Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008, which extends AusLink in terms of its operation as well as in its scope and duration. This bill clears the way for the funding under AusLink of heavy vehicle facilities, including off-road facilities that will improve both driver safety and amenities for truck operators. It also provides further funding for the Roads to Recovery program through to 2014, a program under which the local governments in the Fremantle electorate will receive $1,116,697 in the 2008-09 year.

The legislation being considered works to complement, and of course depends upon, the reform that is contained in those bills that effects an appropriate increase in the share of cost borne by heavy vehicle road users. Of course I support those changes, which are fair, reasonable and progressive. As a matter of general economic principle, I am in favour of using a full-cost approach in the assessment and formation of government policy. Not only does this mean that costs are properly and fairly attributed, and therefore properly considered in terms of what constitutes the full extent of effective government support, but it also provides the opportunity to assess the competitive footing on which relevant industry alternatives currently exist and, what is more, the basis on which they might compete if appropriate government support were determined on a full-cost basis.

When it comes to transport and freight policy, it is only right and sensible that road freight be considered with all the costs associated with it taken into account. This may have the effect of making rail freight more competitive and, notwithstanding the fact that road and rail are often seen as the only real domestic freight options, it may be part of a set of prevailing circumstances, including the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which sees a renewal of coastal shipping in Australia. Domestic shipping has fallen into an unnecessary decline in this country, with a range of consequences which in my view extend to the question of Australia’s transport sovereignty and security.

One aspect of the national land transport program that I particularly want to mention is black spot funding. As the Chairperson of the Western Australian Black Spot Consultative Panel, I am only too aware of the range and importance of road projects that this program supports. In Western Australia, the work funded this year will include 46 projects in both rural and urban areas to a total value of $5.927 million. In my role as chairperson of the consultative panel, I of course welcome all the funding that has been delivered and that will continue to be delivered to those Western Australian roads identified as requiring safety improvement. As the member for Fremantle, I am pleased that black spots in Banjup, Yangebup, Hamilton Hill and East Fremantle are being addressed under the program.

I want to take this opportunity to recognise the work done by my predecessor in the role of Chairperson of the Western Australian Black Spot Consultative Panel, Senator Eggleston, and I thank him for his contribution. One of the key aspects of this bill is the funding it enables through definitional change for heavy vehicle safety measures, including the provision of rest stops, decoupling areas and monitoring technology. This forms a part of the Rudd government’s heavy vehicle safety and productivity package. Like the Black Spot Program, this particular funding recognises that road transport, for all its advantages, has associated non-economic costs, the most significant of which is counted in human lives.

As the representative of the electorate that contains the port of Fremantle, I am only too aware that freight transport is a critical economic and community issue. The movement of containers by truck into Fremantle port continues to be a matter of contention between port users on the one hand and metropolitan residents on the other, and there is a long history of simplistic political pointscoring by the Western Australian Liberal Party in relation to what is a complicated issue.

I support the outgoing Western Australian Labor government’s approach to supporting the port’s freight needs while looking to minimise the community impact of road freight. There has been an increase in rail freight out of Fremantle port as a result, and I would dearly like to see that matched in the coming years by an increase in domestic coastal shipping. I refer those members who are interested in the shipping aspect of freight policy to the current House Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government inquiry into coastal shipping policy and regulation, to which I made a submission.

As someone who believes, in broad terms, that the transport policy answers lie in the policy challenge of decreasing our reliance on road freight and road use, I also take this opportunity to welcome the government’s budget commitment of $1.3 million for a freight monitoring and coordination technology project, called Network Intelligence, which will improve the efficiency of road freight movements between Kewdale and Fremantle Port. This is certainly an example of government supporting an initiative in the expectation that we can make things better in many cases by simply being prepared to do them smarter. In addition to the modifications that are planned for the High Street-Stirling Highway intersection, and the improved dual-carriageway section of Leach Highway west of Carrington Street, these initiatives will improve community safety and decrease the truck noise associated with the existing road freight into Fremantle port.

This bill extends the operation of AusLink into the area of heavy vehicle safety and monitoring and expands the scope of the Roads to Recovery program. I welcome these measures as part of the Rudd government’s heavy vehicle safety and productivity package. It is too easy to keep building more and bigger roads and to keep subsidising road use, whether through the politically expedient excise reduction madness of those opposite or through a failure to apply a full-cost approach to road transport analysis. The hard road, if you like, is to acknowledge the fact of ever-diminishing oil resources, not to mention the carbon pollution aspect of road use, and to begin the long and difficult process of changing the way we transport freight and ourselves in Australia.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise in support of the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. I note the large number of members who have spoken on this bill, which I believe is reflective of how vital the concern of roads is to our electorates, particularly in a nation with our geography. It is good to remind ourselves of the two key aspects of this bill. Not only does it expand the amount of funding available for Roads to Recovery by $350 million out to 2014—a massive injection of $1.75 billion—but it also amends the definition of ‘road’ to expand the concept to include truck rest stops, which are so vital to the safety of our roads. There are also the other measures in the heavy vehicle safety and productivity package that the government intends to implement, which has $70 million worth of funding associated with it. I will come back to that point later in relation to my own electorate of Eden-Monaro.

I think my electorate is very illustrative of the essential nature of roads to the fabric of our social lives, to safety and to the economy. It is noteworthy that there was, just this morning, a fatality on the Monaro Highway. My heart goes out to the family of the victim involved. It highlights what a challenge the roads are in Eden-Monaro. Not only do we have many winding roads and no dual carriageways to speak of in most of the electorate but we also have seasonal challenges, such as the snow and ice conditions during the winter months, which quite often extend into a great part of the year. I certainly have faced this challenge myself many times. I nearly lost a campaign worker last year whose car slid off the road in the snow and ice on Laurel Hill. His car was a write-off. This situation is of great concern to families who have kids who have to travel up to Canberra, for example, for TAFE studies and the like. Not only do we have these conditions but many of the roads in Eden-Monaro are very primitive—dirt roads, in fact. Anybody who has travelled the Doctor George Mountain Road, the Tantawangalo Mountain Road, the Eden to Towamba road, the Springfield Road or the Brindabella, Bobeyan or Araluen roads will know what I am talking about. These are significant safety challenges as well as impediments to our economy.

We depend a great deal on these roads. It is an electorate that has a large amount of large-scale haulage in the logging, timber, dairy and livestock industries in the region and also in our tourism. In fact, a lot of our tourism is being held up by these minor road impediments. An example of that is the fabulous Yarrangobilly Caves, over on the South-West Slopes, which is a magnificent tourist venue with huge potential. I recommend all Australians go and visit this site, where there are 300 caves, massive natural cathedrals, warm springs and a beautiful old 1930s guesthouse. The road from the sealed road to the actual site is very difficult for coach access, so we cannot actually get seniors bus tour packages involved to get people to Yarrangobilly.

Similarly, we have been trying to promote employment and industry amongst our Indigenous communities in Eden-Monaro. One of the great ventures near the town of Eden is the Jigamy Farm project, which Pastor Ossie Cruse, a great Indigenous leader of the area, was instrumental in getting up and running. The problem is that the access road to that project, once again, is not suitable for bus access. So roads are critical to improving our economic situation in Eden-Monaro.

One of the things that really shocked me during the election campaign last year was what I call ‘the great Howard road hoax in Eden-Monaro’. It is this politics of hoax that I really hope comes to an end soon, because we are obviously seeing manifestations of it in relation to the pensions issue and in statements that the member for Goldstein made yesterday in relation to the Googong Dam issue, which I will come back to. The example that I give to illustrate this hoax is that last year the Howard government would turn up, in relation to a road project, in fact highlighting the situation that over 12 years we had not seen any effort—or any improvement to these critical road pieces—and it was always the blame game, the politics of pointing at the state and saying it was their responsibility. No effort was gone to to sit down around the table and actually work through these issues to see what each party could bring to the table.

The modus operandi of the Howard government in the lead-up to the election was to come out with a small bag of money and say, ‘Here’s some money to fix Gocup Road,’ let’s say. The figure they had on offer in that situation was $11 million. Then they would say: ‘Okay, that’s it. Gocup Road will be fixed now. We’re going to deliver that if we’re re-elected.’ But the reality was that no effort had gone into sitting around the table with the state government. The road had not even been declared a state road and there was no agreement on what it would actually cost to fix the road. I made no comment on Gocup Road during the campaign for that reason—I did not want to mislead the electorate about the time line or ability to deliver that project.

Since then, we have discovered a great deal about the Howard government not having sat down with the state government. So their indication to the community that they had this somehow sealed away with the state government was completely misleading. It simply had not happened. Since the election, the member for Riverina and the state member for Wagga Wagga have been saying in the press that somehow the Rudd Labor government stole the $11 million that was set aside for Gocup Road. That simply was not true. There was no $11 million set aside at all, so this is completely misleading the community.

In relation to Gocup Road, I sat down and started doing the actual work that you need to do to deliver a project like this. I have held stakeholder meetings involving Visy; the Tumut and Gundagai councils; Carter Holt Harvey, who run the mill at Tumut; and the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority. There had been no discussion and no planning done by the Howard government. It is serious because, by 2010, it is estimated that six million tonnes of wood product will run along the road, doubling from the three million tonnes that was travelling along that road in 1998. It is a serious economic and safety concern. We have decided that we really need to have our facts, because there is disagreement over the amount of money required to fix the road. In some quarters $23 million was suggested. The Roads and Traffic Authority was suggesting $60 million.

We now await Softwoods Working Group’s output, which is going to tell us exactly what volume of traffic we can expect and what the focus and forecasts are for transport productivity. Their report should be produced within the next month or so. Following that, we will have an estimate by the Road Traffic Authority in New South Wales as to the actual costs and work estimates that will be needed to actually do the work. From there, I am determined to sit down with the state government, our colleagues and the minister at the federal level to work out a way forward for the Gocup Road. That is how these things should be done, instead of the election stunts that we saw last year.

That type of stunt was repeated again in relation to the Kings Highway. One of the beefs I had over the Headquarters Joint Operations Command Project out near Bungendore was that it was obviously a purely political ploy to put a project into a marginal electorate. When it was first mooted, not many people in Defence that I knew considered it to be an ideal site for such a headquarters. But, worse than that, the infrastructure aspects around it were not taken care of at all, so roads and water were not initially factored in to the imposition of such a significant project. Then last year, when this became a very significant factor to the local community, the Howard government again said, ‘Oh well, we’ll throw in $8.2 million to fix the Kings Highway.’ That $8.2 million would have been effectively useless in relation to doing anything to the Kings Highway. In addition to that, this was a tripartite issue—in fact, also perhaps an issue on other levels, involving councils in the area that could have been brought into the discussions. Certainly it needed the ACT and the New South Wales governments to be brought into the discussions.

That is the work that we did. We went out and talked to the ACT and New South Wales and we came up with a more significant level of funding from the Commonwealth—$23.3 million and not $8.2 million. We were able to use that to leverage $10 million of New South Wales money and extra commitment from the ACT. So we are going to see significant upgrading works to improve safety on the Kings Highway, which is a notorious road for casualties. Due to the headquarters project, the volume of traffic is likely to double, so it is very important that we get the safety right on that Kings Highway stretch.

Once again, we are seeing a pattern emerging of the photo opportunity, the small bag of gold, no actual commitment and no actual work done to deliver a project. In relation to this, yesterday the member for Goldstein asked me, ‘Will the member for Eden-Monaro be forced to consider his portfolio responsibilities and the needs of the planned Defence headquarters near Bungendore?’ Once again, this reflects his lack of knowledge on the project, because eventually the water issue was taken on board in development of the site. The site has been landscaped and constructed to maximise its water catchment. It uses leading technology in respect of water recycling projects and should be self-sufficient from a water point of view, so that is not a consideration. He also pointed to the fact that Senator Gary Humphries and the former member for Eden-Monaro had gone out and staged another photo opportunity at the Googong Dam and said, ‘Voila—magic wand—our 20 years of nothing happening on this project is now resolved.’ Nothing of that sort had happened. Once again, there had been no discussions with the ACT government and all of the issues that remained unresolved were still unresolved.

I noticed that the member for Goldstein talked about the current solution being in the context of an election. Of course, that photo opportunity last year was in the lead-up to the federal election, so it was perhaps a much more cynical move. We have actually delivered; we have secured something incredibly complicated. After 20 years of nothing happening, it has taken a lot of hard yakka, and I was personally involved in that. I take a great deal of pride in having brought it to a solution. No matter whether there was an election involved, there was a lot of fine detail required to make it happen, not only to determine on which basis the ownership issues would be resolved—and what we have done is come up with a leasing arrangement so the Commonwealth remains involved as an honest broker—but also to make sure that the water rights for Queanbeyan were secure for the future. That has been done by the execution of a specific water agreement, and I took great pleasure in taking an active role in that and preparing it at the working level, bringing some old skills to play, hopefully. We have squared away the future for Queanbeyan, so I can put the member for Goldstein’s mind at rest on that issue. It is an entirely equitable and satisfactory arrangement which will provide the commercial certainty that ActewAGL was looking for out of this arrangement as well—a win-win situation which illustrates how sitting together and having the interests of your community at heart can result in great progress, instead of the finger-pointing and the blame game that we saw previously.

I am very pleased that we are tackling this issue of roads around the area and that the specific promises we made during the campaign are now coming to fruition. Construction has begun and people can now see the practical effects of our delivering on promises. The $34 million MR92 project going through Nerriga is well and truly underway; construction is underway in duplicating Lanyon Drive, where we committed $7.5 million, once again leveraging ACT and New South Wales contributions of $8 million and $7.5 million respectively; and $23.3 million has been committed to the Kings Highway and $30 million to the Pialligo-Majura link project. That project will make a significant difference to my Queanbeyan residents commuting to the ACT. Following 30 years of inaction on the Bega bypass, a land corridor that was set aside a long time ago, we have committed $30 million to finally get that off the ground. We have also committed funds to the Bombowlee Creek Road near Tumut.

Under the Roads to Recovery program, the electorate of Eden-Monaro has done very well, reflecting its urgent needs. For so long effort has been lacking in the region, but now $6.355 million is being invested under the Roads to Recovery program across all councils throughout the electorate. Following on from this we have committed $60,000 to address a black spot issue near Braidwood—once again along the Kings Highway—to improve safety. There has also been a commitment of $28.1 million in federal assistance grants, which is going to greatly benefit all of my councils. For quite a number of those councils these are very significant increases in assistance. This is extremely significant given how important those grants have become to local council budgets.

I was highly delighted to see the Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government announce the convening of the local government summit to be held in November. This was an election promise that was made last year. It will lead to the inclusion of local councils in the Constitution and the setting up of a more equitable relationship with the Commonwealth to address infrastructure issues. I must say that this was received with great rapture by my councils, who are all doing it extremely tough. They face the worst of all possible worlds with a small ratepayer base and a high roads liability issue, so we really need to make them more viable. We just cannot let things go the way they have been. There is potentially a state of collapse out there in local governance in rural and regional Australia and I absolutely applaud what the Prime Minister and the minister for infrastructure are doing on this issue. I can assure members that this is going to be received very, very well by local councils. They have been waiting to see us move forward on this election promise and it is great to see that happening.

The Rudd Labor government has also committed to doing a $100,000 strategic road safety study in the Queanbeyan area in order to sort out our issues there—such as moving forward on a bypass for the Queanbeyan area. I am also looking very closely—in the context of the Regional Leadership Forum—at a broader strategy for our roads programs in the area. I mentioned that we included in this legislation the broadening of the definition of roads to include truck stops, and I note that the Australian Trucking Association has highlighted the need for a truck stop somewhere between Kiama and Eden on the Princes Highway. I certainly hope that we can leverage support for this, to install a truck stop in the context of the building of the Bega bypass. This would greatly improve safety on the Princes Highway, which, as I say, has drawn a lot of attention as an area with a high casualty rate over the years.

It was wonderful to see that for the first time there has been serious federal government interest in the Princes Highway through the interest of my colleague Martin Ferguson, who came down and saw the infrastructure issues associated with that road. I am hoping to see more attention as time goes on and as we resolve some of our other broader national infrastructure issues such as the Hume Highway and Pacific Highway. I hope we can bring more attention to, and more collaborative effort with the state government on, the Princes Highway.

I congratulate the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the council on this initiative, as a vital step in underpinning the viability of our local government and addressing road safety issues. I might add that this nation is also relieved that at last it has a government that understands the importance of infrastructure to our economic growth and that is acting to remove the dead hand of constraint that the lack of attention to infrastructure has been for the last 12 years. The creation of the Building Australia Fund and Infrastructure Australia is proof positive of the foresight and vision of the Rudd Labor government. These measures will for the first time introduce a strategically planned approach to our infrastructure issues, removing the shameless cherry-picking and pork-barrelling of the previous government.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I firstly underline a couple of the comments from the member for Eden-Monaro, in particular those in relation to the exercise that will take place in November to bring councils a lot closer to the source of the capacity to deal effectively with the issues that confront them in roads. Also, before the member for Eden-Monaro leaves, I would like to congratulate him on the deal that secures a water supply for Queanbeyan into the future. Most members know that whilst I am here I have digs in the member’s electorate at Queanbeyan, and I recommend it highly to other members of parliament. It is a great place to live while you are down in Canberra at parliament.

The AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008 seeks to do a limited number of things, but importantly it continues Roads to Recovery to 2014. I do not want to bore the chamber with the tedious repetition that I am sure will come forward with members talking about that. I will simply say that, whilst this is universally popular with councils throughout the country, it is popular particularly with the council in my area, the Moreton Bay Regional Council. The fact that $1.75 billion will be directed to councils over five years is something for us to be particularly pleased about.

The heavy vehicle safety and productivity program is also allowed for in this bill, and what this does is allow for a number of things including rest areas, which are very important in the road transport industry, to be built as part of the AusLink program. But we should be very clear that this is contingent on the enabling legislation for the 2007 Heavy Vehicles Charges Determination getting passage through the Senate, where the coalition is currently blocking it. In June of last year the then federal Minister for Transport and Regional Services and Leader of the Nationals, Mr Vaile, said:

The National Transport Commission will develop a new heavy vehicle charges determination to be implemented from 1 July 2008.

That was happening under the former government. It was their intention to implement those charges from July 2008. This is currently what they are blocking in the Senate. Mr Vaile went on to say:

The new determination will aim to recover the heavy vehicles’ allocated infrastructure costs in total and will also aim to remove cross-subsidisation across heavy vehicle classes.

So the former government, including the former minister and former Leader of the Nationals in this place, signalled a good 12 months out from when this was going to take effect what was going to happen. When the current shadow minister for transport—the current Leader of the National Party in this place, Mr Truss—made his contribution earlier in this debate, he indicated that this amounted to blackmail. It is blackmail when we do it and it is good policy when they do it—that seems to be the argument that they were making.

The member for Wide Bay went on to say in his contribution:

The coalition has always believed that the heavy vehicle sector should pay its way but we do not support the reintroduction of the indexation of fuel excise.

I am really happy to play any silly game that the member for Wide Bay wants to play. He is suggesting that the heavy vehicle sector should pay its way; I want to know what his plan is. Currently, the coalition do not seem to have one. They have no idea but they have the capacity, they have the power, to misuse the Senate again, for another three years, to block budget measures and, in particular, to block measures that they were anticipating introducing and to block measures that will seriously limit safety on the roads in this country. This is hypocrisy on a grand scale, the grandest scale ever.

It is the same as we saw with the horse flu levy legislation. That was a proposal made in December 2006, while the former government was in power, which they accepted. They understood in that case that they could not make those changes by regulation and that they had to bring in a principal act. They were drafting it. It was drafted or substantially drafted when the government changed. They undertook the equine influenza response as if it was already in place. We were able to introduce that legislation in February. That either makes us the most efficient government the world has ever seen, having been elected only at the end of November, or we thought the idea they had about equine influenza was a good one, so we brought in their legislation. And what are they doing? They are opposing it in the Senate. They are going to block the equine influenza legislation in the Senate. The people of Australia deserve to know and deserve to be told clearly what a hypocritical, opportunistic mob this opposition is. It does not matter who leads them; they are just the same.

The member for Hinkler in his contribution called this provision—that is, the provision that these safety measures needed to be funded out of the measures that have been blocked in the Senate—childish retribution. It was not childish retribution when they were doing it. It was good government. So now it is blackmail and childish retribution. They ought to stand condemned for the way they behave in this place. Let me talk to the member for Hinkler about what might be retribution.

The coalition in the Senate is currently blocking or was threatening to block—although I believe we have had a small measure of success there overnight—something like $6 billion worth of revenue measures. At the same time the Leader of the House, Mr Albanese, indicated that members of the opposition had written to him pleading for $6 billion worth of infrastructure programs to be undertaken in their electorates. Retribution—and, I believe, legitimate retribution—could be taken here. If those revenue measures are blocked, those infrastructure projects in the opposition electorates ought to be blocked so that the people in their electorates can look them in the eye and say, ‘Your actions in blocking government money have led to the loss of infrastructure in our electorates.’ I believe that that would be a great way for us to move. Unfortunately, I am in a minority there, and government policy will not allow that sort of retribution against what I believe are outrageous actions by the coalition.

The coalition are unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions. It is disingenuous of them and, while opposition speakers universally have taken this stand, there has been greater emphasis from the National Party—who take credit for Roads to Recovery every time they get an opportunity—in welcoming the retention of the Roads to Recovery program. And then they call us blackmailers because we adopt their former government’s heavy vehicle charges determination. We hung on to something that they were responsible for introducing—and it is a great program; nobody has any argument about Roads to Recovery. I think everybody supports it outrageously. But to say that is a good thing and then to say that to hold onto another piece of coalition policy is a bad thing is somewhat awry in my view.

Longman, my electorate, is bisected by Queensland’s north-south transport corridor. The Bruce Highway runs through the middle of my electorate and, as with most major roads in Queensland, the railway line runs parallel to the Bruce Highway. The north coast rail line is in fact one of the busiest freight lines in Australia and it is also heavily used for commuter traffic, with people travelling to and from work in Brisbane. I think that most people now understand that Caboolture, the northernmost part of the seat of Longman, occupies a situation relative to Brisbane akin to that which Penrith occupies relative to Sydney. We are a rapidly growing area. At a breakfast the other week, the Mayor of Moreton Bay Regional Council indicated that we will have an additional 155,000 people in our area by, I think, 2020. That is quite frightening growth.

What have they got in Sydney? They have got the railway line, of course, and they have got the Great Western Highway, which I used to trundle up and down a bit as a teenager when I lived in Sydney, but they now also have the M4 running parallel to the Great Western Highway in many parts. The road network in Sydney has developed in much the same way that it is going to need to develop in Longman.

AusLink funding is currently being used to upgrade the Bruce Highway. It has reached the Uhlmann Road interchange at Burpengary and is now well underway between the Uhlmann Road interchange and the Bribie Island Road interchange. I am happy to say that I was able to inspect the progress on that work with the state MP Carolyn Male, and I want to thank Leighton Contractors for giving us that opportunity. Progress on the works is more than satisfactory, and there is no doubt in my mind that it will be completed within the project time frame.

We have also committed, through the last election, to using around $120 million of AusLink 2 funding for much needed overpasses across the Bruce Highway as it bisects the electorate, including at Boundary Road, where it is being brought on by major residential development; at Bribie Island Road, which is probably one of the worst-constructed highway interchanges in the country in that it is about 20 metres from the bank of the river, as the old road network there follows the stock routes from the 1800s; at Pumicestone Road, where there is a low clearance overpass; and just north of my electorate, in the electorate of Fisher, at Johnston Road.

We have also received a deal of black spot funding in my electorate, particularly for Pumicestone Road at Caboolture, Old Bay Road, Moore Road, Lindsay Road, Burpengary Road and New Settlement Road. Not that long ago, these roads were simply small rural connector roads. Because of the growth in population that has come into the area, they have now become major urban roads and carry a great deal of traffic.

One of the things that have been dragging the chain as the Bruce Highway has been developed, in my view, is sound attenuation for the people who live there. As I mentioned, having a rapidly growing urban area with a major highway bisecting it means that there are a lot of homes very close to the highway. In many cases people are suffering, as the traffic volume grows on the road, quite intolerable noise levels. I want to particularly mention here today the Kallangur noise action group and their long battle with both the actual level of noise and the Queensland Department of Main Roads to try to get their noise problem fixed. My understanding is that that is very close to occurring. The money for that will come from AusLink. It seems that the line that is drawn, as determined by the decibels, will mean that noise attenuation can be improved in that area.

Recently we had a visit from the South-East Queensland Council of Mayors, and it was good to see so many mayors from what is the largest population area of Queensland and from a group of councils who share many similar problems coming together as one to talk to us and to the ministers about infrastructure needs in our area. In particular I mention that they showed some concern about the north coast rail link, including a link to the Sunshine Coast; a multimodal transport corridor between Petrie and Redcliffe, which continues the decades-old rail to Redcliffe campaign; and a new road link to the Sunshine Coast to supplement the Bruce Highway. I will say a couple of things about those as I conclude. The state government has been doing a fair bit of work on the north coast rail link in recent years, but it appears to have run out of money. I trust that that is a genuine running out of money and not a ploy by the state government, thinking that if they stop funding now then they may be able to get money from the federal government to continue that job. Let us hope that the north coast rail link can continue to be upgraded, particularly with electric commuter trains into the Sunshine Coast.

The multimodal corridor from Petrie to Redcliffe is something that I have long been on the record as a supporter of, but I understand that there are a number of problems with doing it. Amongst those, in particular, is that it is kind of pointless for us as a federal government to support or promote the building of that corridor, or even to fund it, if the state government are not going to be able to run trains on it, and they have some great difficulties. There are serious deficiencies in the central rail capacity in accepting additional services from the growth areas and no prospect of being able to use double-decker carriages, as is done in some other cities to reduce the number of services or to increase capacity, because they simply do not fit through the tunnels that we have. Brisbane is a city that was developed post war, when motor cars became accessible to people, so rail transport became secondary. The capacity for the state to rebuild their inner city infrastructure is probably quite limited.

I have quite a few other things that I am not going to have time to talk about today, so I shall go to one particular matter. That is the matter of the timber bridges that exist on the road network in eastern Australia. I had the pleasure quite recently of visiting Kennedy’s Classic Aged Timbers, which is a facility in my electorate that was given a substantial amount of money through the Regional Partnerships program to move to that site and to establish what they have there. They have done very well. I hasten to add that the company has also received some funding support from the state government.

When I talked to Michael Kennedy, he indicated to me that he believed there are some 30,000 wooden bridges on the east coast of Australia that will be slated for demolition in the next 15 to 20 years. There is no absolute requirement for those timbers to be recycled—which Michael does very well, so he has a professional interest in it—but it is something that we should be looking at doing. It is a lot cheaper for people who demolish bridges to adopt the old ‘crunch, munch and dump’ philosophy than it is for them to take them apart in such a way that the timbers can be recycled. May I say that while our opposition colleagues do not actually support the Tree of Knowledge heritage facility going in at Barcaldine—

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The department didn’t support it.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I tell you that your colleague the member for Gregory, the Liberal National Party member, is a great supporter and that the timber for the centrepiece of that heritage display is coming from Kennedy’s timbers in my electorate. (Time expired)

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

I rise today to support the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. This bill reflects the Rudd government’s commitment to ensuring safer roads around Australia. The bill has two main functions: to allow the extension of the Roads to Recovery program for a further five years as part of AusLink and to change the definition of a road to allow for the funding of heavy vehicle facilities.

AusLink forms an important part of this government’s overall strategy to address the long-term infrastructure needs of this nation. If we are to meet major challenges facing our economy and facing our nation over coming decades, then this country needs a government that is dedicated to investment in infrastructure. We have seen huge backlogs in infrastructure investment over the Howard years, in areas such as digital infrastructure, energy infrastructure and water infrastructure. This lack of investment by the previous government over the past decade in vital projects is now more evident than ever.

Today I would like to address the importance of this bill to the Rudd government’s long-term strategy to invest in road and transport infrastructure. This funding will be used to continue to fund urgent upgrades and repairs to local roads across Australia via the Roads to Recovery program. AusLink funding is also used to invest in major projects of national importance, black spot projects, strategic regional projects and research and technological projects. This bill now delivers a record $1.75 billion in new money to improve local roads by securing the Roads to Recovery program for another five years to 2014. This bill will extend the life of this program and enable a new list of funding recipients and their allocations to be determined from 1 July 2009. Prior to the commitment by the Rudd government, this program was due to expire on 30 June 2009.

Local government is responsible for more than 800,000 kilometres of local roads, and this is an important bill for local government. The continued funding of the Roads to Recovery program will assist councils with their long-term planning of upgrades and maintenance of local roads. We have given the guarantee to local governments in Australia that the Rudd government will continue to invest in local road infrastructure for the next five years. As a result, local government will be able to sit down and develop a long-term strategy to maintain, repair and build local roads in their districts. This $1.75 billion will go a long way towards improving roads right across Australia. This funding is $250 million greater—$50 million per year greater—than those allocations set by members in opposition.

The funding is welcome news for residents in my electorate of Ballarat. On 28 August 2008 it was my pleasure to announce funding allocations to councils in my electorate. It was also a great pleasure to inform local councils in the Ballarat electorate that the Rudd government is committed to securing the Roads to Recovery program for another five years. An example of this funding is to the City of Ballarat itself. In the 2008-09 financial year, the City of Ballarat will receive funding under the Roads to Recovery program to the tune of $850,000. This funding will go a long way to assist in the maintenance and upgrade of the local roads throughout the Ballarat electorate. Areas like Alfredton, Delacombe and Miners Rest are all experiencing high levels of population growth, and it is important for families to have confidence in the state of their local road infrastructure.

Over $1 million in funding was also allocated to the Moorabool shire. This is an area that is in strong need of financial assistance for local roads. Areas like Bacchus Marsh, Darley and Maddingley will experience strong population growth over the next four years—they are almost an outer metropolitan area now—at an average growth rate of 3.4 per cent per year. The rapid increase in motorists on these roads will put significant strain on local infrastructure, and it is important for families in these areas to have ongoing support from the federal government to ensure the long-term safety of local roads. Equally, Moorabool shire covers less urbanised areas—many rural areas—where road infrastructure is degrading at a very rapid rate.

I note from the previous member’s contribution that the bridges are of some concern to local governments, particularly those in rural areas, as many of them are over 100 years old now and well and truly past their use-by dates. Hepburn Shire Council and Golden Plains Shire Council also received funding under Roads to Recovery—over $587,000 and $828,000 respectively. Later in the year, each council’s individual allocation for the 2009-10 financial year will be determined by the state and territory grants commissions.

Another major aspect of the AusLink program is its funding of the Black Spot Program. On 19 August 2008, I announced that $350,000 would be invested to fix a local Ballarat road under the Black Spot Program. The Black Spot Program comes under AusLink and has been shown to have prevented at least 32 fatalities and over 1,500 injuries in its first three years. The project in Ballarat will see the funds invested in the building of a roundabout at the Ripon Street and Darling Street intersection, an area where there have been a number of accidents. My own experience of driving there has been that it is a very dangerous intersection. This is a serious investment in safer roads for Ballarat motorists and their families in my electorate.

This area was identified by a panel of independent road safety experts that included the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, the Victorian Transport Association, the Victorian Police and the Victorian Planning and Environmental Law Association. The panel identified this section of local road as posing a risk to motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, and the funding will hopefully assist in improving safety in this area. This is one of many projects that have been funded under the Black Spot Program in my electorate of Ballarat. This latest project is part of $50.5 million in funding that the Rudd government is delivering to fix black spots on local roads across Australia.

The AusLink program also targets national projects that will deliver high national benefits through investment in road infrastructure. I want to talk about a few of those. Many of them have been very dear to my heart, but I suspect that I shall need to do that after the division.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Before the suspension, I was finishing part of my speech and I said that I wanted to talk about some of the national projects that have been funded and are about to be funded in my district. The first of those is the Deer Park bypass. Federal Labor has shown a long-term commitment to the Deer Park bypass, and the project was finally funded under AusLink 1 as part of the national projects. The Deer Park bypass is an example of the importance of investing funding in major infrastructure projects across Australia.

Deer Park is due for completion by the end of 2009 and it is progressing extremely well. It is well ahead of schedule and, in fact, is nearing completion. Just before I went on maternity leave—I was fairly heavily pregnant at the time—I headed out in a four-wheel drive and had a look at the Deer Park bypass. The boys in the car were a little bit nervous that there might have been an early delivery, but we were okay, thank goodness! I just could not believe the scale of the project. It is an enormous engineering feat and will really provide terrific facilities for not only the people of Deer Park but all those road users who use the Western Highway.

It has been a terrific project and I certainly, alongside both the state minister for roads and the federal minister for roads, am very much looking forward to being able to drive my car on that when it opens. It was pretty unfortunate, I have to say, that it took so long for that project to actually go ahead. It did take a couple of election cycles, with Labor promising it and finally getting the previous government to commit the funding to that road to actually make it happen. It was a very, very long campaign. The project, had it been funded when Labor wanted it to be funded and had Labor been elected in that election, would well and truly have been completed by now, but unfortunately that was not the case. But we are certainly looking forward to it being finished.

It is a very important piece of infrastructure, not just for my electorate but for all of those people who live along the entirety of the Western Highway. The Western Highway at Deer Park is the major link between Melbourne and Adelaide and the road is used by some 70,000 vehicles per day, with an estimated 10 per cent being heavy vehicles. Once the bypass has been completed, commuters will avoid 20 intersections and many traffic signals and be able to travel at freeway speeds. It is anticipated that peak period journey times will be reduced by at least 15 minutes. More than that, the bypass will actually give the people of Deer Park—which is not in my electorate—back their local roads and their local streets.

The Deer Park bypass will reduce travel times and improve road safety for those who travel through this strip of road. Motorists have been fed up for a long time with the traffic congestion around Deer Park. Environmental benefits also exist from the construction of the Deer Park bypass through reduced emissions from vehicles idling at intersections. It is a relief for motorists that this project is running almost six months ahead of schedule, and I am looking forward to being part of the opening of the bypass, which is anticipated to take place in mid-2009. The opening will be received with much relief by motorists throughout my electorate and others.

I would also like to give recognition to the completion of the Leakes Road Interchange—again, well and truly ahead of schedule. This, whilst not having been officially opened, is now finished and is well and truly open for traffic. It has also been an important improvement to the Western Highway and, with the relocation of the local school along this highway, will provide a much safer environment for people who live in this area.

Following on from AusLink 1, the Rudd government has also committed to the continuation of funding through the AusLink 2 program. The Rudd Labor government made a commitment in the election campaign to the Ballarat electorate to fund alongside the state government the realignment of Anthony’s Cutting between Bacchus Marsh and Melton under the AusLink 2 funding agreement. This project is of great significance throughout my electorate, especially for residents who travel from Ballarat, Ballan, Bacchus Marsh and Darley and who use this road regularly to travel towards Melbourne. There are a large number of people, particularly from the Bacchus Marsh and Darley areas, who commute each day into the western suburbs of Melbourne and into the city of Melbourne itself for work, and there are a number of people in Ballarat who do the same. It is an important project both from a safety point of view and from the point of view of commuter time.

This upgrade to the Western Highway has always been of significant importance to me since I was elected to the seat of Ballarat, and the upgrade of Anthony’s Cutting has always been at the forefront of my objectives. It is a natural next step for improvement along the Western Highway following the construction of the Deer Park bypass and the Leakes Road Interchange. This project has been given strong support by local councils in my area, the Western Highway Action Committee, state members of parliament and, most recently, the Committee for Ballarat. The Western Highway carries some 28,000 vehicles per day between Bacchus Marsh and Melton alone, and this project will cut transport times, ease infrastructure bottlenecks and significantly increase the safety of many people who use this road.

The project is expected to save Australia $186 million in transport costs alone and is expected to increase tourist traffic for the region by an estimated $7.5 million annually. Not only do people within my electorate benefit but people from surrounding areas have also welcomed this major project. Areas such as the Grampians, the Pyrenees wine region, the goldfields, the Great Ocean Road, the Limestone Coast, and the Murray Riverland—all fantastic tourism areas—will benefit greatly from the growing tourism and the ongoing Rudd government support to upgrade the Western Highway.

Over the past months, unfortunately, we have heard a bit of noise from the representative of the Liberal Party in my area, Senator Julian McGauran, about the funding and timing of this project. Let me say that Senator McGauran and the Liberal Party had over 11 years to commence work on Anthony’s Cutting and they did nothing. Since coming to government, not only have we promised the funding but we have worked to secure state government funding as well. So far, Senator McGauran’s sole contribution to this important project has been criticism. The funding for Anthony’s Cutting is to be delivered in the early years of the AusLink 2 program and is a priority for both federal and state governments. The Rudd Labor government stands by its election commitment to fund Anthony’s Cutting, and the Rudd Labor government is working in partnership with the Victorian government to deliver this project under AusLink 2. We are currently undertaking a process of negotiation with the state government to ensure the project is delivered within the agreed time frame.

On the local level, I have received representation from Moorabool shire regarding their preference to have an interchange at Woolpack Road incorporated into the Anthony’s Cutting project. This would provide an opportunity to remove heavy vehicle traffic from the centre of Bacchus Marsh itself, an area that is expanding rapidly. It really is a one-off opportunity for Bacchus Marsh to deal with traffic issues, particularly those regarding heavy vehicles passing through the centre of town. I am encouraged that the Moorabool shire and VicRoads are in constructive dialogue on this issue. There will be some planning work required to pursue the option of Woolpack Road, but given its importance to the community of Bacchus Marsh it is work that is well worth supporting and well worth doing.

Prior to the last election, federal Labor also made a commitment to fund $404 million for the duplication of the Western Highway from Ballarat to Stawell. The duplication of the highway from Ballarat to Stawell will allow safe overtaking and eliminate traffic queuing. As the highway is the major transport link between Melbourne and Adelaide, this area has a large number of heavy vehicles using it. Crash rates are significant on that section of road, with driver fatigue a significant factor all the way from Ballarat to Bordertown. Planning for this major project was funded as part of AusLink 1, and it is with pleasure that I continue working with all levels of government to ensure the project comes to fruition under AusLink 2. The combination of these significant road infrastructure projects echoes the Rudd government’s strategy to ease infrastructure bottlenecks and to reduce the level of capacity constraints on our economy.

The other main provision within this bill is to amend the definition of ‘road’ contained in the act to enable funding for projects for the development of off-road facilities used by heavy vehicles. Many people who live in regional areas have experienced a large volume of heavy vehicle traffic going off highways and onto local and smaller roads. The Rudd government announced in the last budget the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program. This program will provide additional heavy vehicle rest areas on key interstate routes; heavy vehicle parking and decoupling areas and facilities in outer and regional areas; new technology in vehicle electronic systems; and road capacity enhancements to allow access by high productivity vehicles to more of the road network. This program is subject to the Senate allowing the increase to the road user charge, and I strongly urge opposition members to urge their Liberal and National Party colleagues to show strong support for this bill.

In 2007 there were 344 deaths on roads in my state of Victoria. Forty-three deaths in 2007 involved articulated trucks. Heavy vehicle safety is an important issue for our local communities. The program will fund additional heavy vehicle rest areas which will assist in combating road fatalities from driver fatigue. Unfortunately, this will not cut out all accidents on our roads. A reduction in the risk of driver fatigue, however, should contribute to a downturn in the number of accidents on our roads. By supporting this bill, members are supporting the safety of all road users—those that use heavy vehicles and those that are subject to accidents from heavy vehicles. That is why I urge opposition members to support this bill. In doing so, they will be supporting road safety.

The former Howard government neglected investment in infrastructure. The former government failed to properly invest in the needs of regional Australia—of which the Ballarat electorate is a perfect example. The Rudd government is committed to investing in regional Australia, and this is shown in the Australian parliament with the introduction of this bill by the minister. We are committed to investing in the safety of our local roads and maintaining and upgrading this vital infrastructure that is so important to so many residents in rural and regional Australia.

AusLink continues and will continue to deliver sound funding for residents in the Ballarat electorate. Not only does this program deliver for the electorate of Ballarat; it also delivers for the many electorates around the country, which can be seen by the many members on this side, at least, who have spoken on this bill. Our country aims to be the most liveable in the world. To achieve this we need to have a government that is interested in investing in the nation’s infrastructure. In my role as the federal member for Ballarat, I will continue to work to maximise investment in regional infrastructure and to push for my region to become the most liveable across the nation. This bill reflects the Rudd government’s strong desire to improve infrastructure across the nation and I am pleased to commend the bill to the House.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. Before doing so, I congratulate the member for Ballarat on her recent personal success.

When I was privileged to be elected, first as the member for Parkes and subsequently as the member for Calare, I recall that on each occasion I reiterated what all of us do: I was there to represent everybody in my electorate whether they voted for me, for the Greens or for whoever they might have voted for. I think it is particularly pertinent for leaders, particularly on the winning side of politics, to do that. The incoming Prime Minister always makes that commitment. I do recall very distinctly that the current Prime Minister did so when he was elected last November.

It was rather amazing earlier to hear the member for Longman reiterate what the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the member for Grayndler, said in the House last week when he taunted members of the opposition for having put submissions in for infrastructure projects in their electorates, as if to say: ‘Well, you are not going to get it. It is a punishment for being in the opposition or for not passing bills that we have presented to the Senate.’ About half an hour ago, the member for Longman basically said exactly the same thing, reiterating the minister’s comments. He said, in effect, that it should be a punishment for members of the opposition that they do not get infrastructure, particularly road funding, for their electorates because the opposition does not necessarily agree with all the government’s legislation. I find that incredible. Every Prime Minister, including Kevin Rudd, quite correctly, has said that whoever is elected is elected for all of Australia. But it is saying, in other words, ‘If you do not pass our legislation, we will punish you personally in your electorate.’ That is absolutely unbelievable, both from the minister and from the member for Longman. I am sure his Queensland constituents would take a much fairer view of the world than that.

Obviously there is a lot about this bill that we agree with, and various people have mentioned that. However, I think the best part about it is that it reiterates just how great a program Roads to Recovery has been. When previous Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson put this to the parliament, for the first time local governments got their funding direct from the federal government. I think we would all agree it has been a great thing. No longer do our colleagues—state Labor governments around Australia—hive off Commonwealth money before they put it out there. It means not only that all the money goes into projects but also that local governments can make their own decisions about how that money is spent. I do not think I have ever seen a local government that did not think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It is very good to see that continue, and we pretty much agree with the extra fences they are putting on it.

The bill touches on safety, which is obviously an enormous issue with driver fatigue and the like. As someone who has dealt with the transport industry a lot, whether in Parkes or in Dubbo—which is in my old electorate—or now in Orange, I can say that we live on transport; we live on what is done for us by the heavy haulage industry. They are pretty pragmatic, pretty sensible, and they realise that safety is an issue in their own regions, as it is everywhere else.

However, the transport industry make the point, quite correctly, that the states should get their act together—but the states are still not getting their act together, despite this bill and despite the National Transport Commission. The states are not acting in concert and are certainly not acting in concert on driver fatigue. If, just for a change, the states could police the laws that already exist, then certainly the transport organisations would be in favour of that. But New South Wales and others are bringing in a heap of regulations which make a lot more paperwork. Instead of dealing with safety, they are requiring a lot more dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s. In effect, a driver is far more likely to be prosecuted for not filling in something properly than for doing something which contributes to dangerous driving or driver fatigue. We need to be less concerned with enabling state governments to bring in more laws than with telling them they should be dealing with and policing the laws that they already have. That would be a much better way to go than simply creating more bureaucracy and more perils—not in terms of safety but in terms of bookkeeping and what have you for drivers currently.

I turn now to the wider issue which this bill touches on—that of infrastructure, about which I will speak both in general and on New South Wales in particular. In the light of climate change and the need to keep off our roads as many as possible of the new trucks which would otherwise come on line, it is obviously a good thing to try to make much of the new haulage over the next few years go by rail rather than by road. When John Anderson actually got a national rail system going—when he finally got New South Wales, who were by far the hardest to get on board, into the national rail system—it was obviously a great thing and a great opportunity. However, New South Wales still creates an enormous hurdle for everybody on either side of it, whether they are going from Victoria to Queensland or from South Australia to Victoria to Queensland. New South Wales still insists on being different from everyone else.

Getting a national rail system was an enormous thing. When we were in government, we committed $15 million to an engineering study for the inland rail system, which was to take goods specifically from Melbourne through to Brisbane by the western route so that it did not add to the chaos of the Sydney Basin. Obviously, the current government and the current Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government have gone to sleep on the inland rail. It does not keep the minister’s mates in Sydney in money. The inland rail actually solves the problem rather than hands money to those who are in so much trouble in Sydney, and that is state Labor.

It is one thing to take AusLink money for moving goods around Australia—as AusLink was designed to do—but it is another to use that funding to help mates in Sydney or Melbourne or wherever do their job of urban transport. This was spelt out succinctly for us the other day. Why would you not facilitate the orderly passage of goods without taking it through the Sydney Basin? Having the inland rail is common sense. Yes, it would go through my electorate. It would go through Parkes, but it would also go through Dubbo. What a terrible thing it would be if, instead of facilitating something which eased congestion and made transport faster, we threw money at Sydney to contribute to the confusion that exists there, giving them money for urban transport to try and get them off the hook.

The other issue which is so important, not just for western New South Wales and not just for Sydney but for the strategic good of Australia, is to put a freeway through the Blue Mountains. I was quite stunned that the designated $20 million for the same sort of engineering study, to try and work with the state government—which does not want to know about anything that does not involve Sydney—and allow it to breathe out into its own western resource over the mountains into the central west and the far west, was backed away from. It would have relieved a lot of the pressures on Sydney. But no, once again, we backed away. I guess you cannot strategically do the right thing and keep your mates in Sydney happy at the same time. It is quite obvious what is going to happen. We all know that his mates in Sydney have their problems.

As a general rule, we support most of the things in this bill. As I think Warren Truss, the shadow minister, said, ‘Plagiarising is a great form of flattery.’ I guess in this situation they had no chance. Every local government and area in Australia knows how good Roads to Recovery is. It is good to see the minister recognise that and to extend it. By and large, we do not have too much of a problem with what they are doing with that.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank all members for their comments and contribution to the debate on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. This bill demonstrates the government’s ongoing commitment to infrastructure investment. The bill makes amendments that support the delivery of two important initiatives: the Roads to Recovery program, which it extends for a further five years and, which we will be increasing spending on, and the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, which is conditional upon the passage of changes to the road user charge that will be the subject of other legislation. The extension of the Roads to Recovery program to 30 June 2014 provides much needed funding for Australia’s local councils to maintain and construct their roads.

From the contribution that members have made to this debate, it is clear that Roads to Recovery is making a real difference to local roads in local communities. Over 50 members—one-third of the House—have spoken on this bill and about how important this funding is to their community. Indeed, so far this year, this is the second highest number of speakers from the opposition on any bill, changes or debate before the parliament. The only issue on which they had more speakers was, of course, the first debate about their amendments to standing orders to stop the parliament sitting on Friday. This clearly vindicates the Rudd government’s decision to increase the annual funding for Roads to Recovery from $300 million per year to $350 million per year. This will enable even more funding to be provided directly to local governments for use on their roads at their discretion. The particular amendments contained in the bill will also remove any doubt that projects providing off-road facilities for heavy vehicles, like rest areas and parking areas, heavy vehicle bays, decoupling bays, weigh stations and facilities that are associated with or similar to any of these, can be funded under the AusLink act.

In his contribution to the debate, the Leader of the Nationals stated that electronic monitoring can already be funded under the AusLink act. This is correct. New technology projects under the safety and productivity program could be funded under existing provisions of the AusLink act, but the amendments in this bill go one step further and remove any remaining doubt that all likely projects under the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program will be able to be funded under the AusLink act.

The Leader of the Nationals notes that my media release of 29 February 2008 states:

Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Plan will fund:

Trials of technologies that electronically monitor a truck driver’s work hours and vehicle speed - one using an onboard ‘black box’ or electronic log, and one which makes use of the Global Positioning System (GPS);

The construction of more heavy vehicle rest stops and parking areas along our highways and on the outskirts of our major cities; and

Upgrades to freight routes so they can carry bigger loads.

The Leader of the Nationals asked me for an assurance that there will not be any changes to electronic monitoring as a result of this legislation. This bill will not change arrangements that apply to electronic monitoring. The safety package which is supported by this bill will provide additional funding for new technology.

However, the Leader of the Nationals went on to pursue the opposition’s cynical and hypocritical approach to the heavy vehicle charges determination. He claimed that no-one on this side opposes safety programs. I urge the Nationals and those opposite to turn this rhetoric on safety into reality. If the opposition were serious about safety, they would not be blocking the funding needed for safety works. The passage of the legislation enabling the 2007 Heavy Vehicle Charges Determination needs to be finalised before the funding for this important program can become a reality.

That charges determination ensures that heavy vehicles pay their fair share for their impact on the road network. As I have said before, it was the Howard government that commenced the work on a new heavy vehicle charges determination. In a speech given in June 2007, entitled ‘The coalition government’s transport reform agenda’, the then federal transport minister and Leader of the Nationals said:

The National Transport Commission will develop a new heavy vehicle charges determination to be implemented from 1 July 2008.

The new determination will aim to recover the heavy vehicles’ allocated infrastructure costs in total and will also aim to remove cross-subsidisation across heavy vehicle classes.

The charges determination simply delivers on this stated coalition policy.

The Leader of the Nationals also conveniently failed to mention that registration charges for small two- and three-axle trucks will fall. That is because we are getting rid of the practice which was introduced by the previous government whereby mum and dad operators of small trucks subsidised 60-tonne B-doubles to drive on our roads. I again urge the opposition to reconsider their position on this issue. Passing the new determination—the determination that they initiated when in government—will enable the government to commit $70 million to the heavy vehicle safety and productivity package. The only thing standing between more rest areas, more parking bays, more decoupling areas and more safety upgrades is the opposition blocking the necessary funding. However, I note that the opposition is supporting this bill.

With regard to the issue of the heavy vehicles determination, I also note that I have had ongoing discussions with the Australian Trucking Association, as well as the livestock transporters. It is a very mature industry indeed. They do not want to be publicly subsidised. They want to pay their way. That is what legislation that will be coming to the House will provide for.

I also want to address the comments that were made by the member for Calare in his address just prior to my summing up on this bill. The member for Calare suggested in his contribution that the government would be discriminating against funding in coalition seats. He raised the fact that I had spoken in question time about the number of representations—indeed, I have received over 100—from coalition members for infrastructure funding, including funding from the Building Australia Fund.

What I have raised is simply the position that, if you have a fund that has been established from the budget surplus and then you diminish the budget surplus by irresponsible economic policy in the Senate in blocking the government’s budget measures, then there will be less money to invest in long-term infrastructure funds. It is that simple. So, for those opposite who in their own electorates would acknowledge that there is a significant infrastructure deficit, the funding has to come from somewhere, and that is why it is so irresponsible for the opposition to be arguing for spending on particular projects at the same time as they are prepared to diminish the funding pool from which those projects can be funded. I make that point.

I also make the point that the government has, just in the last fortnight, made a number of initiatives that are certainly not in Labor held seats. Just in the last fortnight we have seen the first sod turned on the Townsville port access road, which impacts on Dawson and on Herbert—a necessary project of some $180 million funded jointly by the Commonwealth and the state government. That will make a significant contribution to improvements in productivity as well as improvements in safety and lifestyle for the residents of South Townsville.

Less than two weeks ago we opened the Bonville bypass in the electorate of Cowper. Just yesterday we took the next step towards achieving the Coffs Harbour bypass in the electorate of Cowper. This Friday, if parliament is not sitting at that time, the member for Riverina and I intend to be near Wagga Wagga inspecting the works that will complete the duplication of the Hume Highway from Sydney to Melbourne—just as when I visited the works at Port Macquarie and Taree I attended with the new member for Lyne, an outstanding person who will make a real contribution as a member of the House of Representatives, as he did as a member of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales. Just last week we announced the preferred route, which, in each of three cases on the Hume Highway in terms of bypassing towns, will be the western route for Tarcutta, Holbrook and Woomargama. On Friday I will also be in regional Victoria, once again inspecting part of our nation-building program.

The fact is that we have a total of $76 billion for infrastructure funding, much of which is being put in place right now. This government has increased funding for both regional areas as well as urban areas in our transport and infrastructure sectors. The passing of the government’s budget is critical if we are going to be able to maximise our nation-building agenda. I note the endorsement today of the government strategy by the International Monetary Fund, an important statement from the IMF endorsing the budgetary strategy of producing a large surplus but putting that surplus aside in terms of long-term infrastructure investment funds.

I say to the opposition that they should pass the budget and keep the surplus intact because it is absolutely critical at a time of global financial uncertainty that Australia have the certainty of a large budget surplus if we are to be able to move forward. Specifically, when it comes to transport issues, I say to the opposition that they will have no economic credibility if they are prepared to establish a process for a heavy vehicles determination and then walk away from the outcome of that in an opportunistic fashion. They should be listening to industry and making sure that they take a responsible position, which I must say the former Leader of the Nationals did by initiating this determination. On that note I thank all members for their contribution to this debate and I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.