Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Coming from an electorate which represents one of the fastest growing areas of Sydney, I know that infrastructure is of great concern to many people. Infrastructure Australia is a proposed statutory authority that will be established to advise all levels of government on matters relating to the provision of infrastructure. Infrastructure is important to many people. It is something that governments do need to act on, particularly for people in Western Sydney and in my electorate. I, like many others, will be supporting the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 today in the hope that we can get rid of some of the obstacles to getting good infrastructure that exist at the state level and the local level.

I would like to start, however, by making some general points about this bill. There are some concerns about this new statutory body. Firstly, I think it is very important that this body created by government not become an extra hurdle or burden that vital infrastructure projects have to get over. It must not add any delays or burdens to processes that, because of our federal system, can already be complex and unwieldy. I note in particular that there will be a 12-month review period, and I hope that this period does not become an excuse or justification for inaction on vital infrastructure by a new government.

Secondly, I would like to say that Infrastructure Australia does need to be nonpartisan in its approach. All of its appointments are made by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and, in view of the gross politicisation of sectors of our Public Service at a state level, our community will be watching the operation of this new government bureaucracy carefully in the hope that it will be genuinely independent and able to add some value, not burden, to infrastructure planning in Australia. There are going to be 12 appointees, some made in agreement with the states, and I would also add a concern that there has been a lot of failed thinking in relation to the provision of infrastructure at a state level. I think it is quite necessary that we do not allow that same sort of thinking to dominate outcomes in relation to infrastructure from a national perspective.

I am going to spend some time today talking about some of the significant failures at the state level because I think Infrastructure Australia will achieve nothing if it is just the same faces and the same thinking. For example, if you look at New South Wales and examine the state public private partnership deals that have been allowed to exist under the current Labor state government, you see state government departments such as the Roads and Traffic Authority allowed to engage in contracts with various companies, essentially to receive a payment direct to their department to close a legion of public roads, forcing people to use the privately funded infrastructure—the infamous Cross City Tunnel. That Cross City Tunnel deal, when it became public, became a scandal that the people of Sydney rejected. The government was forced to break its contract and, of course, the Cross City Tunnel consortium is now bankrupt. These kinds of episodes and experiences give a very bad name to public-private partnerships and this is, we know from experience, a further disincentive for private capital to get involved in public-private partnerships and also another burden. So it will be a good thing if Infrastructure Australia can examine some of the contractual arrangements at state level in particular and determine why there have been such failures.

The north-west of Sydney, my electorate, is one of the fastest-growing areas of Sydney. It is on the urban fringes of Sydney, one of our biggest cities. Infrastructure is desperately needed in Mitchell to meet the massive demands of growth. The north-west of Sydney is earmarked as one of the biggest growth corridors in our country. I guess one of the first performance measures that infrastructure will face is that if infrastructure continues to not be provided in urban fringe areas in the major growth corridors of our cities, then it will not have achieved anything except to add an extra layer of bureaucracy. For example, in the north-west of Sydney you have one of the biggest business parks, with the major national headquarters of 500 companies. There are 20,000 employees there. That will grow to 40,000 in about 10 years. There is no rail line. There is no mass transit system in this sector of Sydney and it is essential that we get one in the near future.

There has been some suggestion that the previous federal government failed somehow in relation to infrastructure, but the only working, functional piece of major infrastructure that has gone into Western Sydney in many decades was the M7. I am going to speak some more about that later. The M7, the orbital motorway that surrounds Sydney, has been a major success. In fact, when you look at some of the other state funded infrastructure and managed projects you get a lot of complaints about tolling and other matters, but I receive no complaints about the M7. It is a working and vital piece of infrastructure that was fully funded by the Howard government.

When you look at the provisions of this bill, there is scope for some positive developments. We do need to consider how best to remove regulatory barriers to getting good infrastructure at different levels, and hopefully this can be achieved. Looking at state and local governments, you can see some systems, levies and charges that really prevent good infrastructure from getting built. For example, infrastructure levies at the state level need to be looked at as well as the rates of infrastructure levies and the rate of return that people get for the amount of money that they are forced to pay in levies, taxes and charges.

In the 2006 National Housing Infrastructure Costs Study that was commissioned by the Residential Development Council it was found that indirect infrastructure charges for housing and home units have increased significantly in Sydney, far outstripping the growth in construction costs. Significantly, it has been the increase in indirect infrastructure charges covering roads and public transport which has been the most dramatic. As a result of these increases in levies, houses in Sydney now incur infrastructure charges of $68,233, of which over $66,000 relate to indirect charges. From 1995 to 2006, total indirect infrastructure charges per lot for new housing developments increased by $55,000; an indexed increase of 171.9 per cent.

By stark comparison, Brisbane homes have seen no increase in indirect infrastructure charges while Melbourne has seen an indexed increase of just over 30 per cent. I will say that again: there has been an indexed increase in Sydney for new housing developments of 171.9 per cent for infrastructure. These significant increases in indirect infrastructure charges in Sydney have had a serious impact on the housing affordability in my electorate of Mitchell. Whilst the residents of Mitchell are paying more and more for infrastructure, they continue to receive some of the most substandard public transport facilities in the country. They are paying an indexed increase of 171.9 per cent, but the state government will not fund a rail line for the north-west of Sydney.

I want to speak about that for a moment. The New South Wales state government has really abandoned one of its core responsibilities here. One of Infrastructure Australia’s first priorities should be to consider the construction of a heavy rail line in the north-west of Sydney. I have written to Minister Albanese requesting an urgent meeting to discuss what the federal government can do to fund vital infrastructure in Western Sydney in a timely fashion. I know that the minister states that he wants a 12-month review—a 12-month delay to give time to discuss or examine that. A 12-month delay when you have been waiting 20 years for a rail line is another unfair imposition on the people in Mitchell. If you look at the record of the New South Wales state Labor government, there is a case for the federal government to intervene.

On 29 November 1998, three months prior to a state election, the New South Wales state government first promised $29 million for the north-west rail link from Epping Station to Castle Hill. Since then, the government has re-announced the north-west rail link five times. On 9 June 2005, Bob Carr announced an $8 billion, 15-year metropolitan rail extension program. This announcement included the north-west rail link, a new passenger line from Cheltenham to Rouse Hill and long-term plans to extend the Vineyard and Richmond lines. On 20 November 2006 the government re-announced the completion of the north-west rail line by 2017—the first stage to be completed by 2015 and the second stage by 2017. The government recently re-announced the line in June 2007 with an extension from Rouse Hill to Vineyard station on the Richmond line. All of this shows that if it were not for the previous federal government, very little would have been done in the last 10 years. The states are failing.

Another important matter that Infrastructure Australia needs to consider—and one of the major disincentives—is the bad reputation infrastructure is getting from tolling. The New South Wales state government have used a system of geographical discrimination based on where people live. They subsidise people for using some tollways but not for using others. They do it on the basis of where a person comes from and how they get to work. For example, people in my electorate pay tolls to get to work. Based on a 48-hour working week, motorists travelling to the city are now paying $16.90 a day—which is $84.50 a week, $330 a month or $4,056 a year—just to go to work. By contrast, a person using the M4 and M5 motorways in the south-west of Sydney pays $1.20 a day—which is $6.00 a week, $24 a month or just $288 annually once the state government rebate is received. That is $4,056 a year versus $288 a year. This is another example of a failure in the system of infrastructure that has been created in Sydney.

Residents of north-western Sydney pay an average of $4,000 in post-tax income on tolls—including the M2, the M7, the Lane Cove tunnel and the harbour tunnel—while residents in western Sydney using the M4 and M5 pay less than $300 a year due to cash-back schemes. For those members not from Sydney, what is the difference between M2 users and M4 and M5 users? I would argue that it is where they live; it is discrimination between a safe seat and a marginal seat; it is a deliberate policy of geographical discrimination put in place by the state government. Infrastructure Australia must take state governments to task for these appalling and discriminatory decisions. The use of subsidies for some areas of Sydney but discrimination against other areas, on no logical basis, must be abandoned. It will be a good thing if Infrastructure Australia can remove these sorts of scandalous arrangements from infrastructure management in Australia.

There are other major infrastructure projects that the New South Wales state government has failed on, and arrangements that must be considered in this review. You could talk about things like the closure of Epping Road—another public-private partnership in which the state government has closed lanes towards the Sydney CBD on a major public road to funnel people into a privately operated tollway. Again, the tollway and the public-private partnership is a good development. It is good to get private capital into infrastructure. It is good for the government to be encouraging it and ensuring that the arrangements can be put into place to manage it. It is manifestly wrong of any government—whether it be a state government or a federal government—to close public roads that have been paid for by people’s taxes over many years in order to funnel motorists onto a tollway or motorway so that they have no choice about the roads they use.

In addition we have seen other fiascos in Sydney such as the T-card fiasco. We are one of the few major cities in the world that does not have an integrated transport network. The New South Wales state government has spent 10 years planning for a smartcard system on Sydney’s buses, trains and ferries, yet it has become a total and unmitigated failure. This is another thing that is preventing the construction of integrated and future orientated infrastructure. Major cities around the world—including Hong Kong, London, Singapore, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth—have successfully introduced smartcard technology for public transport, but not Sydney. We have four separate ticketing systems for trains, ferries, buses and light rail. That is disgraceful in city like Sydney.

I also want to talk about some of the failures in infrastructure planning that have happened in other parts of Sydney. For example, we have had more rail lines cancelled. A Parramatta to Epping railway line has been announced many times before state elections but cancelled after those state elections. My essential point in reinforcing this failure at the state level, particularly on the part of the New South Wales state government, to provide infrastructure is that states do need to be taken to task over these failures. Infrastructure Australia ought to cooperate with the states, but it also needs to be very frank with them. It needs to say to the states: ‘You have failed here. You have given commitments. You haven’t met your commitments. We require a better performance from you.’ You cannot be cosy with the states when they have not provided essential infrastructure. It has to be critical where required, and it has to point to the failures of public-private partnerships whereby state government departments have negotiated their own deals which have resulted in a scandal and the bankruptcy of those private organisations. People in north-west Sydney—

Belinda Neal (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s a private risk.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Risk becomes a big thing—the risk is dealing with the New South Wales state government. I would argue that is one of the biggest risks. Never mind the constant attacks on oil companies. People in north-west Sydney also pay 52c a litre in excise. I think people want to see that 52c going back into their roads. It is not right that governments levy such a substantial amount on each dollar we pay at the petrol bowser and yet our roads in north-western Sydney are still in a shocking state. We need major upgrades.

Another important concern of Sydneysiders in the future will be the F3 motorway. Each day we have 75,000 vehicles travelling on the F3. During peak times 3,000 vehicles an hour vie for lane space. The F3 is well past its capacity and usefulness as Sydney’s northern gateway. Recently we saw the whole motorway closed because of a bushfire, and people were unable to access the northern gateway to Sydney. There was a recent report in the Sunday Telegraph that there were 16 closures on the F3 in at least one direction in the past year due to accidents or bushfires, causing delays of between 30 minutes and several hours.

The recent Pearlman report recommended that the government could begin work immediately on the construction of a link between the F3 freeway and Sydney’s north-west orbital at the M7. I strongly support option (c) of the Pearlman report. I would make another observation about this report. Infrastructure Australia are going to conduct a 12-month review. In this review they ought not to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch. They ought to consider examining very valuable and detailed reports such as the Pearlman report, which has recommended vital infrastructure. If Infrastructure Australia is only directed by the minister to look at the projects that he considers to be important, rather than having a broader look at what good work has already been done at the federal and state levels in recommending vital infrastructure upgrades, that will be a weakness in the new Infrastructure Australia system. The Pearlman report does call for option (c) planning to be commenced, which would see the second crossing of the Hawkesbury River. It would provide greater opportunities for business and better conditions on local roads. It is the option that the majority of local residents in my electorate of Mitchell would support. The state and federal governments do need to get on with the job of progressing option (c) and giving residents in north-western Sydney some reprieve.

There has been a contention in this bill and the events surrounding the formation of this bill that there was no action by the previous government in relation to infrastructure. As I mentioned, people in Western Sydney know that the previous federal government believed in the provision of essential infrastructure, and the M7 orbital project is an example of one of the best motorways in Sydney. Due to the strategic and economic importance of Western Sydney, and the fact that it had become the third-largest producer of GDP behind the Sydney CBD and Melbourne, the Howard government funded the Western Sydney Orbital. Many of my constituents remark that the tolls for the M2 and the state funded access routes to the city are exorbitant and negative. It is widely regarded that the M7 is well priced and useful, something that we can thank the previous government for.

Infrastructure Australia will be of no use to anyone if it is not completely nonpartisan. In the interests of transparency and open government that we hear so much about from the other side these days, the directions from the minister to Infrastructure Australia ought to be tabled before the parliament. I think that would really strengthen the system and the accountability to this place. It is a sensible and proper proposal. It will not work if it does not ensure that there is accountability for the minister’s directions to Infrastructure Australia. I note that at the moment it is proposed that they be in the annual report of the Infrastructure Australia body. If that is the case, then why would there not be a provision for the minister’s directions to be tabled in the House?

Infrastructure Australia could be an important development in infrastructure in Australia. It must not, as I have spoken about, add an extra regulatory burden to infrastructure provision in Australia. It will not succeed if it does not urgently review some of the discriminatory policies that have happened at state level and some of the failures that states have made in the provision of infrastructure in Australia. It must urgently consider major projects in some of the fastest growing corridors of Sydney to recommend and fund the urgent construction of projects such as the north-west rail line and a second crossing of the Hawkesbury River. This minister and this Labor government must ensure that Infrastructure Australia is something that adds value to the process of infrastructure provision in Australia and does not add regulation and unfair burdens to already challenging circumstances.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. Failure to address the infrastructure challenges facing Australia will threaten our national prosperity, our job markets, our cities and our ability to address inflationary pressures. Put simply, this is an issue that directly impacts our quality of life. That is why the Rudd Labor government is establishing Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia will advise on national infrastructure priorities, better arrangements for investors, better use of our current assets and improved capability and planning. Better infrastructure means better communities. It means liveable cities; water and energy getting to where they are needed; cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes leaving and arriving on time. It means a more productive economy delivering better living standards and reductions in man-made emissions to the air, soil and water.

Australia is a trading nation. Getting our agricultural products, manufactured goods, minerals and services to international markets is how we make our way. Australia’s geography and distribution of our population means that we are dependent on efficient infrastructure investment and use. Underinvestment in infrastructure reduces our ability to trade in international markets. Failure to fix infrastructure shortfalls, supply chain bottlenecks and urban congestion puts a brake on economic and productivity growth. It also puts stress on our communities.

Infrastructure is about the future. National coordination of infrastructure is a key element in the government’s plan to lift productivity and fight inflation. It requires national leadership to tackle the bottlenecks and backlogs in strategic infrastructure such as transport, energy, communications and water. It was recently estimated by CEDA that it would take around $25 billion of new investment just to bring Australia’s strategic infrastructure up to scratch. In an intelligent economy, infrastructure systems interact organically, building interdependencies, network benefits and synergies. In Australia, our infrastructure systems can create interdependencies, but frequently they heighten the risk of problems flowing virus-like from one network to another. For example, capacity constraints on our railways and on our roads affect the functioning of our ports. Water shortages impede industrial and mineral production and, frequently, improvements to our arterial roads simply push traffic snarls and congestion downstream.

The solution requires cooperation at all levels of government—Commonwealth, state and local—as well as the involvement of all sectors of the economy, public and private. Unfortunately, until now, the provision of important infrastructure has been considered in silos, in isolation, within different levels of government and without dialogue between the public and private sectors. As recently demonstrated capacity constraints in the Queensland and Hunter Valley coal chains have shown, a lack of coordination between governments and the private sector inevitably results in a loss of national income and reduced opportunities for our export industries.

Infrastructure investment needs to be determined objectively and according to long-term need, thereby creating an environment conducive to greater public and private investment in common user and public infrastructure. The Business Council of Australia in its Infrastructure action plan for future prosperity report called for an integrated long-term planning framework across jurisdictions for the coordinated provision of infrastructure to underpin sustained strong economic growth. The nation needs a mechanism that will achieve both of these ends and, in so doing, lock in Australia’s future prosperity and higher productivity.

The government has started building that mechanism. It is called Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia takes a two-pronged approach. Firstly, it will lift investment in new infrastructure. Secondly, it will make better use of existing infrastructure. Infrastructure Australia’s initial task is to conduct a national audit to determine the capacity and condition of nationally significant infrastructure. This audit is to be completed and presented to the Council of Australian Governments, COAG, by March 2009. It is ambitious, but we have to be ambitious. The longer we wait and the slower we are, the worse the problem will get. After taking into account expected future demand, the audit will also identify gaps, deficiencies, impediments and bottlenecks across important sectors of the national economy.

Infrastructure Australia is the new mechanism to identify the nature of our infrastructure shortfall and the broad investment, legislative and regulatory responses required. Synergies from streamlining guidelines, legislation and regulations across jurisdictions will make for more competitive environments and more efficient planning and use of infrastructure. Infrastructure Australia will have the capacity to improve tender processes and contract documentation between Commonwealth and state jurisdictions. Harmonising procurement guidelines means investment partnerships being better. Whether they provide for public-private partnerships, private delivery or public delivery of infrastructure, they can deliver better value for money and investment dollars can be matched with infrastructure priorities. Nationally consistent best practice public-private partnership guidelines will be available by the end of the year and will make it less expensive for local and international companies to invest in Australian infrastructure. Robust regulatory and market priced frameworks will encourage efficient use of infrastructure and timely investment in new and updated infrastructure.

The matter is urgent. Our cities are facing challenges that reduce their liveability. While the economic cost of congestion in our major cities has been estimated at $9.4 billion in 2005, on a business-as-usual basis it is expected to increase to $20.4 billion by 2020.

The solution cannot be simply one of building our way out of the problem but of examining more fundamentally the competing demands and overloads right across the infrastructure spectrum. This legislation establishes Infrastructure Australia as a statutory advisory council to develop a strategic blueprint for our nation’s future infrastructure needs. In partnership with the states and territories and in consultation with the private sector and local government, it will oversight the blueprint’s implementation. Infrastructure Australia will provide advice about the infrastructure gaps and problems that hinder economic growth and prosperity. It will also identify investment priorities and policy and regulatory reforms that will be necessary to enable timely and coordinated delivery of national infrastructure investment.

The Infrastructure Australia council will have 12 experienced members, drawn from industry, government and local government. The new Office of the Infrastructure Coordinator will be a statutory office within the Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government portfolio, supported by a small team of professionals. COAG has created an infrastructure working group which will have a critical role in devising the reporting arrangements to COAG for Infrastructure Australia as well as the scope for the infrastructure audit. The emphasis will be on the future capacity of strategic infrastructure to improve national productivity. In addition, Infrastructure Australia will be expected to provide advice on regulatory reform that can improve the utilisation of infrastructure and streamline new projects. It will propose ways to harmonise legislation and regulation across jurisdictions.

Our infrastructure shortfalls and bottlenecks have developed over the past decade. They are exacerbated by the current economic circumstances. Solutions will take time but we must start now. Infrastructure Australia is the first critical step. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. This bill is for the establishment of a new body, as the previous speaker was outlining, whose primary function will largely be the provision of advice on infrastructure priorities to the federal government and governments at the state and local level, to investors in infrastructure and to owners of infrastructure. It will advise on Australia’s current and future needs and priorities relating to nationally significant infrastructure. It will also advise on impediments to the efficient utilisation of national infrastructure networks and provide advice on options in reforms, including regulatory reforms, to achieve efficiency gains in the nation’s infrastructure networks.

There is no doubt that infrastructure planning and delivery by definition need to be well planned and coordinated in order to maintain a healthy level of growth in the Australian economy. Without regular investment in road, rail and port infrastructure, bottlenecks develop and these hinder productivity, which in turn can increase costs faced by business and industry. But let us not deceive our constituents by allowing a false perception to be created by this bill. Under the Australian Constitution, much of the nation’s vital economic infrastructure is the responsibility of the states. Roads, highways, ports, electricity and water have traditionally been funded and provided by state governments and, in many cases, local governments under the authority of state governments. However, traditionally the Commonwealth has had the financial capacity to assist the states in the provision of infrastructure and provides grants to state and local governments to fund infrastructure projects.

Let us also understand the issue and not deceive our constituents into thinking that this bill marks some form of new ground zero in national infrastructure development in this country, because it surely does not. The Commonwealth government has become involved in important nation-building projects over many, many years. The most obvious and the most significant and iconic in the Australian imagination and in reality is the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme, built between 1949 and 1974. It was the largest engineering project ever completed in Australia’s history. This project and its workforce changed our nation forever.

More recently AusLink was established by the former government under John Howard to deliver funding for the nation’s most critical land transport infrastructure. AusLink mark 1 was an $11.8 billion land transport plan that incorporated former national highways, key urban freight routes and key rail links between capital cities. An investment of this scale could only have been made possible because of the Howard government’s strong record of economic management. A record 10 surplus budgets in a row delivered the capacity to deliver billions of dollars of national infrastructure projects, including roads, railways and ports. AusLink identified a national land transport network, including links to airports and shipping ports. It was a multimodal plan comprising both road and rail and was applauded at the time for integrating them. There was an emphasis placed on improving transport corridors between the nation’s largest cities. Improvements to freight routes were also vital for business and industry.

During the 11½ years of the Howard government many important infrastructure projects were delivered as a consequence of good fiscal responsibility and strong and prudent economic management of our nation’s purse strings. Some examples in my own home state of New South Wales of the benefits of this sound economic management and funding that found its way to important infrastructure projects include the Western Sydney orbital, a project which I think is one of the only Sydney road projects, at least in recent memory, that has not become a public farce. Three hundred and fifty-six million dollars of federal funds was given to this $1.5 billion transport project, at the urging, I might stress strongly, of the many Western Sydney Liberal members of parliament at the time. The remainder of the funds came from the private sector. The orbital has proved to be critical infrastructure for Sydney’s booming employment hub in Western Sydney as we see whole new developments come up along the hub and along the corridor. This is becoming an important distribution network for Sydney, for New South Wales and for the nation more generally.

But there are others. The Albury bypass: $25 million of federal funds was given to this $524 million project to construct a freeway standard bypass of the Albury urban centre. The Tugun bypass, an infrastructure project straddling the New South Wales and Queensland border: $120 million of federal funds was given to this $543 million road project linking Queensland’s Gold Coast with the Pacific Highway near Tweed Heads in northern New South Wales. There was the duplication of the Sheehan Bridge on the Hume Highway at Gundagai. This project is being undertaken entirely with funds allocated by the former Howard government under the AusLink program. The Pacific Highway upgrade: before 1996 just nine per cent of the Pacific Highway between Hexham and the Queensland border had four lanes. Because of funding provided by the Howard government, more than 39 per cent of that highway is now dual carriageway in the areas I have mentioned. There is the widening of the F3: $86 million of federal funds went into widening the F3 between the Hawkesbury River and Calga. This project has improved traffic congestion on a road that carries more than 60,000 motorists and 7,000 freight vehicles per day. The North Kiama bypass: the Howard government contributed $34 million to this $179 million project, which removed a dangerous bottleneck on the Princes Highway south of Wollongong. The Hume Highway: federal funds were allowed for forward planning on the Newell Highway bypass at Holbrook and Tarcutta. The $179 million Coolah bypass is being fully funded with federal funds under AusLink. Also, members driving to Canberra from Sydney will have noticed recent improvements to the Hume Highway north of Goulburn at Towrang and Carrick roads. These roadworks were completed with federal funding of about $7.5 million.

The benefits of AusLink did not stop at highway construction. There was significant funding allocated to important railway infrastructure. The Australian Rail Track Corporation manages over 10,000 route kilometres of standard gauge interstate track in four states, which I am sure would be of great interest to the former member for Farrer and former Deputy Prime Minister, who is a keen enthusiast on rail matters and would have been very excited about this initiative. Recent investments of federal funding through this program included $2.4 billion invested to upgrade the interstate and Hunter Valley rail system. Federal funding enabled the replacement of the old rail bridge over the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga. Trains no longer need to slow to 20 kilometres an hour. They can now cross the river at the more acceptable speed of 80 kilometres an hour. The Sandgate flyover in the Hunter Valley provides grade separation between coal trains heading to the port and other trains using the main line between Sydney and Brisbane. This $80 million investment delivers the rail infrastructure that is needed to meet the future demands of Australia’s coal exports from Newcastle.

I now turn my attention to some of the failures that we have seen in infrastructure in my home state of New South Wales and also locally, and the failure of the state government of New South Wales to invest in infrastructure. It is not a misrepresentation of the truth to say that the New South Wales state Labor government has a reputation for being a bungler when it comes to important infrastructure projects in that important state—that is, the projects that it delivers. Many do not even get past the announcement phase. They get announced many times—in fact, I suspect more has been invested in the public relations associated with the announcements of some of these projects than has actually been invested in infrastructure itself—but many do not even get past the announcement phase before they die a horrible death at the hands of the New South Wales Treasury, the New South Wales Treasurer or just general government incompetence.

An example of their track record includes, of course, the Monty of them all, the Cross-City Tunnel. The handling of that project was nothing short of a debacle. This $1 billion investment by the private sector opened in 2005 and, within months, the state Labor government reversed local road closures and diversions as part of a contract they negotiated in secret with the Roads and Traffic Authority. This was taken by many to be a signal that you cannot do business with the New South Wales government. If you are going to have negotiations about infrastructure projects, have them in the open. Do not have them behind closed doors. When you are exposed by the incompetence and narrow-mindedness of those negotiations, you put at risk the credit and investment reputation of your state because you have been unable to be upfront with the people who put you there in the first place. As a result, it was not long before the tunnel owners went into receivership and a fire sale saw the project sold for just $694 million. But, despite all of this, and the reputation of the tunnel, motorists are going to be slugged with a 46c increase in their toll next month.

The 3.6 kilometre Lane Cove tunnel, built at a cost of $1.1 billion, opened to motorists in March 2007. It should have opened in February 2007 but, as we know, this was delayed, at some considerable cost to the taxpayers of New South Wales. During the construction, part of an apartment block fell into a section of the excavations. Some of us will remember the fairly devastating image that we saw of units hanging precariously over a large hole. We also know of the tragedy and devastation experienced because of how long it took for those people who were affected by that incident to get compensation. For many in Sydney, this project, this hole in the ground, reflected everything that was wrong with the city’s crumbling infrastructure—congested roads and poor public transport. But worse was to come. As I said before, it did not open until March. It was supposed to open in February. At a $25 million cost to the taxpayer, it was delayed until after the March 2007 state election.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I have a question that I would like to ask the member for Cook.

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the member for Cook allow the question?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question to the member for Cook is whether in his speech he is advocating that the federal government take over all of the Sydney infrastructure or whether he is just having a general complain or whinge about the state government. I ask what he is really contributing to this debate, other than to just talk ad nauseam about state issues instead of trying to put forward some ideas for the federal parliament. I would be very interested to know whether he wants the federal government to take over the role of the state government.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That raises a very valid question. This new Infrastructure Australia organisation will, I suspect, provide advice—that seems to be its primary reason for being—about who should be handling these things and how they can be achieved. The simple point I am making is that the government is making quite a lot of noise about its intention to do something about infrastructure but it would seem that the clearest obstacle to infrastructure delivery in this country presently is the incompetence of state governments—and that is something it is going to have to address.

The Prime Minister puts himself out there as some sort of new ‘father of federation’ when it comes to these issues. I would be very interested to know what Infrastructure Australia is going to have to say about how the federal government is going to get the state governments to actually do their jobs, and we will see an end—

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Hall interjecting

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member makes reference to whether I am just whingeing about these things. I am joining a very strong chorus of people in New South Wales who are sick to death of the bungling of the New South Wales state Labor government. We do not want to see this continue. If the Prime Minister believes he can come to a better deal with the states about how these things are delivered, so be it, but these things must come to an end and we need the infrastructure this is talking about.

I have spoken about the Lane Cove tunnel; I want to talk about the desalination plant, which is another legacy of Bob Carr’s trip.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, I seek to intervene.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member for Cook willing to give way?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to address questions later, given the time—

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The format is that you take them as they come along.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you have any other questions, I am happy to talk to them outside, but I am keen to finish the present topic.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Shortland has had the opportunity to ask a question.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The desalination plant was a legacy of Bob Carr’s trip to Dubai. Labor made a commitment to build an unwanted desalination plant at Kurnell, costing the taxpayers and water users of New South Wales ultimately more than $2 billion. The Iemma state Labor government ignored all reasonable arguments against a desalination plant and proceeded with this enormous waste of taxpayers’ money. In particular, they completely ignored the opportunities for stormwater harvesting and recycling. They totally overstated, and continue to misrepresent, the cost of stormwater harvesting and, more importantly, water recycling in New South Wales. They completely dismissed a very constructive proposal from the opposition regarding the conversion of the SWOOS system in south-western Sydney to produce potable water for Sydney at half the cost of what was being proposed for the desalination plant at Kurnell. They also broke the trust of the community and the expert panel, breaking their promise not to proceed with the desalination plant unless dam levels hit 30 per cent. Currently, Sydney dams are at 66.5 per cent of full capacity and are rising.

Recycling is not the more expensive option, as the government like to claim. When they talk about recycling being more expensive they are referring to the turning back of the Sydney ocean outfalls, which will cost upwards of $3 billion. But there are other options available to the New South Wales state government which they routinely ignore, which does not make good economic sense and certainly does not make good water management sense.

Finally, given the constraints of time and the questions posed by those opposite, I will address one last matter. It is a matter that is very dear to people who live in the Sutherland shire: the F6. The F6 is a freeway extension that is an absolute necessity for the people who live in Cook and electorates that surround Cook. If this freeway is built, it will take thousands of cars off local streets of the Sutherland shire each day and improve truck access between the Illawarra, Sydney airport and Port Botany. These ports are increasing their activity and will be putting more traffic through the suburban streets of the shire. These are the streets where, at one point in time, kids used to play footy on the nature strip. These streets are now clearly too dangerous because of the traffic volumes that are going through the suburban streets in the shire. The time has come for the F6, which has been on the record books since at least 1951 or earlier; it is about time to get on with it. I would hope that this project receives some serious priority in the national infrastructure audit that is to be undertaken by Infrastructure Australia. Currently, the freeway ends at Waterfall and, from there, each day thousands of cars must use the Princes Highway and other local roads to get into Sydney.

The benefits of building the F6 extension have been well known for a while and were recently highlighted in a report released by the NRMA. The report indicates that there would be economic flow-ons arising from the construction of this project that would not be confined to the local region but would be shared throughout New South Wales and Australia. The report shows that more than 1,000 jobs would be created directly as a consequence of undertaking this project and the total economic impact of the project is worth $3.4 billion to our economy, at a cost of just $2.3 billion. Incidentally, that is roughly the same cost of the desalination plant at Kurnell.

Industries likely to gain a benefit from the project include the road transport industry and the fuel industry, and the food and beverage industries will profit from lower transport costs. Despite these benefits to the region and to the Sutherland shire more specifically, our state Labor member for Miranda maintains his opposition to this important infrastructure project while vehemently supporting the desalination plant that nobody wants or needs. If we had the choice, if there were $2.2 billion or $2.3 billion on the table, which there clearly is on behalf of Premier Iemma in New South Wales, to undertake a major infrastructure project that will benefit the people of the Sutherland shire, it should not go to the desalination plant at Kurnell—which has just added further disgrace to a site that should be revered as our nation’s birthplace and one of the most significant sites in our nation; it should go to the F6 extension, which would provide real economic and social value. The cost of the project I have referred to is the tunnel option, the preferred option. If the issues surrounding tunnels are properly managed—and I must admit I am somewhat concerned about the ability of the state government to actually manage a tunnel project where the filtration is properly managed and properly funded—the tunnel option is far superior to continuing the farce at Kurnell, which is the desalination plant.

What is created by this bill is not a road or a bridge; there are no funds for roads or bridges in this bill. There are no funds for new ports or new coal loaders in this bill, and there is no new Snowy in this bill. This is a bill to establish a government agency to provide advice—there are no new funds—and that is meritorious, which is why we are supporting this bill. Let us have the advice, let us have the agency, let us get out there and do an audit of the infrastructure needs and let us be candid about that audit. I wish them well with their objectives but I remain to be convinced that it will be little more than another bureaucratic adventure at the hands of the bureaucratic master himself, the Prime Minister.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise today as a representative of the great nation-building Labor Party to support the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. After 11 years of Howard government neglect a more nationally coordinated approach to infrastructure reform is long overdue and certainly critical to our future. It is critical because unlocking the infrastructure bottlenecks that exist around our nation will help to unlock better economic performance and higher national productivity. This is the proposition that we put to the Australian people last year, a proposition they endorsed at the ballot box, and I am pleased that we are acting on that proposition so early in our first term.

The two key roles of Infrastructure Australia will be to audit the adequacy of the nation’s infrastructure and to develop an infrastructure priority list based on this audit for consideration by the Council of Australian Governments. Infrastructure Australia will advise governments, investors and owners of infrastructure concerning nationally significant infrastructure priorities; policy and regulatory reforms that are desirable to improve the efficient utilisation of national infrastructure networks; options to address impediments to the development and provision of efficient national infrastructure; the needs of users; and possible financing mechanisms.

Nationally significant infrastructure would include transport, energy, communications and water infrastructure in which further investment will materially improve our national productivity. Infrastructure Australia will be structured with a 12-person council, and I am very pleased that the minister has announced Sir Rod Eddington as the chair. The Office of Infrastructure Coordination will be created in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, with an infrastructure coordinator and up to 15 staff to support the work of Infrastructure Australia. Those are the mechanics of this legislation and of Infrastructure Australia.

The philosophy behind it, though, flows from the great Labor tradition of nation building. It was Chifley who built the Snowy, Whitlam who brought First World infrastructure to the outer suburbs of our cities and Keating who introduced the Better Cities Program, one that I certainly had intimate dealings with as a director of the Honeysuckle Development Corporation in Newcastle. So in Newcastle we do know a bit about the Better Cities Program and the sort of national building programs that Labor has historically instituted. The Better Cities Program certainly helped us after the BHP steelworks closed, when we needed to transform from an industrial city to a city with a diversified economy. The Better Cities Program was a great model of how communities undergoing transformation could boost their economies, investing in areas like affordable housing, creating jobs and bringing a new vibrancy to their cities.

As Newcastle continues to grow and change, so do its infrastructure needs. Its energy, transport, water and communications challenges are laid out for us as we face greater population pressures. So I am very pleased that the Rudd Labor government that I am a part of will continue in that fine tradition of nation building. We have appointed the nation’s first minister for infrastructure and we are here debating a bill that is the embodiment of our desire to once again give the Commonwealth of Australia clear leadership when it comes to nationally significant infrastructure.

In stark contrast, the former Howard government left us with an 11-year legacy of neglect. In communications you will recall that the former minister had 18 different broadband policy announcements, but we still have the slowest speeds of most developed countries. Not one of those policy announcements resulted in areas in my electorate like Shortland or Thornton getting decent connections. With water infrastructure we had the former environment minister’s $10 million grant for experimental rain-making machines, which was against his department’s advice, I recall. In energy we had the former Prime Minister’s plan for 25 nuclear reactors along the east coast, including one proposed for Port Stephens, in the Hunter region. In transport we had such neglect that without action we know that the congestion on Australia’s roads would be likely to treble by 2020.

Fortunately, the Rudd government plans to put Australia back in the business of nation building through improvements to its infrastructure. We are getting straight to work on the more than $25 billion infrastructure backlog that the previous Howard government has left us. The first task we have set Infrastructure Australia is to audit our national infrastructure and set out a priority list of projects. This is the first step: taking stock of the deficit and developing a plan to tackle it. By taking a coordinated national approach to infrastructure investment, we will make sure investment is directed where it is most needed—in productive capacity.

Infrastructure shortfalls are currently costing us 0.8 per cent of GDP in lost production. We have low export volumes, high foreign debt and 3.6 per cent underlying inflation. I was a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration during the parliament’s last term, so I well remember the 20 warnings delivered by the Reserve Bank to the previous government. They were very specific and very pointed but they were ignored. Last year, for example, at our August hearing the RBA Governor said:

... inflation is likely to be around three per cent over the coming year and near the top of the target zone in the following year

That was about three months before the election—an election in which we once again saw the former government ignoring the warnings and continuing its irresponsible spending spree. What the Rudd government wants to do is to invest responsibly in the areas where our productive capacity will actually be enhanced, because there are areas that do need investment. In my own electorate we are very much aware of the shortfalls, and off any of our beaches you can see our coal ships lined up over and over again.

By 2009-10 the mining boom will have delivered close to $398 billion into federal coffers. By the time of last year’s federal election, the former Howard government had really delivered no sensible ideas on breaking the bottleneck at the port of Newcastle. While I acknowledge the contribution of the ARTC, it was certainly a matter of too little, too late; their efforts to continue that expenditure have been very welcome. I also note that Nick Greiner, the former Premier of New South Wales, is currently looking into a solution to the bottleneck at the port of Newcastle and I applaud the state government’s initiative in that regard.

The shipping of coal out of Newcastle is an extremely complex business. It is not like 1799, when piles of coal sitting by the dock were loaded onto ships via wheelbarrows. We ship nearly 81 million tonnes of coal, valued at almost $6 billion, each year. Thirty different coal producers send their coal from the Hunter Valley along the coal chain and along a railway track owned by the private and public sectors to the port of Newcastle. The trains are operated by two different operators and it becomes very complex. It is a big job but I also note the state government’s investment in a third coal loader, which will increase our capacity by about 30 million tonnes when completed in 2010. It is long term and it is complex, but with Infrastructure Australia the Commonwealth will finally be looking at how places like the port of Newcastle fit into the national economy and national infrastructure plans.

In June last year, during one of the wildest storms that most of us had ever seen, people will recall that one of those coal ships waiting off the coast, the Pasha Bulker, actually ran aground. While that ship was being beached, thousands of Newcastle homes were being flooded due to a massive failure of the stormwater system under those extreme conditions. I note that one of Infrastructure Australia’s tasks will be to provide advice on infrastructure policy issues arising from climate change. If we are going to experience those weather extremes more often, then Infrastructure Australia will have a big role to play in making our cities not only more liveable but also sustainable and survivable.

Last year I convened in my electorate two meetings of my region’s energy industry representatives—the energy generators, coal companies, researchers and unions—to talk about positioning our region to lead the fight against climate change. They were very positive meetings. We all recognised that, as a centre for energy production and export, our region has a responsibility to make these activities sustainable into the future. At last year’s election, Labor committed $50 million for an Australian solar institute in Newcastle and $55 million for a clean coal package. So the Rudd Labor government has made these concrete commitments to fighting climate change and securing a sustainable energy future. Once again, the audit of infrastructure needs by Infrastructure Australia will help us to understand how regions like ours fit into the energy infrastructure of our nation as a whole.

As with all of the policies that we put to the people last year, Labor is about looking to the future and tackling the big issues such as climate change, infrastructure and productivity. I see an exciting role for my region in that future, but I also see a growing population demanding the infrastructure they need to productively contribute to the economy. They certainly do not want to see infrastructure lag behind the progress of regional growth. They want something to be done about the congested roads as people commute in and out of our city every day. For cities like ours, which are linked to major areas like Sydney, the Hunter and the Central Coast, the people do want to be able to get to Sydney or to travel north by train or road faster and with fewer delays. The F3, the major link between Newcastle and Sydney, has already had major blockages twice this year as a result of crashes. Most travellers also agree that the time it takes to get to Sydney by rail could certainly be reduced.

Without investment from the Commonwealth government those sorts of major projects really have not been able to be escalated. But Labor did make some excellent commitments at the election to help get freight onto rail to ease road congestion, and I look forward to Infrastructure Australia’s audit of other projects that will help the productive capacity of my region. I also look forward to its consideration of airports. Newcastle is the fastest growing regional airport in Australia and I notice it has been mentioned in dispatches recently when a second Sydney airport was floated again in the media. So the future of our airport definitely needs to be considered in the national context. We will have to look at the road links to the airport as well as the rail links, of which there are none at the moment.

When you live in an industrial revolution, you see such rapid growth. Our region is one of mining engineers and skilled people who are constantly flying out of our city to consult and advise around the world. So if we are serious about expanding our airport, which I am, we have to be serious about improving the infrastructure and transport links to it. Once again, I look forward to Infrastructure Australia’s audit of our nation’s priority needs and seeing where my region and the city of Newcastle fit in. Unlike the Howard government’s approach, this bill establishes a way of looking at our needs from a national perspective so that each region fits within an overall coordinated approach so that it can fully contribute to our nation’s productive economy. I commend the bill to the House.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This has been an interesting debate so far, but, believe me, some interesting finds were made while researching for this debate. It is interesting to note that prior to the 2007 federal election much was made by, at that stage, a campaigning Labor group talking about the need for a fresh approach to the creation and funding of infrastructure right across Australia—because the states, presumably, were doing such a poor job of the situation. You would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, that the states are responsible for the creation of infrastructure that keeps the products of this nation moving.

It is interesting that on the one hand this Labor Party seeking election was saying that the infrastructure of Australia had collapsed and was substandard. I presume, therefore, that on the other hand the Labor governments in the states were substandard and that there was this great need for a new initiative. This new initiative turns out to be a rehashed old initiative. As I said, when I was researching my speech it became very confusing because I was referring to two documents. One was a transcript of a speech to the Infrastructure Finance Forum back in June 2003 made by the Hon. John Anderson, Deputy Prime Minister at the time. He was also Minister for Transport and Regional Services. The other document I was looking at was the current minister’s second reading speech. I found some amazing comparisons. For instance, the minister speaks of ‘the cooperation of all Australian governments’. And I find in Minister Anderson’s speech a reference to ‘the cooperation between all levels of government’. The minister: ‘lifting investment in the nation’s physical infrastructure while at the same time getting the most out of our existing assets’. Minister Anderson said: ‘better ways to utilise existing and new infrastructure’. The minister said: ‘involvement of all sectors of the economy, both public and private’. Minister Anderson said: ‘drawing in private sector expertise and financial flexibility’.

It goes on and on and on. At the end of the second reading speech by the minister, he referred to the wonderful vision of former Prime Minister Chifley in reference to the Snowy Mountains scheme, how it crossed borders and was not for just one state but for the nation. Quite frankly, I would suggest that the current minister would have done a lot more, and done so more honestly, had he referred to the hard work of former minister Mr Anderson and his speech to the Infrastructure Finance Forum back in 2003 and had he honestly and sincerely acknowledged the formation of AusLink 1 and 2 which has been left as a very solid heritage for this new government in Australia.

We have already had a number of commitments from this new government. Perhaps they were throwaway lines, but the Australian public did not think so. The party said: ‘We’re going to control grocery prices. We’re going to reduce fuel prices. We’re going to reduce interest rates. We’re going to take a magic wand to every pre-existing condition right across Australia affecting the hardworking families of this nation. And we’re going to create this wonderful new entity called Infrastructure Australia.’ I put to you that they are simply going to re-badge AusLink 1 and 2, the main principles of which were in place by 2005, with state transport ministers reporting net infrastructure priorities to the Commonwealth.

This new, re-badged AusLink 1 and 2 has already suggested that we are going to continue with the funding initiatives of AusLink 1 and 2. But that calls for funding of $22 billion through to 2014. We also hear from this new government that we are going to tackle inflation. And yet we have had a statement from the leader of this new government to the effect that he will spend in excess of $2 billion on necessary transport infrastructure across Australia. And, further, he gave a commitment to attend to all pre-election promises. If we are going to tackle inflation in a serious manner, if this is such a serious threat to the economy of this nation when we are making never seen before budget surpluses, if inflation is such a major problem, how will this Rudd government solve the problem by putting an additional $2 billion of funding out there for hastily selected projects, cherry-picked around the nation, in addition to the $22 billion already committed under AusLink 1 and 2?

The whole premise of the debate today is the necessity for this wonderful new entity. Is it new, or is it simply plagiarism of the very solid, effective ideas of a previous government—rebadging them at unnecessary and huge cost to the taxpayers of this country with new letterheads, new signs on offices and a whole new group of people forming yet another committee? We have the committee for grocery price reduction and the committee for fuel price reduction, we are going to make housing more affordable, we are going to reduce interest rates—all manner of things are going to be tackled with this new government’s magic wand. But for what gain?

Is this new government seriously condemning the state Labor government transport ministers and the veracity of the program that they have put together? It is probably lurking somewhere on the existing minister’s desk right now, being absolutely ignored because this new federal government obviously does not trust the workings of the existing state governments—this, of course, from the leader who says, ‘No. 1: we’re going to end the blame game.’ I wish he had said that he would start recognising the great financial foundation that he inherited, that he would give due process to playing the credit game. ‘Give credit where it’s due’, ‘A fair go for all Australians’—great old Aussie adages. But, no, this new government publicly state that they are going to end the blame game, but they immediately, by their actions, blame the state transport ministers for being incompetent, because the program that they put together, and had been doing so since 2005, does not have the prioritisation of infrastructure necessary for the nation and its transport task.

If there were any relevant, solid contradiction to what I am saying then we would not be talking about funding in excess of $2 billion worth of hand-picked, favoured infrastructure projects. We would not be talking about the infrastructure in the nation being substandard. We would be saying, ‘We have a Constitution, and the Constitution clearly states that states are responsible for land management.’ In that regard, going back to the statement that they will end the blame game, an article in the Australian back in 28 January, written by Nigel Wilson, says:

Rudd believes Infrastructure Australia is a way to manage problems inherent in the Australian Constitution, which gives the state governments responsibility for land management.

What does this mean? The author of this article, I believe, thinks that we now have such a degree of self-importance that not only will we usurp the states and their role in providing those necessary infrastructure projects but we will reinterpret the Australian Constitution to our own advantage. What end to the megalomania? Perhaps we need several magic wands so we can keep up this pretence to the Australian people that in the past all things were bad and in the future all things will be rosy courtesy of this new Labor government, adding to the current wall-to-wall Labor governments right across this nation.

Many Australians were conned by this incoming government. They listened to the pre-election rhetoric, heard what was being said, believed it and voted—and I accept it—very convincingly. But I wonder how they are going to feel down the track when they see no effective change. How are they going to feel about grocery prices continuing to be within the same range, petrol prices continuing to go up and interest rates continuing to go up—twice since the government was elected. How are those voters going to feel? Dudded, to say the least, Mr Deputy Speaker. They will feel absolutely dudded. They will start to ask themselves: ‘Why did we do this? We believed the rhetoric.’ And the rhetoric was just that. Where is the substance now? Where is the new information contained in this bill that was not contained in AusLink 1 and 2? Where is it?

I have reams of information which I find has been plagiarised, virtually, from things that were said by the previous government in 2003. What is being said by the government? They are saying: ‘We are going to attend to the needs of regional centres because many of our regional centres require the turnover of tourist dollars. If those centres do not have good road infrastructure they will not get the tourists coming, because the highways will be congested. So we need to approach the issue of reducing congestion on the highways.’ That is in this new legislation and in the minister’s second reading speech on the legislation—but, hey, it is also contained in the 2003 speech to the infrastructure finance group. Remarkable! It continues: ‘If we do not have good forward planning, our cities will be less liveable and there will be growing public health problems associated with vehicle emissions.’ There is a reference to that in the minister’s second reading speech. It was also contained in the speech to the forum back in 2003. I cannot find anything new in this information.

Why didn’t this wand-waving new government simply accept the fact that there was a fine system for the regulation and prioritisation of infrastructure in this nation and that it was being well funded from the Commonwealth perspective—not from the states’ perspective because, remember, under the Constitution they are responsible for land management. The additional top-up fund from the Commonwealth was coming from AusLink 1 and 2. The new government has decided to accept it and to continue it, yet we had this circus pre-election campaign about the wonderful new era of infrastructure in Australia.

There has been a lot of bluster, a lot of rhetoric and a lot of hot air spouted about this brave new world. But, at the end of the day, what we have is simply a little more of the plastic facade of this government as it tries to maintain the pretence to the Australian people that it will actually do something about the existing problems, rather than simply face up to making the hard decisions to change the situation and ease the impact of some of those problems on the hardworking Australian families that we are all here to serve. We are not here to serve the continuing rhetoric of this new government; we are here to serve the people of Australia. The people of Australia were well served in the past, and my fervent desire is that this new government, with all its bluster and wand-waving, will be assessed by the Australian public in six months time or 12 months time—but not in three years time, let me assure you—as having done the job.

I suggest to you that this government will be found extremely wanting because nothing in this legislation provides for change. Nothing in this legislation says anything about this brave new world; all it does is re-badge the existing legislation at additional cost to the Australian taxpayer—and the Australian taxpayer, do not forget, is a member of a hardworking family somewhere and they are the people that we are here to serve.

As the House reflects on passing this legislation, I wonder if they would contemplate whether there was any necessity to make any change whatsoever and whether we are going to see in this brave new world the new Prime Minister breaking his promises to the electorate and not funding all of these pre-election promises. Is he going to break his promises or is he going to attend to those promises, maintain the expenditure of $22 billion up until 2014 and fight inflation? That will indeed be a magic act to see. I suggest it will need multiple magic wands because he is going to spend more money, he is going to, by his actions, reduce jobs and he is going to keep inflation down. I look forward to that outcome because he will be a replacement for Merlin the Magician, I am sure.

I am not sure that when he attends to those election commitment promises he will cast his eyes much further than the horizon of the state of Queensland. I represent the powerhouse of this nation’s wealth, the Kalgoorlie electorate in Western Australia, and I have looked at the commitments. We are talking about $2.2 billion in Queensland and  $160 million in Western Australia. Well, isn’t that pathetic? Obviously, he allocated the funds on the basis of need. Obviously, the Queensland government is incredibly behind the pace. They must have been doing a very bad job, because they need $2.2 billion. Western Australia, where we have the longest roads, the most sparsely populated area and are making the money for this nation, is going to get $160 million dollars. It beggars belief. I wonder how the facade has been maintained for even this long. Good luck in the maintenance into the future and, even though we know we will not be able to prevent the passage of this bill, good luck to the people of Australia.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must say I found the contribution just made by the member for Kalgoorlie really missing the point of the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 that is before us for debate.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It wasn’t complimentary.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not the issue of being complimentary; the point is you have missed the central essence of what Labor is trying to achieve and that is to acknowledge what the Reserve Bank had warned your government, the previous government, of for over a decade: that the infrastructure bottlenecks were causing capacity constraints in the Australian economy. We want to do something about that in cooperation with the states and we want to end the kind of blame game that we saw exhibited in the comments that the member for Kalgoorlie has just made in his contribution.

I think the member for Kalgoorlie really does miss the point that, over the time of the Howard government, the federal government vacated the field in terms of nation building. And the Rudd Labor government certainly sees a very important role for the federal government, with an agenda that includes a vision for the future, nation building and working cooperatively with existing state governments and local government.

I want to talk a little bit about the bill rather than engage in a response to the member for Kalgoorlie’s comments, which really had little bearing on the detail and substance of the issues that are before us at the moment. As you know, in the lead-up to the election the Rudd Labor government made much of the fact that we needed to lift the level of investment in new physical infrastructure—and not, as the member for Kalgoorlie suggests, just in the road network; it goes beyond that—and at the same time make better use of the nation’s existing infrastructure. Our investment in this area is part and parcel of our fight against inflation, our commitment to raise productivity and our commitment to sustained economic growth into the future. It does recognise, unlike the member for Kalgoorlie, that the Reserve Bank has been sending warnings that infrastructure bottlenecks—they exist in my region; they probably do in the west as well—are a severe constraint on our economic capacity and performance.

As part of our plan to fight inflation, the Rudd government is offering for the first time a truly national and long-term approach to the provision of infrastructure. We have been working hard since coming into government to put in place the right policy structure to support our infrastructure plan and program. And that is the issue that is before us in the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008, the details of which were remarkably neglected in the contribution made by the member opposite. You would know if you looked at the detail of the bill that the policy structure that we are promulgating in this legislation is the creation of Infrastructure Australia, a statutory advisory council consisting of 12 members drawn from industry and all levels of government.

We believe that, in providing new national leadership on a very important infrastructure agenda, we need to take a two-pronged approach to tackle existing bottlenecks. First of all, we need to look at creative means for lifting investment in new infrastructure. That will obviously involve working in public-private partnerships where they are appropriate. At the same time, we want to make better use of our existing infrastructure assets. Strategic investment, in our view, is required to overcome our infrastructure backlog, which in the areas of land transport, water and energy alone is estimated to be worth in the order of $25 billion. Obviously that is not going to be solved overnight, and we do not profess to have any magic wands, but we do recognise that it is a severe problem in terms of fulfilling our mission to see sustained economic growth and to keep that inflation genie in the bottle.

We need to have a clear picture of our investment needs and time frames, so one of the first tasks of our new statutory authority will be to undertake a national audit to first of all determine the capacity and condition of Australia’s nationally significant infrastructure. We hope this audit will identify gaps, impediments and bottlenecks, as well as taking into account expected future demand. This information will inform the development of the infrastructure priority list to guide future investment decisions. We hope that this will be completed within 12 months and presented to COAG by March 2009. The time frames, as set out in the bill, are ambitious but obviously they are necessary. The information determined by the audit will provide us with a sound base upon which decisions for the future will be made and allow a better matching of investment dollars with the nation’s infrastructure priorities.

While no doubt there is a need for investment in new assets, we must also recognise that it will take time before new infrastructure is built. However, we believe there is much action that can be taken in the short term to help ease the kind of infrastructure bottlenecks that my colleague the member for Newcastle referred to at the port in her region. We will be looking at streamlining guidelines, legislation and regulations across jurisdictions to see whether we can coordinate them in a more efficient way and use our existing infrastructure in a more efficient manner to serve the economic imperatives of the nation.

Interestingly enough, the Productivity Commission itself estimates that, just in the implementation of competition and regulatory reforms affecting transport, energy and export infrastructure in areas of regulation and planning, if we were to have a concerted effort to implement competition and regulatory reforms we have the potential to save around $10 billion and, by so doing, add to national output by up to two per cent of GDP. The issue of what can be done in the short term with existing infrastructure is a vital component of our overall agenda.

My area of the Illawarra is a major industrial centre and we do require, like other regions, efficient and up-to-date infrastructure. We have had a lot of investment by the New South Wales state Labor government in the port at Port Kembla, which is going to be expanded to become a major centre for imports in addition to the large exports of coal and steel already handled there. Investment in two infrastructure projects in particular would help the Illawarra cope with the increasing commercial and industrial activity that we will see coming through the port, and those are the urgent need to upgrade sections of the Princes Highway and the positive signal for the possible resumption of construction of the Maldon-Dumbarton railway link. The upgrade of the highway has been at the centare of the blame game. It is a state road. People have argued that it ought to be a road of national significance. I think the constituents just want someone to fix the existing problems. The upgrade of the highway, particularly to the Jervis Bay turn-off by having a dual carriageway, is a very urgent imperative and one that could see a greater commitment from the federal government in assisting the state to finish those links. We need it because, when we get more traffic through the port, that highway will be a very important regional, intrastate and interstate link for the movement of goods. The highway currently has an appalling crash record and there has been an unnecessary loss of life. The upgrade of the highway will serve the interests of major employers like BlueScope Steel, Manildra and the aviation industry around the town of Nowra in the adjoining electorate of Gilmore. We have been working with a local lobby group known as PHocus to try to get additional commitments to the upgrade of the highway. Of course, we are seeking the continuation of the important role that our own regional airport plays, one of the remaining regional airports that is actually owned by a local government authority. There was investment in the past from the former government in the necessary security upgrades that were needed for that airport and that will need to continue into the future.

A Liberal state government in New South Wales halted the construction of the Maldon-Dumbarton rail link about 20 years ago. We believe there is a significant economic imperative for that work to be revisited, particularly as we are hoping that up to 250,000 cars, 50,000 containers and 125,000 tonnes of break-bulk cargo will come through the port of Port Kembla. So there is a great economic imperative to revisit that project. I thank the member for Batman, in his former role as shadow minister in this area, for his very welcome commitment made in the lead-up to the federal election to provide the Port Kembla Port Corporation with $300,000 to commission a pre-feasibility study into completing the Maldon-Dumbarton freight rail line.

In conclusion, I welcome the bill and commend the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for bringing it to the House so expeditiously. I think it is a great achievement that, for the first time since Federation, we have a Labor government committed totally to the issue of nation building through having an infrastructure minister, an infrastructure department and concrete and positive plans to deal with the great backlog of infrastructure in our nation which is creating a huge capacity constraint and having a negative consequence for our potential economic performance.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Congratulations, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, on your position. This is the first opportunity I have had to congratulate you on joining that wonderful club of deputy speakers.

The matter we are speaking on today is the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008, and it is something that is actually very dear to my heart. When I was first elected, a little over nine years ago, like most members in the House I made my maiden speech. But my first speech in parliament after my maiden speech was actually about infrastructure and, in fact, my first private member’s bill was about infrastructure. One of the first standing committee reports that I instigated was about rural infrastructure. So it is actually something quite dear to me and very important to the constituents of my electorate of Barker.

Infrastructure, if you really understand it, is not just about roads. I think a lot of people would just refer to roads, but infrastructure refers not only to rail, electricity and, of course, ports and airports but also to social infrastructure—things like hospitals and services to areas. Unfortunately, in rural areas we seem to get a fairly raw deal compared to our city cousins. But, despite that, I think all these things are very important. I think this bill is more to deal with the hard infrastructure needs of this country.

Whilst I welcome a commitment from this government to the infrastructure needs of this country, it is a lie to say that the Howard government completely ignored infrastructure. In fact, even in my own electorate I can point to such things as the $205 million for the Sturt Highway—a very important road because it services the Barossa and the Riverland in my electorate and, of course, is the main road from Adelaide to Sydney. So $205 million has gone a long way towards fixing up some of the problems that we had in my electorate. Of course, it was not only for the transport needs but because of the fact that there were accidents occurring on that road due to poor infrastructure.

Of course, we have spent enormous amounts on the Dukes Highway on the South Australian side of the main road from Adelaide to Melbourne. I have to pose the question of why this government has promised to have a dual lane from Melbourne to the Victorian-South Australian border but, once the road gets to South Australia, there is no commitment to a dual lane for the Dukes Highway. I assure you that the same trucks will be using the road on both sides of the border; the same cars will be using the road on both sides of the border. So I think this is a real gap in what they are promising for what is arguably—and, I think, without too much argument—the most important road for South Australians, either for their local transport or for their interstate transport. It certainly has the highest traffic levels.

Certainly in my time we spent a lot of money on putting in passing lanes, which have helped the situation. In fact, we had a recent commitment from Bordertown to the Victorian border because of the road break-up, and we spent something like $15 million on 17 kilometres of road. It is now actually the best part of the Dukes Highway. But, of course, the state government, unlike with the rest of the Dukes Highway, have kept the speed limit at 100 kilometres an hour instead of the normal 110. And guess where they have the police with their radars trying to catch people: it is actually on this best part of the road. Their basis for reducing it from 110 to 100—which I agreed with—was the state of the road. It was not a very good road—certainly not up to scratch. But once it was fixed they still kept the speed limit at 100 kilometres an hour, and I understand they are getting lots of revenue from that road even though it is the safest part of the road and there is no real argument to retain the 100 kilometres an hour speed limit when the rest of the Dukes Highway is 110. Of course, when you go across the border, anywhere where you have dual lanes it will be 110 kilometres an hour as well. So there has been a lot of money spent on infrastructure already in my electorate.

I also think it is important to note that we were the first government since Federation that actually committed to building the Adelaide to Darwin railway line, which I think was probably the first piece of major railway line infrastructure built in Australia in the last 50 years at least, if not the last 100 years. That is a major connector between Adelaide and Darwin for the transport of a lot of our goods—especially, but not all, agricultural goods.

I am sure you, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, would acknowledge that the Heysen tunnels that we built leading into Adelaide on the main highway from Melbourne have been an absolutely brilliant bit of engineering and infrastructure that have been so important to South Australia. So to suggest that we as a government ignored infrastructure is a great lie. I certainly will not accept that sort of statement being put out there. When you look at AusLink, which basically this new government has copied—in fact, it has met the commitments of Auslink under the AusLink program—in real money terms, it is four times more than the Snowy Mountains scheme. So this idea that we did not commit money to some great engineering feat for Australia is false. We certainly had the vision and once we could afford it under the good management of the Howard government we were able to commit these extra funds to AusLink, and I think it is something like $23 billion, which is a huge amount of money in anyone’s terms.

The greatest problems I have ever had in my electorate have been state government responsibilities. I warn the new minister about this, although I would hope that he is aware of it because he has already been to my electorate and had the state minister ask for funding for an area which is really a state government responsibility. I am always happy to get a commitment from any government for road funding in my electorate, but it is interesting that—looking at the areas that have been divided between local, state and federal governments in this country—we, through the Roads to Recovery program, more than doubled the amount of money we were giving to local governments so that they could maintain their local roads. The state governments get about half of their money from the federal government for funding of roads, and yet you see very little for that in South Australia. I cannot speak for other states, but certainly on those major highways that are a state government’s responsibility they have been found wanting. For example, the Riddoch Highway is the main connecting road from Keith to Mount Gambier. It is about 200 kilometres of a very important road for local and interstate transport—certainly intrastate transport—but the state government has hardly spent any money on that road, which is one of the major roads of South Australia.

The states will certainly see this as an opportunity for another pot of gold that they can use to blame the federal government if they are not doing their job. Frankly, I think they should be made to wear their responsibilities. Certainly for any of these roads that are state government responsibilities, they should be putting in at least 50 per cent of a greater share of funding for those roads. I hope that the minister has the sense to see the state governments for what they are. As a result of the funding that we have given them through things like the GST, through their extra receivables of land tax and so on, they are receiving in South Australia about $1 billion a year more than they would have under the old system. So they are doing pretty well. But where have we seen that with the infrastructure bills that we need in South Australia? We have had a Labor state government in South Australia for six years and, frankly, we really do not have much to show for it. That is a shame, because anyone who represents a rural area knows how important the road and the rail infrastructure are to their lives. They depend on them not only for getting to and from work but also for transporting the goods that they produce, which is the wealth of this country.

So the responsibility for infrastructure, as I said, has been spread across the three tiers of government. Indeed, the state government trading enterprises—not budget funded state government agencies; they have a very clever way of having these hollow logs—provide much of the electricity, water, urban transport and ports. Indeed, if a federal government put money into a port, I would bet you that a state government would still like to receive all the funds from that port, even though they have not put in as much of the money as they should have.

Local government also funds and provides infrastructure, and more and more of the private sector is becoming increasingly involved in the finances. Local governments, through the Roads to Recovery program, have spent their money well—certainly in my electorate, and I have 21 local government councils in my electorate. They have spent every cent of that money on their roads and you can certainly see the difference it has made to their areas. They are very thankful for the Roads to Recovery program. I know that local government fear that they will not get that commitment from this government. So it would be good if they were finally relieved of that concern.

In 2001 the Australian Infrastructure Report Card Alliance, which is a group of major infrastructure stakeholders, prepared a report on infrastructure adequacy. I think it is noteworthy that, in the areas where the Commonwealth had whole or partial responsibility—such as airports; telecommunications; and national roads, which are the major highways around Australia—they actually ranked relatively highly. Unfortunately, areas of state government, and to a lesser extent local government, responsibility were the most in need of remediation. That was an independent infrastructure report. So to suggest that the federal government was at fault was clearly shown to be false by that report.

This is particularly true in my electorate of Barker, specifically in the rural community of Keith, which has suffered long blackouts during the past summer, for example. This problem is not just localised in Keith. I know about it because I happen to live there. Blackouts further south are causing concerns for residents towards the south-east coast as well. ETSA Utilities, which is South Australia’s electricity distributor, is to conduct an audit of power infrastructure at Keith and across south-east South Australia to investigate the long blackouts. You may think: ‘What is the problem with blackouts? We have to put up with that in cities a bit.’ But every time you have even a fraction of a second blackout when you are running a pump for irrigation, for example, your pump turns off. Unless you are awake to it or aware that you have had that momentary blackout—or even a brownout, which means that you are not getting full power—the pumps will turn off. That can ruin your whole irrigation program.

The problem is that strong economic growth has supported industrial expansion and an increased use of pumps, which means a greater demand for power. ETSA appears to have been unaware of the cumulative impact of this growth and have not addressed the resultant infrastructure requirements. The outcome is that large areas of the Tatiara in my electorate suffer low-voltage problems every day the temperature is over 35 degrees. In my electorate this has been every one of the last 10 days, and I understand it is forecast for the next seven days at least. So we are having this long-term problem whenever we have those high temperatures. They promised to audit the infrastructure to determine what improvements are needed. I make the point that, while the interrelationship between federal, state and local governments drives the need for infrastructure, when this fails, it is the state and local governments which must bear that responsibility.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government stated in this place that the OECD ranked Australia 20th out of 25 countries when it comes to investment in public infrastructure as a proportion of national income. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to assert that Australia is underperforming when it comes to investment levels. The fact is that expenditure in public infrastructure as a proportion of national income between countries is not a barometer of infrastructure investment. Different countries have different infrastructure needs, and so it can be expected that there will be different investment levels. Nor do such comparisons take account of the quality of investment.

I think anyone in this House who has ever been overseas will know that, by comparison, our traffic jams and our transport systems have far fewer blockages than most countries in Europe and certainly in Asia and Africa. So it is not really a valid comparison. Privatisation of former government trading enterprises and the entry of the private sector into traditionally public infrastructure such as roads, electricity generation and rail make this comparison inequitable as well.

Infrastructure Australia is not actually an original idea. It was the Howard government that in 1996 conceived the idea of a national infrastructure council. Unfortunately, Infrastructure Australia has not been carefully thought out. Labor’s model will become a conduit for incessant demands from state Labor governments for more infrastructure funding. I have no doubt about this because I have seen this happen from my first day as a member of parliament. Whenever state governments are asked about why they do not fund certain infrastructure that is their responsibility, they say: ‘The feds don’t give us enough money.’ It is almost a daily rant by state governments. I have to say that it is not only Labor state governments that have said that sort of thing.

In light of Labor’s poor record of economic management, it is unlikely that the budget will be able to sustain that funding. There is nothing in this model that will address the fact that state Labor governments have largely shunned the transparent processes found at the federal level. There are many examples where state government assistance to industry has been long fraught with special concessions and deals. Infrastructure Australia does not address this. Instead, Labor has produced a structure that will become yet another layer in the process of assessing and responding to Australia’s infrastructure needs.

The Energy Supply Association has already questioned Infrastructure Australia’s role in the electricity and gas business. It was the Howard government’s taxation reforms in respect of financing arrangements for infrastructure that encouraged private investment through the reduction of compliance costs. These tax benefits gave greater certainty to private builders of major infrastructure. Labor has turned its back on this approach in favour of an unproven regulatory body. I wish this new body well, but Labor’s record at the state level in respect of these types of bodies is certainly not one to admire.

Infrastructure Australia fails to address issues such as how to prevent cherry-picking and how to ensure that regional and rural Australia—in particular, regional and rural South Australia—do not miss out in favour of eastern states’ or city-based white elephant projects while regional infrastructure projects are overlooked. After all, a lot of our wealth is actually produced in the regional and rural areas, and they demand and need those sorts of infrastructure fixtures, probably more so than some in the city. I do not resile from the need for infrastructure in the city; I just wish sometimes people would think about the needs of rural areas as well.

Infrastructure has been run down by Labor state governments—trains, ports, water, hospitals and education in every state—which attests to their failure to act on infrastructure and development. Infrastructure efficiencies in the electorate of Barker are by no means limited to electricity supply. The state government has done an appalling job of managing transport and communication. Indeed, if it were not for the success of the Howard government’s AusLink and Roads to Recovery programs, things would be in a much more dire state in the electorate of Barker. Under the Howard government, the electorate of Barker received those AusLink funding commitments. Roads are important to an electorate like Barker because it is a big electorate with a lot of roads. My electorate is actually 10 per cent bigger than Tasmania, so you can imagine the number of roads there are in Barker. There is nothing in this legislation to reassure the people of Barker that their road or other infrastructure needs will be addressed or even removed.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 will provide for the establishment of Infrastructure Australia and the infrastructure coordinator. It is a bill which provides the kind of leadership we need—firstly, to tackle inflation; secondly, to provide a nationally coordinated approach to tackling infrastructure bottlenecks; thirdly, to drive investment where it is needed most, fuelling the nation’s productive capacity; and, finally, to ensure that infrastructure development and investment is motivated by value, not the margin of a seat.

This is another of those bills that shows that it is Labor that is the nation-building party. The previous government had 11 years to fix bottlenecks and 11 years to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates. They failed; they were never interested in nation-building. It took a Labor government to appoint Australia’s first federal infrastructure minister. This is a party which has a proud record as the nation-building party. It was the great Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley who started the massive Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It was the Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who gave us practical infrastructure solutions like fixing sewerage and building new hospitals. He appointed Tom Uren as Minister for Urban and Regional Development. We saw then the creation of land commissions which provided for reasonably priced housing blocks and the development of new planned communities. Again, it was the Labor government of the 1990s which saw the introduction of the Better Cities program under Minister Brian Howe. That was a broad-ranging strategy of reform that included innovative housing programs and a focus on urban consolidation. So it has always been Labor that has been the nation-building party, and Labor again turns to this task.

Now what is the modern infrastructure challenge—the challenge of the 21st century? I think the big infrastructure challenge is public transport. It is clear that reducing congestion and improving the efficiency of transport networks will play an important part in the abatement of greenhouse gases and will improve urban amenity. It is also clear that climate change, with its effects on infrastructure reliability and maintenance costs, will present new infrastructure challenges—for example, from coastal and storm flooding. I noticed just yesterday that Professor Ross Garnaut’s paper on transport and urban planning included an issues paper which found that building new roads may make Australia’s greenhouse emissions from transport worse. He noted that the provision of road infrastructure may induce growth in passenger car use by reducing the competitive advantage of public transport and possibly inducing additional travel. This came at the same time as, in my own state, we had an announcement from the Victorian government that all unzoned land within Melbourne’s urban growth boundary will be released for development to accommodate the city’s booming population. Clearly, we have to ensure that moves like this do not add to the city’s reliance on cars. We certainly have state government policy which seeks to reduce car trips and increase the use of walking, cycling and public transport.

Clearly, what we need is a focus on public transport infrastructure. Despite having one of the highest levels of urbanisation, Australia remains the only OECD nation where the federal government does not provide funds for sustainable transport infrastructure. This places Australia at an international disadvantage compared to countries such as the UK and the United States, whose national governments do invest heavily in public transport infrastructure. The federal government currently funds major upgrades of roads and I think that public transport should be eligible for similar funding, given its role in the reduction of congestion and its role in relation to greenhouse gases.

Congestion is a very serious national cost. Delays in delivery schedules and opportunity costs—the costs of congestion—have been estimated at over $20 billion annually. Something like $2½ billion of that directly impacts on Melbourne’s eastern and south-eastern suburbs. These are suburbs which are part of a prominent industrial hub and I think it is imperative that they are provided with an efficient and readily available public transport system to reduce overall traffic congestion. Again, the area of eastern and south-eastern Melbourne is responsible for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. This is something which will rise exponentially in future years if congestion is left unchecked. Although it is clear that respective state governments need to be ultimately responsible for public transport services, I think there is a role for federal involvement through joint funding arrangements which will provide for appropriate accountability in project delivery.

I commend the work of the Metropolitan Transport Forum, the MTF, and the Eastern Transport Coalition, which jointly represent 26 Melbourne councils. I commend the work of Councillor Mick Van de Vreede, the Chairperson of the Eastern Transport Coalition, and also the work of Councillor Jackie Fristacky, from the Metropolitan Transport Forum. They have put forward some very useful ideas for public transport infrastructure in Melbourne, essentially under the heading of the need for the federal government to allow urban public transport to be funded under AusLink or through the creation of specific programs and, secondly, proposing that the federal government provide funding for a number of urban public transport initiatives in Melbourne’s east. As they say, it is clear that Australia is facing immense challenges to create sustainable cities for the future.

This is something which was looked at by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage, which published the report Sustainable cities back in August 2005. It looked at many of these concerns, and it recommended:

... the Australian Government significantly boost its funding commitment for public transport systems, particularly light and heavy rail, in the major cities.

It further recommended:

... the provision of Australian Government transport infrastructure funds include provision of funding specifically for sustainable public transport infrastructure for suburbs and developments on the outer fringes of our cities.

That is consistent with the federal Labor Party’s platform, which states that we need to ensure that Australians have access to adequate public transport services by providing appropriate financial assistance to state governments to improve and extend public transport systems in urban areas. It is also consistent with the kinds of initiatives which occurred during the time of Better Cities, when there were cooperative funding arrangements struck with the Victorian government to fund extensions to light rail and upgrades to heavy rail.

There are several projects, which have been mentioned, in the eastern metropolitan area of Melbourne which would help reduce congestion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I mention to the House the rail to Rowville project, which would provide a heavy rail connection from Huntingdale station to Rowville, along the median of Wellington Road to Stud Park Shopping Centre at Rowville. That would remove thousands of private vehicles from the road network. That project has been proposed for the past 40 years. The City of Knox has undertaken a prefeasibility study for that project, and a great deal of work has been done on it.

Furthermore, there is a proposal for the Belgrave and Lilydale lines beyond Ringwood to be duplicated, with the addition of a third track in a number of locations along the Belgrave and Lilydale lines. That would assist flexibility in train operations and improve safety and service levels. Thirdly, there is a proposal for rail to Doncaster. There is a space along the Eastern Freeway median to provide heavy rail from Victoria Park to Doncaster and beyond. It should be noted that you would need to get extra capacity on the Clifton Hill group of lines and an upgrade of the city loop as part of such a project.

There are also proposals to improve the coordination and transfer of passengers at transport interchanges. Commuters hate changing modes, and little is done to assist with protection from the weather or with directions and real-time information. The current network of public transport requires greater coordination between modes, and better passenger facilities are required where train, tram and bus services meet.

These are all very important and sensible proposals. I hope that they are given consideration, and I hope that both the federal and state governments work hard at meeting our public transport infrastructure needs. I commend this piece of legislation to the House.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have listened to the contributions this afternoon from a number of speakers on the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 and I have heard all sorts of claims and counterclaims. It is fascinating that it happens in this parliament all the time. The member for Wills articulated a number of instances where previous Labor governments have been infrastructure builders, but he forgot the former government’s very significant infrastructure programs—AusLink 1 and 2. They are programs that have been taken up by the current Rudd government as basically a multibillion dollar nation-building exercise.

I was privileged to sit on one of the transport standing committees earlier in my parliamentary life and at that stage we recognised the need to look at not only road infrastructure across the country, which has been discussed here, but also the rail system. We also looked at the necessity of having a national plan to fix the rail system, particularly in New South Wales or the eastern states, and also of making multimodal arrangements. That is proceeding. The sad part about it is that it should have been done by the state governments. The state governments have let Australia down badly. It is such a shame that much of the state infrastructure ran down. The federal government is now looking at taking over responsibility for the country’s ports which, again, are the responsibility of the states. This bill is certainly welcomed. All of us have a responsibility to make sure that we get our infrastructure right.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 is very important, and I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate. I would firstly like to tell you a bit about the electorate of Grey and the things that are happening there at the moment. Whilst the thrust of this legislation is not unwelcome, what I am very concerned about is that Infrastructure Australia will be just another body that may not have the teeth that we need to get the job done. One of the things that I have been increasingly worried about as I look around my electorate is that federal governments have funded much of the capital works and the infrastructure that is happening and we seem to see a great lag in state governments carrying their fair share of the load. I do not want to get into state-bashing on this—it is important that we bring everyone together—but my concern is that Infrastructure Australia will not have the teeth to perform this job.

Our states are swimming in GST collections. As we are talking about infrastructure issues, I might raise the issue of fuel. Some three years ago, fuel was around $1.10 a litre and it is now $1.50 a litre—a rise of 40c. For every litre, that is an extra 3.6c that is collected in GST. There were 37,000 megalitres consumed in Australia in 2007. South Australia’s share of the GST windfall on that consumption was around $100 million. That is unbudgeted income. It comes as a windfall for the government, and still things are not happening as quickly as we would like to see. Page 5 of the Bills Digest, providing information and analysis advice on this bill, says:

It is noteworthy that the areas where the Commonwealth had whole or partial responsibility—airports, telecommunications and national roads—ranked relatively highly. Areas of state government (and to a lesser extent local government) responsibility were most in need of remediation.

In the concluding comments on page 19, the Bills Digest says:

But what the relationship will be between Infrastructure Australia and regulatory bodies—such as the Australian Energy Regulator, the Australian Energy Market Commission, and state bodies such as Essential Services Commission of South Australia—is unclear. Nor is the relationship clear between Infrastructure Australia and other Commonwealth government agencies such as Treasury, which play a role in developing policy that affects infrastructure.

Hence my concern about the weaknesses of Infrastructure Australia.

The seat of Grey promises great things to come. I spoke a little in my maiden speech about my electorate, as new members are wont to do. Grey will become the economic generator for South Australia. I call it the 92 per cent factor. Grey covers 92 per cent of South Australia; thus it stands to reason that we have 92 per cent of the resources. We will probably produce less than 92 per cent of the exports but, with the great explosion that is happening in the mining industry in South Australia at the moment, I believe that the great wealth that will underpin the South Australian economy will come from my electorate. It is my intention, as the member for Grey, to make sure that the windfalls from that increased production, the explosion that we are going to see, will be reinvested back in the electorate and be invested in infrastructure.

So what needs to be done in Grey? I have quite a long list of issues. It seems exceedingly long but, as I pointed out, as Grey covers 92 per cent of the state, we might well need more than just one-ninth of the infrastructure—as 11 seats in South Australia would indicate. The port of Thevenard, on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula, already puts through two million tonnes a year of traditional product—gypsum and wheat or grains. There are problems at the Thevenard port. It is very shallow. There is a mineral sands deposit north of Ceduna being developed by Iluka Resources of which will produce 500,000 tonnes of zircon and ilmenite a year. The current ship limitation at Thevenard is 20,000 tonnes. To move around the world the type of commodity that we are talkings we need to be able to get bigger ships in. If we cannot achieve that, we are looking at much more expensive options much further away. The next port is 400 kilometres away in Port Lincoln. So there are problems there. A report that was prepared for the Eyre Regional Development Board puts forwad a $39 million solution. For the farmers out there, if we do not achieve a breakthrough soon, the shipping will dry up completely and they will be looking at freight bills of $40 to $50 a tonne.

This brings me to Port Bonython, just out of Whyalla, in the upper Spencer Gulf. We will need a new deep sea port in the upper Spencer Gulf, as there are a lot of projects swinging in the state at the moment in the mineral exploration area which will otherwise become unviable. We have four companies that have recently banded together to push for development of the port—Western Plains Resources, Centrex Metals, IMX Resources and Ironclad Mining—who estimate there will be 20 million tonnes of ore going out of northern South Australia by 2015 and, at this stage, we have no means of getting that onto a boat. There is already an iron ore loading facility at Whyalla controlled by OneSteel, but we are going to need a lot more.

We have a backlog on maintenance of state roads. The last official estimate I saw, which was some years old, was a $200 million backlog. Old worn-out roads on Yorke Peninsula and in the mid-north, roads like the Kulpara to Yorketown, and the Barrier Highway north of Burra are old bitumen tracks which you can barely drive a truck on and are ill suited to the needs of a modern export economy. We have growing communities on Yorke Peninsula. Yorke Peninsula is becoming, dare I say, the Sunshine Coast of South Australia, and we are seeing major developments, with a Greg Norman golf course going in at Moonta and major housing developments. People are moving up from Adelaide; they are taking their retirement cheques, getting out of the smoke and going to the beautiful shores of Yorke Peninsula.

Many of these communities are on antiquated water systems. Once again, there is a backlog due to underinvestment by state governments. The delivery line into Ardrossan is 75 years old and we are sitting on refusals for development there because there is just no more water. In the mid-north town of Orroroo, only 800 people live in Orroroo, but they have been living there for 90 years—I do not mean all of them individually; not everyone in Orroroo is 90 years old, I might point out. But it is a town that has been there for a long time and has proof of its existence. It is only 25 kilometres away from a pipeline, yet none has ever been built. While we know water is a big issue, there are also all these infrastructure problems.

We have a number of wind farm developments, on the Eyre Peninsula in particular, have stopped because the interconnector to Eyre Peninsula that used to bring all the power into the peninsula was designed 30 years ago—consequently we have turned around and there are now enough wind farms on the Eyre Peninsula to send the power back down the line the other way—and is no longer capable of getting away what could be generated in that part of the world. The Peninsula is particularly friendly for wind generation. So there is this backlog of infrastructure issues in Grey which needs to be addressed.

I would like to point out what has been good. In the last 10 years or so a lot of money has been spent on infrastructure, in particular on the roads under the AusLink program. We have seen major upgrades of National Highway 1 from Port Wakefield to Port Augusta. We have seen the Eyre Highway widened and upgrades to the Stuart Highway. We have seen enormous investment in local roads through the councils. If anyone should think to ask the councils what they think of government funding, they would say, ‘Well, we don’t even bother to ask the state any more; we just go to the federal government, because we know that, under the Roads to Recovery program, if we put up a good project we have a good chance of seeing it approved.’

We had a rail upgrade, once again on the Eyre Peninsula. If something was not done, the railway was going to have to close. We were looking at growers transporting grain 250 kilometres or more by road to port, with the accompanying stress on the roads. I will just run you through the figures in the rescue package for the railway. The federal government put up $15 million under AusLink; the operator put up $11 million; ABB Grain, the main operator of the grain accumulation set-up along the railway line and on the Eyre Peninsula, put up $4½ million; a levy was placed on the growers to produce $2 million towards this $30 million upgrade; and the South Australian government matched the growers, putting up just $2 million.

The point of all this is to say yes, by all means, establish Infrastructure Australia. But what are we going to do to make sure that this body has got teeth? I seriously wonder whether Infrastructure Australia and the regulations that surround it have the power to fix any of this or whether it is just going to be another talkfest. I certainly hope they do fix it. I certainly hope they can make a difference. But will it be able to, in the end, get the state Labor governments to lift their end of the bargain and step up to the plate and deliver what they should be delivering from the windfall tax dollars that they are receiving at the moment?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really delighted to be following the new member for Grey, who spoke about the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. I congratulate him on his election to this place. I also wish to say that I think what he demonstrated in his speech is actually why this bill is so desperately needed. The connectivity issues that he raised, the issues around the tiers of government and the fact that a lot of the focus has been on road funding and not necessarily on some of the rail freight issues and port connectivity issues or on some of the broader issues around broadband are really important issues that we want Infrastructure Australia to deal with. We certainly look forward to the opposition’s support on this bill.

This bill provides for the establishment of Infrastructure Australia, whose role is to advise government, investors and owners of infrastructure concerning nationally significant infrastructure priorities; policy and regulatory reforms desirable to improve the efficient utilisation of national infrastructure networks; options to address impediments to the development and provision of efficient national infrastructure; the needs of users; and possible financing mechanisms. The bill is another example of the government delivering on its election commitments. The bill keeps our promises to concentrate our efforts on expanding the capacity of the Australian economy and to combat inflation. Infrastructure Australia will play an integral role as the conduit for a more nationally coordinated approach to infrastructure. Australia does need a strategic blueprint for our country’s infrastructure needs. Infrastructure Australia will be charged with the responsibility of auditing the adequacy of our nation’s infrastructure as its first point of business.

The review of the current state of play is needed so that we can start to really understand what is happening and how to address Australia’s national infrastructure bottlenecks. Within 12 months, by March 2009, Infrastructure Australia will develop an infrastructure priority list for presentation to the Council of Australian Goverments. This list will clearly set out the partnership approach between the state and federal governments and where the priorities lie when it comes to national infrastructure investment. These priorities will be based on the needs of our nation and its economy.

In its dealings with COAG, Infrastructure Australia will continually monitor and report information on the progress of nationally significant infrastructure investment and also on the progress of the implementation of relevant decisions set out by COAG. Infrastructure Australia will also take part in combating our climate change future by providing advice on infrastructure policy issues that arise from this great concern. Infrastructure Australia’s other responsibilities include the following: where commissioned, they will also deal with policy, pricing and infrastructure issues that impact on infrastructure utilisation; where commissioned, they will evaluate business cases of projects, project financing options including public-private partnerships and manage the probity process; and they will also identify disincentives to investment in nationally significant infrastructure. This will be done with scope to harmonise regulations, legislation and guidelines across jurisdictions by improving the efficiency of the delivery of projects or by standardising formats in tender documents and contracts.

Australia has to be competitive in world markets. We must set clear investment priorities. Infrastructure Australia will focus investment away from the previous government’s political approach to infrastructure funding decisions and focus on a needs based infrastructure investment system—a system that will act in the national interest and tackle infrastructure bottlenecks head-on, a system that will be decided not on the basis of the margin of a seat but on a strong cost-benefit analysis.

The Australian Labor Party have always recognised the need to act in the national interest to build this nation’s infrastructure. We led the way in nation building under Ben Chifley’s watch with the beginning of the Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Scheme. Gough Whitlam came to power when our hospitals and sewerage systems were badly in need of mending and upgrading and got on with the job. Tom Uren, as minister for urban and regional development, saw the creation of land commissions to ensure availability of reasonably priced housing blocks and the development of new planned communities. Bob Hawke pushed forward an economic agenda that allowed us to be competitive with the rest of the world. Paul Keating completed the standardisation of rail tracks in 1995 and introduced reforms that saw innovative housing programs under the Better Cities Program.

Today the Rudd government is continuing Labor’s nation-building tradition. The bill is essential to growing the Australian economy. We have introduced the bill to the House so early in our term because Australia needs sound investment in infrastructure. We have heard example after example of where lack of strategic investment in infrastructure is contributing to capacity constraints within the Australian economy. According to CEDA, our current infrastructure backlog has been conservatively estimated at $25 billion in water, energy and land transport alone—infrastructure shortfalls that are costing us 0.8 per cent of GDP in lost production.

The Infrastructure Australia Bill is vital to growing the Australian economy. A coordinated approach to infrastructure investment, which is what this bill would deliver, is imperative for Australia’s growth. We simply cannot do without it. If you just look at what we inherited from the 11 long years of the Howard government, the former government left behind high inflation, a skills crisis and significant capacity constraints in the Australian economy. Although the Leader of the Opposition would have us believe that the economy was left in absolutely first-rate condition, after over 20 ignored Reserve Bank warnings on inflation and recurrent investment rate rises, I think the term ‘first-rate’ is embellishing the truth a little.

We are also now picking up the pieces of a government that was never interested in nation building. No plan or policy was ever established by those opposite to coordinate its approach to infrastructure investment. The bill has received widespread support from industry groups. These groups, like the Australian Industry Group, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, the Business Council of Australia, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia and Engineers Australia, have all called for a coordinated approach to infrastructure planning and development. Engineers Australia have maintained that for more than a decade infrastructure throughout Australia needed better coordination and long-term integrated planning.

The Business Council of Australia has called for an integrated long-term planning framework across jurisdictions for the coordinated provision of infrastructure to underpin sustained economic growth. The cries of groups like the Business Council of Australia and Engineers Australia were falling on deaf ears under the previous government. This country is in desperate need of Infrastructure Australia, a body to coordinate the provision of infrastructure and to set a long-term plan for the country’s infrastructure needs. In the past this has not existed. This is in fact the first time we have actually had a minister for infrastructure, and I congratulate my colleague the member for Grayndler on his appointment and also for his dedication and hard work on this most important and difficult portfolio area.

Infrastructure is one of the five points in Labor’s plan to lift productivity, fight inflation and sustain economic growth. Without modern and maintained infrastructure, particularly in the areas of transport, energy, communication and water assets, Australia has no strong economic future. The bill clearly provides a foundation as part of our five-point plan to provide national leadership to tackle infrastructure bottlenecks.

The coordinated approach will ensure that our view is long-term, and not one that extends only to the next election. This coordinated approach will ensure that infrastructure is approached in a structured, sustainable manner and that Australian taxpayers are getting value for money. The bill will provide the base that will enable Australia to lift investment for new infrastructure whilst making sure that our existing infrastructure is used to its maximum benefit.

While new investment in infrastructure is absolutely critical, it is essential that the benefits are maximised and not approached in a haphazard way. This bill will see a more streamlined approach to infrastructure establishment and maintenance. One of the first jobs of Infrastructure Australia is to undertake a national audit that will determine the condition and the capacity of our current nationally significant infrastructure. This is a major task of great importance and the expectation is that it will be completed within 12 months—a big job but one that this government is up to.

The audit will provide the evidence that is necessary to funnel real dollars from real investments into real projects. The audit will identify the gaps, the impediments and the bottlenecks of our current infrastructure and provide guidance as to our future demands. It is not going to be an easy task to tackle; we absolutely acknowledge that. Our nation’s major infrastructure concerns are a very complex task to fix. We cannot click our fingers and fix every one of them tomorrow, and there is a lot of money involved in the investment, but with this bill the Rudd government is determined to make an absolutely serious start. I commend the bill to the House.

Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the government’s Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008, a bill which will establish a statutory authority known as Infrastructure Australia. While I do not oppose all the points in the bill, I call on the Australian government to do several things: firstly, to lift restrictions upon Infrastructure Australia undertaking a review of its own volition; secondly, to ensure that the minister’s power to give new functions to Infrastructure Australia are subject to primary disallowance; and, thirdly, to ensure that the minister seeks advice from Infrastructure Australia before appointing the Infrastructure Coordinator.

The coalition government, through strong economic management, were able to invest in the upgrading of Australia’s infrastructure. The coalition reformed previous ad hoc approaches put in place by the then Labor government and developed the AusLink program—a program which invested a total of $38 billion over a 10-year period; a program which identified corridors of national importance and developed long-term plans; a program which included Roads to Recovery, which funded over 25,000 local council roads and benefited my electorate and every other electorate in the country. We also reintroduced the Black Spot Program, which had been axed by the previous Labor government—a program which aims at improving road safety and, on average, upgrades 300 black spots on our roads each year. These have been extremely successful programs.

The question I put is: why does the government feel the need to create another bureaucratic layer when the current programs are successful and deliver positive outcomes? Why add another layer of red tape and bureaucracy? The cost to the taxpayer of this layer of bureaucracy will be $20 million over four years. We already have the Council of Australian Governments and the reports they have committed to providing every five years. I note the first of those reports should already be sitting on the minister’s desk. Why do we need another level of bureaucracy when we have AusLink under the reporting mechanism through COAG? Given that these reports provide information on rail, roads, airports, seaports, energy and water for each state, why does the Labor government need to create a new layer? Does it simply not trust the information it has from its own state Labor governments?

I have seven roads in my electorate which urgently need upgrading. These roads were identified by the Hawkesbury City Council and local residents in my community. Unlike the Rudd Labor government, the then coalition government did not need a statutory authority, at a cost of $20 million, to advise them that these roads needed upgrading. I would like to draw the attention of the House and the government to the following roads in my electorate that need upgrading. The roads include Freemans Reach Road, which carries approximately 5,500 vehicles per day and needs to be rehabilitated at a cost of $305,000. Comleroy Road, at Kurrajong, needs a portion of its road shoulder resealed at a cost of $585,000. Three kilometres of work needs to be done between Old Bells Line of Road and East Kurrajong Road. Terrace Road, North Richmond, needs to have a portion of its road shoulder sealed at a cost of $741,000. The 3.7 kilometres of work would start from the end of the factories at North Richmond and end at Wire Lane.

There is Grose Vale Road, from North Richmond to Grose Vale, a portion of which needs to be resealed at a cost of $995,000. The 5.1 kilometre roadworks would start at the entrance of the Sydney Water depot in North Richmond and would finish at Grose Wold Road. Scheyville Road, Oakville, needs a portion of the road sealed at a cost of $836,500 to provide adequate carriageway width. This particular roadwork would start at Old Stock Route Road and finish 4.29 kilometres down the road at Dunns Road. Old East Kurrajong Road over Howes Creek needs the approach road sealed by the construction of multicell box culverts at a cost of $425,000. This would provide flood-free access based on a one in 20 year flood occurrence. Finally, Old Stock Route Road, Brennans Dam Road and Commercial Road, Vineyard, need construction, again, of multicell box culverts and adjacent roadworks at a cost of $975,900. This project would, again, provide flood-free access based on a one in 20 year flood occurrence. The total cost for the upgrade of these roads in my community is approximately $5 million. I would like to point out that the then coalition government, late last year, acknowledged these roads and committed to upgrading them. I call on the Australian government to honour this commitment and demonstrate their care and concern for the people of Greenway by funding these roads.

I would like to advise the House that today I received communication from my local Rural Fire Service advising that another road needs urgent attention: the intersection of Boundary Road and Old Pitt Town Road, which was, tragically, the site of a major vehicle accident only 11 days ago which resulted in the loss of a life. Last week there was another accident at the same intersection, involving a mother and her daughter. Fortunately, they are okay. This is, again, another road in my electorate which needs a safety upgrade, and I am calling on the Australian government to commit to funding these urgent needs.

The response to Infrastructure Australia has been mixed, and concerns have been raised regarding how Infrastructure Australia will perform the functions it has been allocated. I am concerned about the lack of transparency. The minister will be able to give direction to Infrastructure Australia without being accountable directly to the parliament. What we will have is an annual report, and within that, again, there will be no transparency or accountability to the parliament.

A report by the Australian Infrastructure Report Card Alliance in 2001—the group is a major infrastructure stakeholder which prepares a report on infrastructure adequacy—gave rankings of: (a) very good, (b) good, (c) adequate, (d) poor and (e) inadequate. In this report, it is noteworthy that the areas where the Commonwealth had full or partial responsibility—namely, airports, telecommunications and national roads—ranked relatively highly but areas of state government and, to a lesser extent, local government responsibility were most in need of remediation. I think that while this bill focuses on another layer of bureaucracy it may fail to look at certain inadequacies of the state Labor governments and their management of infrastructure, particularly where they have been responsible.

We will see the Rudd Labor government, over this term, talk about the delivery of infrastructure, but I would like to remind the House that this is, indeed, possible because the coalition government, having managed the economy so well, has placed in the hands of the new government a significant surplus, which will reach an estimated $20 billion, and has also put in place restructuring and reform in the form of AusLink, which has provided funding infrastructure up until 2013-14. I recommend and encourage strongly that the Australian government look at the three points that I initially made in speaking to the House today—that is, again, to lift the restrictions upon Infrastructure Australia to undertake reviews of its own volition, to ensure that the minister’s power to give new functions to Infrastructure Australia is subject to primary disallowance and to ensure that the minister seeks advice from Infrastructure Australia before appointing the Infrastructure Coordinator.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 demonstrates Labor’s commitment to being the party dedicated to building a nation. Frankly, all members should be aware that the ongoing development of the nation’s infrastructure is critical in meeting the challenges of the 21st century. It is vital for meeting just about every economic measure that contributes to our nation’s wellbeing; therefore, the development of Infrastructure Australia has been one of this government’s highest priorities. It is one that the government said would be achieved—that a new organisation, Infrastructure Australia, would be set up—within the first 100 days of being in office. This approach puts the focus on the development of infrastructure and how critical that is in addressing the nation’s economic performance. It is also important to project that into the future to work out precisely what should be the priorities for infrastructure so that it can not only cope with the changing demands on the country but also advance its productivity.

A continuing challenge for the government will be its role in ensuring that there is a sustainable, yet competitive approach to the nation’s infrastructure markets, in setting clear and concise priorities in investment opportunities and in ensuring that appropriate regulation is maintained. The Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 before the House is all about raising investment levels in the nation’s physical infrastructure and, simultaneously, getting the maximum from our existing assets.

I will quickly outline the provisions in the bill and why they are significant. The reason is simply that the nation needs leadership. The nation needs to have a critical examination of its economic requirements for the provision of infrastructure in the future. It needs to harness those measures with a view to ensuring that sufficient priority is given to Commonwealth assets, in conjunction with state and territory governments assets. Infrastructure Australia will be required to audit the adequacy of the nation’s infrastructure and, within 12 months, to develop an infrastructure priority list based on that audit, which will then be considered by COAG. I do not think an argument has ever been put that the provision of infrastructure is in the sole domain of any one sphere of government in this country. However, it is essential that we have an appropriate and agreed prioritisation as well as the timely positioning of infrastructure so as to cope with the growth within our country and that provides an economic platform to develop and enhance our productivity level.

The government has agreed that the role of Infrastructure Australia will be as an adviser to the government, investors and owners of infrastructure about infrastructure priorities of national significance. It will provide policy and regulatory reforms to improve the efficient utilisation of national infrastructure networks as well as options to address impediments to the development and provision of efficient national infrastructure. It will consider the needs of the various users and possible financing mechanisms, which is all-important. Further, when referring to infrastructure of national significance, the bill specifically recognises transport, energy, communications and water as areas in which further investment is vital to develop and improve Australia’s national productivity.

This is a critical piece of legislation in establishing this, and I am happy that speakers on all sides of the parliament are supporting this bill, because they should. It is clearly the first concrete building block that has been laid in place for developing our infrastructure for quite a long time. In the Australian Labor Party, as you no doubt appreciate, we are not foreign to this concept of nation building. It goes back to the Chifley government, which undertook the construction of the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme, and the Whitlam government, which provided practical infrastructure solutions such as the nation’s hospitals and, more importantly for me in Werriwa, ensured the provision of sewerage to Campbelltown and Liverpool. That goes back to the sixties and is something that is still talked about by the older generation out there who look at the approaches that were adopted by the Labor government of the time. More recently, the Hawke and Keating governments opened up our economy and made us more competitive. Under Keating the Better Cities Program was introduced. It saw the broad-ranging strategy for reform that included innovative housing programs and the renewed focus on urban consolidation. That is not a bad record for what Labor has done in terms of community building and nation building when it was in power.

I would like to briefly contrast that with what occurred in the past 11 years of the Howard government. The Howard government had a unique opportunity to provide growth within the economy and to invest in nation building and the provision of infrastructure. The Howard government wasted 11½ years of office and of Australia’s need to become internationally competitive through the provision of infrastructure. As a consequence, the provision of our infrastructure is all the poorer. It is clear that the former government was never really interested in nation building. Indeed, it was upon the election of the Rudd government that the important position of federal infrastructure minister was first created. There has never been that position in the past and no indication that that would occur, notwithstanding how glorious and rosy the members opposite would like to say the economy is that they have bequeathed to the country. That same economy, which I would remind you, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker Saffin, has now undergone 10 consecutive interest rate rises, and now has the threat of inflation as public enemy No. 1. That has left a considerable amount of work for Labor to do to harness economic growth in those circumstances.

The Howard government had 11½ years to fix the bottlenecks and put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates but failed dismally to do so. What did they actually seek to do? They thought up the Regional Partnerships program. It was not a bad program, as my colleague the member for Stirling has indicated, if you had a government seat that was going to be assessed for a program. We heard in question time only recently that many of these regional partnerships grants were granted on one day’s application. In the Central Coast, Tumbi Creek was cleared, and yet it did not need to be cleared. It actually flooded, but they still got their money for it. And today we heard about a cheese factory in the electorate of Indi that did not even have to produce anything. It is still getting its regional partnerships grant and it has closed its doors. That is the difference in approach in terms of a vision of economic drivers in our economy. What was being looked at in those days was simply what it takes to do or say to buy an election win. That is all it was about.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whatever it takes—that was your line, wasn’t it?

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is on the scoreboard; you can read that. You can see that there is a difference. Quite frankly, Labor can make fun of the opposition on this because they are worthy of having fun poked at them. But realistically this is the difference between a government which is addressing the long-term needs of the country—not only to next year or to the next election. This government is looking at the country’s needs over the next decade and to the provision of infrastructure necessary to be able to drive and sustain that competitive economy into the future. This is what is necessary if we are to have a serious economic future. This is our competitive footing, and it is going to take a Labor government to deliver that. I support the bill.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. While I do not oppose the bill, I am a bit concerned about the involvement of state governments who have a history, particularly in my state of New South Wales, of gross mismanagement of most infrastructure projects. It does not matter whether it is road or rail—although the gross mismanagement in rail is that they shut it down. I suppose that is infrastructure building at its best—when you look around and say: ‘Okay, what savings can I make so that I can pour my money into a city area, into a cross-city tunnel or into some major infrastructure thing that has gone wrong in the city? I think I’ll cut something from the country.’ That has typically been the attitude of the New South Wales government.

I am here to raise the issue of Infrastructure Australia and its involvement with the states. I understand that Infrastructure Australia will reside in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. It is regional development that I want to discuss. Most people would think that the discussion around this bill would be primarily centred on roads and associated heavy vehicle industry, rail or Auslink proposals—all of those kinds of issues. But I would like to draw the House’s attention to a few issues that I am having great difficulty with. It is not the first time, and it definitely will not be the last time, that you hear me rise in the parliament to raise this issue. I cite an opinion piece in my local paper, the Daily Advertiser, from 12 March 2008. The opinion piece says that the health sector needs new direction, and it is quite right. The Daily Advertiser and the community of Wagga Wagga have been absolutely scathing of state governments—I have to say, both coalition and Labor—which have been grossly neglectful of them and have been unable to provide Wagga Wagga with a base hospital. This has been going on for years—in fact, 30 years of promises made and promises broken by every form of government. We are still in the same situation. We do need a new direction. We must have a new direction in health.

The opinion piece talks about discussions that I had with the previous Minister for Health and Ageing. I approached him many times about making the Riverina a pilot project whereby the Commonwealth would take over the delivery of health to see exactly how it could run it in its entirety. I would really urge the current Minister for Health and Ageing to consider a pilot project, most appropriately in the Riverina, so that we could finally get some action on the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. At this hospital not only are men and women sharing bathrooms but sinks are falling off walls, physicians are unable to attend, surgeons are unable to operate and operating theatres are being shut down because water is pumping through the roof and filling them up with water—near electrical equipment—so all surgery is postponed. It is a saga of sagas; it just goes on and on. And now we find that white ants are eating the kids ward out entirely. This was revealed in the Daily Advertiser on 11 March. I thought I could never be shocked by what is happening in the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital—that there could not be any more said about the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital that has not already been identified. But sadly there is. Sadly, staff discovered the white ants eating away the window frames of the children’s ward. The article in the Daily Advertiser quotes parents and doctors saying that the infestation is just one indication of the ward’s poor condition.

The paediatrician who has worked in the children’s ward is quoted as saying that the ward had been in a progressively poor state for years, that the biggest issue was cross-infection, that the ward was not safe from infection, that 12 children were being actively treated for cancer in this ward, that the treatment suppressed their immunity and that with poor cross-infection control they are most certainly at risk. The doctor went on to say that out of the 10 standards of the national health department the ward failed eight of them. They only had two inadequate isolation rooms, where contagious children were separated by only a curtain, and the ward was also often overcrowded and crammed, with few facilities for parents to stay the night with their dreadfully sick children. It is a disgrace. It is an infrastructure nightmare that should have been addressed by the state government over the years. I admit that I took it to the former Minister for Health and Ageing when the Commonwealth intervened on the Mersey Hospital. I thought that that opened up my case, allowing me to go to the minister to intervene in the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. It is atrocious. Stories of the atrocious conditions that the staff—fabulous staff—are forced to work in are in the paper day after day.

I will be raising the issue of infrastructure with respect to the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital on a consistent basis because I believe that the Minister for Health would like to resolve this ongoing issue and I am hopeful that she can use her power to step in. She has already indicated that the reason that it would be better to have a Labor federal government is that the blame game would be stopped between the states and the Commonwealth and the enormous health problem that exists, particularly in New South Wales, would be more easily resolved by having the Labor Party at Commonwealth and state levels. I agree with her. I think that she has the tools and the ability. She is a very competent minister and I believe wholeheartedly that if she really puts her mind to it, she will be able to resolve this ongoing issue for the Riverina people. It is the only regional referral hospital. All the other hospitals were shut down as base hospitals. There is only one base hospital for referral. The difference is that at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, a two-bed ward was made into a four-bed ward and a four-bed ward was made into an eight-bed ward. No additional staff, services or facilities were installed. It is an absolutely disgusting disgrace and staff should not have to work in that area.

Communications infrastructure in my electorate is another major topic. It has been an ongoing issue for so long. I was surprised to see, with these major plans for the rollout of broadband, that we are going to raid the rural infrastructure fund—the money put away to ensure that rural telecommunications and communications were always kept up to speed. The interest earned from the Future Fund was to be used to ensure rural and regional people would have access to services and communications capacity, which of course they are entitled to. However, I see in the paper—and that is generally how I find things out now:

The federal government will not award a tender to build its planned national high-speed broadband network until September at the earliest, several months later than it hoped.

I am quoting from the Daily Advertiser of 12 March 2008. There is an obvious problem. The minister ‘had hoped to award the tender in June to build the $8 billion fibre-to-the-node network’. We all know that $8 billion for fibre to the node means fibre to the node in the city, and fibre to the node to houses in rural and regional Australia is not included in that money. Not only has it not been taking place; it is going to be put off for quite a while yet. That is sad because rural and regional people require access to reliable, adequate, fast and significant broadband services. Along with the Deputy Speaker, the member for Maranoa, I have always been pushing the barrow for rural and regional communications.

I come to a concern that I have in West Wyalong, which is in the Bland shire in my electorate. Again we have this combination of states and Commonwealth. Within Infrastructure Australia the states are going to have a fairly significant role in this. The Bland shire has a major problem; it is almost unthinkable. I wrote to the minister on 4 December about an issue of road classification confronting the Bland shire, after having had it brought to my attention on that day. I first congratulated the minister, as he should be congratulated, of course. I am sure that he will do a great job in resolving many of these state infrastructure problems, particularly through the Infrastructure Australia Bill. I explained to the minister that the Newell Highway runs through the main street of West Wyalong like a very narrow snake and that it is unsuitable for B-double truck movements. Bland Shire Council established a bypass for heavy vehicles to take B-doubles out of the CBD and an appropriate local road was gazetted as the B-double route.

There is a bit of a problem with this. Council have found that there are two major concerns with the bypass road. Firstly, there is a cost involved in maintaining a road to B-double standards. I note that local government is also involved in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, in which Infrastructure Australia will sit. We have cost shifted onto local government. Bland Shire Council have not been able to upgrade the road so that B-doubles are out of the CBD, and they have found it very difficult to get the attention of the state government. They sought to reclassify the five-kilometre route as a regional road, which would be funded by the New South Wales RTA. As yet, council have not had any results from the road reclassification panel.

Secondly—and we think more importantly—there was an AusLink application. It was rejected because the Newell Highway has been classified as a higher mass limit route. The local roads are not rated to carry the increased loads that are now permitted on heavy vehicle combinations without permits applicable to specific companies on specific routes. In West Wyalong, the council are now presented with the anomaly of the Newell Highway heavy vehicle bypass forcing the trucks with a high mass limit accreditation onto a local road, and now they get fined for being on the local road. They are having a major difficulty there.

It is a two-tiered issue. One issue is that they desperately need funding to upgrade their bypass in order that it can meet the higher mass limit route, and obviously they need an expeditious reclassification of the road from local to regional status as well. That would enable funds for upgrading to come from a state allocation. Yet, when I brought this to the minister’s attention, he clearly said, ‘As you would be aware, the New South Wales government, through the Roads and Traffic Authority and local government, is responsible for the operation and the management of New South Wales regional roads.’ I am aware of that, and of course the minister is right.

But, if Infrastructure Australia is to genuinely work for all people of Australia, including rural and regional people, and it sits within the minister’s portfolio—and Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is a fairly large portfolio—and if the members of the panel must have expertise, one in local government, I am hopeful that surely the minister will see that common sense prevails on the establishment of Infrastructure Australia. In establishing this body, surely the minister can ensure that common sense prevails over this ridiculous situation that Bland Shire Council find themselves in. They are neither here nor there. They have an anomaly, with a road designed to get the vehicles out, where the vehicles can now be fined because it is not a higher mass limits road. They desperately need a road reclassification. I am hopeful that the minister can help us out with that.

Again I see some of the issues relating to the trucking industry when we look at the imposition that we now have on working truck owners and operators and their families. They have a whole new position where registration fees can in some cases go up 227 per cent. As from 2009, I think there is an additional levy of 1.37c a litre—I might be wrong on that figure; it is off the top of my head. Already the industry has been buckling under high fuel prices. It has not passed them on as much as it should and could have to the consumer. At the same time, we have the ACCC inquiry going on into the high cost of groceries and food, and then we impose a tax on the largest carrier. Yet there is no doubt that, whether we like it or not, rail is never going to be able to replace all of the road freight, nor should it. Of course, grocery prices will have to rise as the new tax increases on truckies are passed on to consumers. There is no choice.

So I do not understand how we can be holding an enquiry that is asking questions about why things are so expensive in the grocery and retail sector while we are imposing another set of conditions that the Liberal government fought the states on and won. We fought and won against the states. The states wanted to impose this before and we fought against it. To his credit, Warren Truss, who was then the minister, was able to defeat it so that the cost would not get passed on to the consumer and so that the road transport operators would have a fair go—because without them the future for Australia and Australian consumers is incredibly bleak.

So I raise these issues for your attention. They are just a few of many issues that will come to the fore over a period of time, and I really do look forward to the success of this new unit in delivering greater benefits and greater accountability from the states.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. This bill clearly is an example of national leadership, nation-building, economic reform and tackling inflation through enhanced productivity.

Let me turn to the bill. The bill sets out the plan to establish Infrastructure Australia—the body that will advise the government—and the Infrastructure Coordinator, to support the operation of Infrastructure Australia. It also sets out the composition and functions of Infrastructure Australia. I note with commendation that Sir Rod Eddington was appointed to the chair of Infrastructure Australia, receiving widespread community approval. Infrastructure Australia will have 12 members including the chair, and I am sure it will comprise some women and men of note who will be able to contribute to the auditing and mapping of national infrastructure requirements.

We all know that enhancing national productivity is a necessary component in the fight to tackle inflation. It is a fight that we are committed to. Infrastructure Australia will not be about our wish lists—and we all have wish lists for our seats; we know what we want in terms of infrastructure—but it will be about looking at infrastructure right across Australia. It will look at the national infrastructure we need to have in place to support and strengthen the economy and tackle productivity. It will also look at rural and regional infrastructure requirements.

The bill goes on to define nationally significant infrastructure to include transport infrastructure, energy infrastructure, communications infrastructure and water infrastructure—the four key areas ‘in which investment or further investment will materially improve national productivity’, which is a key focus of Infrastructure Australia. The primary function of Infrastructure Australia is most telling:

Infrastructure Australia has the primary function of providing advice to the Minister, Commonwealth, State, Territory and local governments, investors in infrastructure and owners of infrastructure on matters relating to infrastructure, including in relation to the following:

(a) Australia’s current and future needs and priorities relating to nationally significant infrastructure ...

But I go back to the primary function, which involves the Commonwealth, state, territory and local governments, because that is what it is about—it is about cooperation. Cooperation is the hallmark of the Rudd Labor government. If we do not have cooperation across all those levels of government and in this case the private sector—because we have to work together—then we will not be able to do what we need to do, which is to map, audit and prepare our national infrastructure to provide us with the basic framework that we need to be competitive and strong and to make our communities sustainable.

One of the primary functions of Infrastructure Australia is to advise—it is not to tell us what to do; it is to advise. Infrastructure Australia, supported by the coordinator, will have the ability and the space to be able to do that. They will be able to do the assessment and the research and provide the evidence that we need to make the decisions about what infrastructure we will set up. The fact that the Commonwealth government has a minister for infrastructure and a department for infrastructure—the first since Federation—demonstrates the Rudd Labor government’s bona fides on the matter of Australia’s infrastructure needs. It is a first, and long, long overdue. The fact that the previous coalition government did not have a minister for infrastructure and a department for infrastructure demonstrates their failure to plan and develop infrastructure required to build and sustain a modern framework to support our workplace, strengthen our economy and sustain our communities. The fact that the previous coalition government were missing in action over regional and rural infrastructure needs throughout 11 years of government demonstrates how they had completely lost touch with the communities in rural and regional Australia and with what their needs were.

The people in Page I represent live in an area that has no public transport to speak of and a roads network that contains the Pacific Highway—which is not just a highway; it is our local road. It is a road that carries an increasing number of B-doubles and all other forms of traffic. In Page, there is an expanding population of sea changers, an increasing number of aged people requiring different forms of transport, particularly for their medical needs, and an increasing movement of goods within the region. Page stretches up to the Queensland border, where we also have movements of traffic through an inland route coming down the Summerland Way. That is an area that needs to be factored in and looked at when we are talking and thinking about infrastructure. We also have lots of young people wanting to access educational services. All of this activity requires transport. I submit that water is essential, communications is essential, energy infrastructure is essential and transport is vital for all the communities to work and be sustainable.

In terms of transport, many in the region of the Northern Rivers want us to look at trains. They want more buses or they want commuter trains to travel on shorter routes. And who can disagree, particularly when we are faced with the challenges of climate change? We are told that trains are far more friendly in terms of climate change, but there are costs. We have to determine people flows and how much it will cost—and that is in all areas, not just trains. The member for Riverina talked about trains and how the New South Wales government had cut train services. The cuts to train services have been going on since the sixties. I agree that there have been such cuts, but it is an old problem and it is one that has not been addressed. Where I live, the train services have been wound back since the sixties. The cuts reached their zenith under a coalition government. The motorail was taken off and the timetabling was changed. It became very unfriendly to country people. People also talk about the ‘missing link’ up my way and how we should have the ‘missing link’. Since 1984 there have been six inquiries done on the ‘missing link’—and the ‘missing link’ is still the missing link. That says something about how all governments have looked at the issue of trains and the ‘missing link’. In fact, when Premier Greiner was leading the New South Wales government, another report was done on the ‘missing link’. It never saw the light of day, but we did manage to get a look at it. It was just one of those issues that nobody would touch.

Good infrastructure is the difference. We need good infrastructure. It is actually the difference between a developing and a developed nation. We are a developed nation, but the OECD has said in terms of infrastructure we are No. 20 out of 25 countries on that list. That does not say a lot about the state of our infrastructure. Infrastructure is the stuff that makes our communities work. It is running water. It is sanitation. It is the power or energy system—that is, generally electricity but also changing forms of energy in keeping with environmental and climate change concerns. It is roads. It is bridges. It is schools. It is hospitals. It is also telecommunications, high-speed internet and download capacity. As the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government said in his address to the National Press Club on 20 February:

Infrastructure is the basic framework or underlying foundation of an organisation or a system.

If we do not get that right, we do not get anything right. That is why it has been necessary to have a minister for infrastructure, to have an infrastructure department and to set up Infrastructure Australia. If we do not get the basics right, it is hard to get anything else right.

Indeed it is, but there has been neglect. If we neglect that then we neglect our economy. Our economy relies on sound and modern infrastructure. The previous coalition government, who trumpeted their economic credentials, failed miserably here. They not only did not identify critical infrastructure needs but did not take infrastructure seriously as an issue, which is inherent to maintaining a strong economy and to tacking inflation. This is despite the 20 warnings from the Reserve Bank regarding inflation that they received. The Rudd Labor government know that to tackle inflation we have to address infrastructure shortfalls. This is one part of our five-point plan to do that. The Infrastructure Australia Bill is a central part of the government’s plan to combat inflation. It will drive investment where it is needed most, fuelling the nation’s productivity capacity, not inflation. Under the Rudd government, infrastructure development investment will be motivated by need and not by the margin of the seat. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Keenan) adjourned.