent and responsive approach to infrastructure projects. This motion goes to two fundamental reforms about infrastructure: how we select big infrastructure projects and when we undertake them.

Big infrastructure projects can be a useful economic management tool. In response to the COVID-19 economic downturn, the federal government made substantial commitments to infrastructure developments, as did state territory governments. In theory, this was consistent with sound economic policy. When the economy is weak, that's the right time to stimulate it with big projects. But the Australian economy recovered far more quickly than expected. This was obviously good news, but, when it did, we didn't adjust the infrastructure decisions accordingly. So our current high-level infrastructure spending is in fact driving prices up. The 10-year $120-billion infrastructure investment pipeline is now crowding out private sector investment. Multiple recent independent reviews have shown this. Big public projects should be timed to fill the troughs in the economic cycle rather than compete during construction-sector peaks.

Last year's independent review of the Infrastructure Investment Program showed $33 billion in additional known cost pressures as a result of a clogged infrastructure pipeline. This is currently particularly painful because we desperately need to build more homes and we need the people and materials to build them. At the moment, the housing sector, the mining sector—particularly in WA—and the clean energy sector are competing with large-scale infrastructure projects for construction-sector workers. While not all trades and skills are transferable between sectors, many are, and current strong employment conditions make it harder to expand the domestic construction workforce. Something's got to give. Some of the $120 billion of committed infrastructure projects should wait so that we can build the homes we need.

Prioritising and scaling back infrastructure spending until we have sufficient resources of both labour and materials to meet demand would stop pushing up prices for labour and materials and contribute to lowering inflation. It would mean that the most critical projects could be completed in shorter timeframes with less pressure on costs, and it would reduce pressure on the housing sector and stop crowding out private-sector spending.

But how would we prioritise infrastructure projects? Which are the best projects? These questions lead to the other big change proposed in this motion.

I was absolutely floored when I found out that big infrastructure projects don't have to have a business case. That's right: government can commit to spending hundreds of millions—even billions—of dollars without proving that the project is needed, that it will deliver benefits or that it's worth doing. Coming from the private sector, this is astounding. You can't spend shareholder money without justifying it. But, when it comes to taxpayer money, if it's popular, or the party in government at the moment wants it, that's good enough, even if it makes no actual sense. Governments should have to explain to the public: 'Why are we doing this? What outcomes do we hope to achieve? How will we know if we've achieved these outcomes? Do the numbers stack up?' Robust business cases should be required for all infrastructure projects and made public to allow for scrutiny and community oversight. An amendment to this effect was proposed by the member for Wentworth, which I backed, just for projects over $100 million, and it was rejected by both the major parties, who ultimately don't want the headache of actual accountability when they are in government. Also, after projects have been delivered, they should have to be evaluated. Can you believe they don't have to be? We never find out if a project actually achieved its goals.

There's too little accountability when it comes to spending our money. If governments are spending taxpayer money, they should have to spend it well and spend it at the right time. We must focus on investments that improve the productive capacity of our economy and contribute to explicitly stated long-term goals, whether economic or social or environmental. This is particularly important now, in an environment of high inflation, with pressure on the budget in the medium to long term. I urge the government to respond to the two independent inquiries calling for better processes for infrastructure decisions—to do what any company must do, and actually have a defensible business case for spending taxpayer money on infrastructure, and to pause non-essential infrastructure for now so that we can build the homes that we need. We urgently need better transparency and accountability in our infrastructure projects.

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