Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry: Mr Deputy Speaker, in rising to speak on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008, I note that my contribution is particularly drawn towards the Higher Education Endowment Fund, which has been renamed and slightly restructured as the Education Investment Fund. The Education Investment Fund will have $8.7 billion, $2.5 billion from the 2007-08 surplus and the remainder from the Higher Education Endowment Fund. To put it another way, the Education Investment Fund will contain $2.5 billion from the surplus created by the remarkable economic legacy of the coalition government and more than $6 billion from a fund established for this purpose directly by the coalition government.

The Higher Education Endowment Fund was an excellent initiative of the coalition. In rebadging it, the government are conducting a cynical exercise in claiming credit for something that they did not do. They do not fool anyone. As the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, the member for Curtin, said in May last year when the fund was established, this investment will promote excellence, quality and specialisation in Australian universities for years to come, helping our institutions to become truly world class. It was an unprecedented investment in the future of the higher education sector.

In the same manner as the Future Fund, the Higher Education Endowment Fund was innovative and forward thinking. It was a demonstration of the fundamental importance that the coalition places on higher education. It could only have been achieved by a coalition government. It was the coalition that took the tough decisions necessary to pay off Labor’s $96 billion debt. Labor, addicted to deficit, as we saw again today and yesterday, voted against every one of those very tough decisions but now seeks to claim the credit for the fruits of that hard work.

Despite promises at budget time of increasing the size of this fund to $11 billion, that figure relied on future surpluses. No doubt the government is hoping that people will have forgotten that headline by the time next year’s budget comes around and the government slips into deficit and debt. The fact is that it seems that the Rudd government will not have sufficient fiscal surpluses to contribute any significant extra dollars to these funds in 2009 and 2010.

Turning to the sorts of projects that this fund will support, I note that moneys from the funds will not pay for any ongoing running, maintenance or staff costs. According to the explanatory memorandum, where specific projects have an ongoing cost component it is intended that such funding would be sourced through other means. This could include direct funding from the bank, outside the Building Australia Fund, or funding by the states or territories in relation to proposals that are brought forward as part of the COAG reform agenda.

Given that capital costs are being split from ongoing maintenance costs, I am concerned that this could lead to instances where the whole-of-life costs of an asset are not appropriately considered when these funds are being invested, and this is an issue on which this government has form. This is, after all, the government that delivered—or failed to deliver—the computers in schools program, the rotten core at the centre of the failed education revolution. The lack of a whole-of-life assessment of the cost of this project has meant that additional capital and recurrent costs of two to three times the initial cost were not factored into the rollout of the program.

The Rudd government’s claim that the infrastructure program will be subject to rigorous cost-benefit analysis is not reassuring. For example, the computers in schools program is typical of the government’s approach to date—a proposal that was not subject to any serious analysis, resulting in a delivery failure. The computers in schools program has been a monumental embarrassment for the Rudd-Swan government. As recently as yesterday new details emerged as a further indictment of the mismanagement of the program. Freedom of information documents have revealed that, while $51 million of federal funding is expected to be given to the Western Australian state government for computers in schools, the program will cost the state an additional $167 million. This works out to a ratio of $3.27 of costs to the states and to the schools for every federal dollar spent. We are talking here, Mr Acting Speaker, about—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the member would just pause for a minute. When I corrected him the first time, I said that the correct means of referring to the occupant of the chair is ‘Mr Deputy Speaker’. He may have misheard me.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did mishear you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

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

If you would just observe that in future.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly, absolutely. Thank you for your guidance. We are talking about $1.2 billion of federal investment in relation to this program. If this ratio is the same in all states and territories—a not unreasonable assumption—then this means that the government’s election promise is going to cost the states and territories $3.9 billion to implement. Is it any wonder that the Western Australian Minister for Education, Dr Liz Constable, is today quoted in the West Australian as saying:

… it is patently absurd that Mr Rudd can make an election promise that the States have to meet.

The Western Australian government is not the only government that has expressed its dismay at the Deputy Prime Minister’s handling of this program. Even the government’s Labor friends across the country have been lining up to take a shot. Today, in fact, the Premier of Western Australia, Mr Colin Barnett, indicated in the clearest possible terms that Western Australia is considering withdrawing entirely from the computers in schools program because, as he says, there is absolutely no reason why the state governments should fund the promises made by the Rudd government when they were in opposition.

The New South Wales government has pulled out of the program. The New South Wales Minister for Education and Training, Verity Firth, likened the program to offering to buy someone a suit but then asking them to buy the jacket themselves. In South Australia the Minister for Education, Jane Lomax-Smith, admitted in estimates that she was exchanging old computers for new to avoid these massive new costs. Exchanging old computers for new is not reducing the computer-student ratio; it is just providing states with replacement computers. That can only be described as an abject failure of the policy.

The ACT government is not only exchanging old computers for new—it claims that the costs of the program are even steeper than has been revealed in Western Australia, with four territory government dollars to every one federal government dollar spent. In Victoria we have seen some public school parents being slugged with increased fees if they wish their children to have access to computers. Lilydale public school featured the details of the plan on their website, which was hastily pulled down after it was exposed in the media.

I am not sure whether the Labor Party policy before the last election came clean with the Australian people that parents were going to be asked to provide the funds for the services and infrastructure of the computers in schools program. I think the election result might have been quite different if some of the things we are now discovering about the Rudd government had been known before the election—not only their profligate economic management, which is leading the government into debt, deficit and ruin, but their management of computers in schools. I think if parents had known that they would be asked to pay for the costs of services and infrastructure there might have been quite a different response.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I doubt it! You wish.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hope the honourable member interjecting can go back to the parents in his electorate, look them in the face and explain to them why the states are pulling out of computers in schools across the country, why parents are being slugged for the costs of services and infrastructure, why the Western Australian government and the New South Wales government have either pulled out or threatened to do so, and why old computers are being replaced with new computers. The honourable member should hang his head in shame and disgrace that he is part of a government that fooled the Australian people last November into believing that they would get a laptop for every student when they now face the prospect of having no improvement in the position that they faced before the Rudd government came to power—except that Investing in Our Schools has been abolished and a $1.2 billion program which was terribly popular and very successful was taken to the guillotine as part of the education revolution and replaced with a damp squib.

The Rudd government and the Deputy Prime Minister like to pretend that they are unaware of these costs. In fact, soon after New South Wales pulled out of the computers in schools program, a comment from the Deputy Prime Minister in the media implied it was the states’ problem to fund the rollout. However, it is on the record that the government is fully aware that the costs of this program are blowing out. It emerged in Senate estimates that the federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations had provided to the Deputy Prime Minister a report detailing the additional costs for the states but, when asked to release the report by my colleague in the other place Senator Mason, departmental officials refused to do so.

So we have established that the federal department of education has prepared a secret report for the government on the true costs associated with the computers in schools program. The minister has refused to release it and never comments on the extra costs. This government seem to like to pretend they are incapable of mistakes. The reason is that the computers in schools program has become an embarrassment and a shocking indictment of the ability of the government to deliver on their promises.

Now that the coalition has managed to obtain figures for Western Australia it is long overdue for the Minister for Education, the Deputy Prime Minister, to come clean on the costs for all states. No-one—no parent or student—would disagree that it is a very useful thing for a student to have access to a computer at school. The computers in schools program grabbed headlines during the election. This so-called digital education revolution was going to provide a computer for every student in years 9 to 12. Kevin Rudd waved a laptop about and said he would give one to every student. But what sort of government creates a program that completely fails to take into account the costs of the rollout? What sort of incompetent government does not factor in these sorts of costs? What sort of government thinks that the state governments will just gratefully accept the government’s computers and not ask for maintenance, support and technical costs? It is not as though the states are flush with money at the moment. It appears that New South Wales government is in freefall economically, and yet it is being asked to come up with the extra funds that the Rudd-Swan government is refusing to provide.

So how can we trust the government now to deliver on the Education Investment Fund? We cannot, and therefore I am supporting the opposition’s amendments to these bills, which will not only provide for increased transparency and an assurance that projects are supported by the Productivity Commission but especially will provide that all funding commitments depend upon financial commitments from all asset owners and stakeholders to meet the whole-of-life of asset costs. Then again, maybe if Australia had a full-time education minister with an eye on the details, the computers in schools program would not have become such an embarrassing failure.

It is time for the Prime Minister to follow through with his plans for a reshuffle. It is time for the Deputy Prime Minister to relinquish at least one of her portfolios. Education and industrial relations by themselves used to be cabinet-level positions in separate people’s hands. My colleague the shadow minister for employment and workplace relations is in the House today, doing a tremendous job at holding the government accountable in industrial relations, but I am sure he would prefer that the minister had her eye on at least one ball all the time—

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On jobs!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and on jobs, particularly, for Australians. We have a situation where the education minister is also the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. It is unprecedented in Australia. It has not been done before because it is a bad idea. The Deputy Prime Minister should relinquish one or the other portfolio and ensure that education has a full-time minister so that the parents and children of Australia can get the quality of education and the choice of education that we in the coalition support, and so that the teachers of Australia can get the pay and conditions, respect and support that they require in order to do such an important job.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008, but just before the member for Sturt runs out of the chamber I would like to comment to him that listening to him is like being slapped in the face with boiled lettuce: sure it feels sloppy and annoying, but it does not quite knock you off your feet!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The same old line! You need some more lines.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt ought not to interject from the doorway.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. You are quite right; he ought not do that, at all. In his speech the member for Sturt talked about computers in schools and about our program to put laptops in schools. At least we have a program; we have a policy; we have an education revolution. The strongest policy the opposition had in terms of getting computers in schools was to provide slate tablets and chalk! That is about the extent of any commitment they had to the education future of young Australians.

It is a bit rich when opposition members come in here wanting to attack us on education, of all things, when for the past decade plus they did the least they possibly could. They did not just take the easy road; they took the sloppiest, easiest, cheapest, nastiest road they possibly could. So I do get a little annoyed when opposition members come in here and start to rant about education policy and about us actually putting extra funds, to the tune of billions of dollars, into schools to try and make a difference.

It will take some time to make that difference because we have a lot of catch-up work to do after what we were left—the legacy of the former government, the Howard government, who diminished schools. The extent of their education program, in terms of trying to provide a future to children in schools, was to provide a steel post—a steel post called a flagpole. I support the flag and I loved the idea of having a flagpole in schools, but you have to do a little more than that. So it is a bit sloppy of them to come into this place and try to attack us on these issues.

Today we are talking about the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008, which is one of the most significant pieces of infrastructure legislation this country has seen. It is about an economic boost; it is about productivity; it is about efficiency. And it comes at a critical time: a time when Australia needs to be looking to the future, insulating itself and providing the best possible way forward in terms of dealing with the significant global financial crisis—a deep crisis which is affecting the United States principally but which is also flowing on to every other country in the world. We cannot just sit back and let that happen.

The beauty of what we have done is that this is not a knee-jerk reaction to the global financial crisis, although it fits perfectly with what you would do in any circumstance, regardless; this is something that has been carefully thought through and considered for quite a number of years. Contained in these bills are policies and matters that we have been discussing for years and around which we have been developing policies. And we are delivering on that. So regardless of whether there was a financial crisis we would do this. Why would we do this? Why would we go through with this regardless of whether there was a global financial crisis? The answer is simple: because it is good for all Australians. It is good for the future of the Australian economy. This legislation will provide the basis by which we continue to grow, whether there are financial problems in the world or not. We may be growing slowly, but this will ameliorate some of those international problems that we face.

The nation-building funds bills that we are talking about today establish three new nation-building funds, very important ones. The Building Australia Fund, which I have talked about a number of times; the Health and Hospitals Fund, which I think is critically important so as to get the health infrastructure and policy framework right in Australia; and something that is very close to my heart, the Education Investment Fund, because I think that is how we provide a platform for young Australians to be the best they possibly can to give this country a decent shot at competing with our competitors to make sure that we do not slip behind, which is what is taking place. We are slipping behind the rest of the world. We cannot just hang our hat on an old book and say: ‘You know, we’re pretty smart and we do things pretty well in Australia. We’re innovative and competitive and we can go out there on the international stage and we can compete with our neighbours.’ While we are busy patting ourselves on the back, our neighbours have been very quietly and busily educating themselves. They have been spending more and more, as a percentage of GDP, of their total government revenues on further educating their young people and educating their nations. However, in this country, for the past decade or so, the government has been more than happy to ride on the old adage of: ‘Look, it’s good enough. Let’s not interrupt what’s currently in place.’

That is not good enough. There is a saying that I love: if you are not moving forward, if you are standing still, then you are actually going backwards. And by standing still for the past decade, that is exactly what we have done: we have gone backwards, and in a significant way. Everybody else who is in this race, the global race, the competitive race to stay in front, has moved forward a long way ahead of us. We have slipped behind. We have slipped behind in infrastructure. Countries which were once looking to us for guidance and policy direction and a future on how we deal with our infrastructure development in Australia no longer look toward us. We now turn and look towards them because we have fallen behind. When it comes to health provision and the state of our hospitals and doctors and training in this country, we have slipped behind. We have allowed other countries in our immediate region to get in front of us. And they have done a good job. They have worked very hard, they have had some vision about where they ought to be, but we have slipped behind.

When it comes to education, the evidence is stark. How can anybody come into this place and possibly defend the policies of old when you have a look at what the results are? We are not still debating these old, dead issues, but the opposition are. They are still the party of Work Choices. They are still the party of failed education policies which have left our young kids unable to match the competitive education standards of our neighbours. They are still the party of the old policies. They still have not gotten through that. And every once in a while you will hear them in here saying, ‘Look, we’ll support it, we’ll support that there are going to be fair workplace laws in this country,’ but deep down they do not believe that. They just say they support that because they know they have no political choice. Political judgements, ideological judgements from this mob, who once were in power now really struggle with the concept of being in opposition—although I have to say this: they do not struggle with opposition in one sense; they have taken to it like ducks to water. They are the natural party of opposition. They can take the high moral ground, they can get on their high horses, they can bat on about everything, have a different policy view every single day—twice a day, it does not really matter. They are in opposition; they are happy to be there. They have not quite worked out that they are in opposition, even though they have really taken to it like ducks to water, but this is the conundrum they face. Two leaders in 12 months; I am sure there is another leader in the waiting.

The member for Higgins, Peter Costello, the once so-called great Treasurer—he thought he was the greatest thing that ever happened to this country—talks about the legacy that he left us. After 12 years, what did he leave us? If he is so great, why aren’t we better insulated against the global financial crisis? If the member for Higgins was such a genius Treasurer, how come the day after he resigned—sorry, the day after he was no longer—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Oxley will resume his seat.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They really don’t want to hear this, do they?

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

Order! The member for Oxley will resume his seat!

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. The member has been rambling far and wide, but I ask that you to draw him back to the substance of the bill.

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

The honourable member for Oxley is well aware of the standing orders, and I would ask him to ensure that he focuses on the cognate debate before the chamber.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for your wise counsel, Mr Deputy Speaker. That is exactly what I am doing, so I appreciate your counsel on that. It just goes to show that when you get serious about what the opposition are really responsible for, they do not want to hear it. They are prepared to do anything not to hear it. They will stand up, they will interrupt me, they will do all sorts of things, but they do not want to hear the truth about nation-building, they do not want to hear the truth about education—

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

Order! The honourable member for Oxley will not defy the chair. I would ask him to return to the bills before the chamber!

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. In terms of nation-building funds, in terms of education and health—which is what we are discussing here today—they do not want to hear this. They do not want to hear about the legacy they left behind by not dealing with the areas covered by these nation-building funds, because it hurts. It hurts to hear someone tell you the truth. The truth is always ugly. The truth is always going to be painful. But that is the reality of the legacy they left behind. They have got nothing to hang their hats on now. Where were the nation-building funds? Where were the great nation-building projects? Where were the great education revolutions that the previous government put into place? Where were the reforms in health? Where were the great programs that would deliver us in times of need? It is easy to be a great Treasurer when times are good, when the rivers of golden revenue flow into the coffers in Canberra. More money than you know what to do with: company profits up, stock market at record highs, resources being sold at unprecedented levels with record prices, company receipts back to government at all time highs. Easy. Any buffoon can run an economy like that because you have more money than you know what to do with. You can always run a surplus; that is easy. Just spend less on education, spend less on health and keep more of the money under the bed. But what are you keeping the money for? It is great to have the surpluses: I support them and we will work very hard to continue that.

But when times get tough, when the rubber hits the road, when you as the government are actually required to make tough decisions to deliver for people beyond the political rhetoric, when the whole world is facing a crisis—not just a financial crisis; a jobs crisis, a crisis of confidence—that is when you have to step up to the plate. That is when you are really required to make tough and hard decisions. That is when you have to show what you are made of, and that is what this bill is about—showing what you are made of. It is about ensuring this country actually has a future. And we are going to do it the proper way. We are going to do it through legislation, by providing funds that are properly measured, strategically delivered, and by making sure those funds are not just a great big pork barrel which is geographically based on electoral boundaries. I will not have to go into the detail of that, Mr Deputy Speaker. You would be well aware because, like all other members of this House, you have heard many times before about those great rorts, those great pork barrels that we got from the other side—incredible wastes of money, millions and millions of dollars wasted, and lost opportunities. That is what I call them—lost opportunities.

I will give you just one example. In my electorate, there is the Queensland Pioneer Steam Railway. It is a real community based organisation, not-for-profit. These guys work hard, and every single weekend they run a steam train in and out of the area. They provide services, they hold Christmas carols, they actually maintain old steamers and they do a really good job. For years they have been looking to government to get a bit of funding and a bit of help from the feds. Guess what they got? They got nothing from the previous government. These are people with real steam trains. Take a marginal Liberal seat like Forde, which had an organisation that was thinking about perhaps one day having a train at all if it could get some tracks. It got given $7 million by that mob—an utter waste of money which got completely wasted, by the way. Whoosh! It disappeared into thin air while people in my electorate—and it must have been just because they were in my electorate; what other possible logical conclusion could you come to?—got nothing. This mob should be the ones hanging their heads in shame. They should be the ones coming in here and apologising to Australians, apologising to parents for never delivering on the education outcomes that they should have been providing. After 10 years, what can the other side actually stand up in this place and say they really did? What did they really do? Build more detention centres—detention centres that are being shut down now because they are useless?

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

Order! The honourable member will resume his seat. I would ask the honourable member to return to the provisions of the cognate debate before the chamber.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In talking about nation building and nation-building funds, you have to understand one clear principle. It is at the core of what this debate is really about. What do you as a government do to provide for the future? How do you use taxpayers’ dollars in a proper, transparent, accountable way? That is what these bills are about. They are about health and education. There are three funds, nation-building infrastructure, education and health. What is more important in this place than for a government to actually deal with the core issues at hand?

I can tell you that our record in 12 months has already eclipsed the record of the past 12 years. The former government now come into this place—for 12 years they did nothing—and in 12 months they have done everything possible to block any new measures we have, any reforms, any investment, any form of trying to bring stability, credibility and confidence back to the market. How could an opposition do that? I looked very closely at a lot of the policies and what they actually delivered for people now, now that people are in need, now it is actually raining. Governments are supposed to do probably two things in essence: one is to build for the future and the other is to make sure that they have something in reserve, something ready to go when there is a rainy day, when there is a crisis.

Thank God there was the election of a Rudd Labor government last year because we had already been working on, for example, the bill that we are talking about today. We had already been structuring and working on the policy, years of work had gone into infrastructure policy, to make sure that it would provide for this country into the future in education and in health. It is not as though the other side did not have an opportunity. It is not as though, in those lost Howard years, they did not have an opportunity. They sat back; they enjoyed the good times. It was a huge party. Being in government was always about smiles, about handing out millions of dollars to your mates, about not worrying about what the future was going to be like. They did not have to worry about it because during their reign, particularly in the last year, it was all blue sky sailing—the resources boom would go on forever.

We have a former resources minister here, and I remember quite clearly some of the rhetoric that came from him and some of the people that he was involved with, certainly from the then Howard government, about how there was a 20-year run. The resources boom would go on forever. Everything that went wrong was always the fault of the states, but when it actually came to the crunch we actually talked about having to have more than that because, when the resources boom is over, what are you left with? Only what is in your head, and that is your smarts. The only thing that you can rely on in the end is how clever you are. How do you provide for that cleverness? You provide it through education. How do you do that? You actually have to invest in it. You have to put money down on the table. You have to provide the funding for it. You have to make sure that our schools are properly equipped. We do not need those old tired debates about government schools versus non-government schools. No-one even cares about those tired old debates—about the percentage of federal government funding which goes into XY school compared to the percentage of kids from what background go there. That is not the debate. The debate should be about how we best provide for all young people in this country to get a decent opportunity.

The great innovators in this country are probably in rural and regional areas that do not get the resources that they need to get the opportunity to perform. That is what is at the core of the bills that are before us today. We are going to be out there building the roads, the ports and the rail network and working on the productive means to make this country more efficient. Not only are we going to do that, not only are we going to provide the essential infrastructure, social and hard infrastructure, but we are going to do it in a proper, transparent and accountable way. We are going to do it in a way that does not just rely on a single person or an inner circle of people making a decision on billions of dollars of funding in totality just based on which electorate you belong to. We are going to look at this in an objective manner. That is why we have set up Infrastructure Australia. That is why we have these funds in place. That is why it is part of legislation—to make sure we do this right. You have to get it right. You have to be big enough, you have to at least be responsible enough, to say that you cannot be the fount of all knowledge and that every decision you make cannot always be the best decision unless you get some sound advice, unless you consult the community, unless you go out there and are prepared to make decisions like we have made.

There are good examples already. Out of the top 10 infrastructure projects being funded currently, only two are in Labor electorates. The other eight are in country and rural seats, Liberal seats and National Party seats. That is fine; I do not mind. I do not care. In fact, I support it because if we are going to talk about the national interest, the national economy, about being productive in this country and making sure that we have jobs growth to insulate ourselves against the global financial crisis then we have to do this from a national perspective. It does not matter which colour the seat is, red or blue; it does not matter whether it is Independent.

Government Member:

The light is on.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly; the light is on. People in the community have, I think, twigged to this. They understand what has happened over the years and years of neglect and irresponsible behaviour we had in the lost Howard years—the lost opportunities, the wasted millions, the begging opportunities and all the people, all the schools, all the parents who could just not quite get that little bit of a hand-up they needed, a little bit of assistance and support. But, today, let me tell you some really good news: amongst all the bad news that we have out there on the international platform, the Rudd Labor government is doing everything it can in its power and it is doing it the right way, the proper way. It is about the national interest, the national economy. It is about making sure that the precious tax revenues, which are now less because of the international circumstances we find ourselves in, will be expended for the right reasons in the right areas on the right programs. We are going to make sure every school is looked after. I commend these bills to the House. (Time expired)

Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must say—

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You must say something. Apologise—that is what you must do.

Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, the member for Oxley, after having delivered 20 minutes of absolutely nothing, is out of his chair and interjecting.

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

Order! The member for Oxley will cease interjecting.

Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am more than happy to take him up on his interjection and what was probably the most vacuous speech I have never heard on infrastructure and these very significant proposals, he claims, that are being put forward by his government. After 10 years in this House he is reduced to hyperbole and insults from the backbench in attempting to attack the legacy of the previous government.

Let me just say for the record that the money that will be used in this Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 did not fall out of the sky. That money was accumulated by the Howard government, by the member for Higgins, in a well-thought-through economic and fiscal strategy that has put this country in arguably the best position of any modern economy in the world to withstand what will be one of the most difficult periods of the globe’s economic history. It is because of the legacy of the member for Higgins that this government has this money to spend on infrastructure. No-one argues that infrastructure is needed. The member for Oxley had the audacity—in fact, the ignorance—to say that we had ‘more money than you knew what to do with’. I assure the member for Oxley that we knew exactly what to do with that money. The first thing we had to do with that money was to address the fact that whenever Labor gets into office they run deficits—and they are softening us up for another deficit now. Yesterday we heard the Prime Minister, instead of trying to hold the economy together, instead of saying we have an economic strategy, say that we will be going into deficit. What the member for Higgins did in his time as Treasurer was to pay off the $96 billion legacy left by the previous government. That is the economic management of Labor. We are seeing it again in this House and we are seeing it again in this bill. The member for Oxley should at least have the decency and the wit to talk about some of the infrastructure needs in his electorate.

Perhaps I know those needs better. Perhaps I drive on the Ipswich Road more often than he does. Perhaps I am in his constituency more than he is. The reality is that there was ample opportunity for him to talk about the problems with computers in schools. His government’s program is failing out there. There was ample opportunity for him to talk about the health needs and the growing waiting lists for operations at the Ipswich Hospital. And of course there was ample opportunity for him to talk about the issues in relation to Ipswich Road, a road which the Rudd government has politicised beyond belief. The member for Oxley will leave a legacy of a road that will be at capacity before the Rudd plan of six lanes will be completed. They will take us nowhere. Not once did his vacuous statement and his sort of political point-scoring draw on the positives of this bill. I know there are limited positives, but the reality is that, instead of at least addressing the issues, he showed why, perhaps, the people of Ipswich have the problems they have.

Labor governments in Queensland and now federally are failing to address the key issues, and this bill will need to be amended to ensure that it does. The Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 establishes three separate financial asset funds: the Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund, and the Health and Hospitals Fund. Where did that money come from? Of course, it came from the surpluses laid down by the Howard government. The government announced in the budget of 2008 that there would be $41 billion of funds by 1 July next year. It is estimated that there will be a shortfall of some $14.7 billion due to the government’s decision to spend most of the anticipated surplus. The Rudd government have no credibility when it comes to infrastructure funding. They can talk the talk but they cannot do the work. They cannot set down a clear economic management policy for what is happening in Australia, let alone define how these bills are going to be put into operation. They have no strategy for economic management in Australia. They sit there and abandon fiscal management by saying the country will go into deficit. The Treasurer says that within the economic cycle they will be in surplus. We know what that economic cycle is. The economic cycle means deficits under Labor were corrected by surpluses under the coalition government. We continue to see that the Rudd government is unable to show anything at all after being in government for 12 months except a great deal of talk. At a time when we should be seeing legislation that is going to build confidence and show the investors and the mums and dads of Australia that we have a government that understands economic management, what we are seeing is rhetoric, economic recklessness and continued mistakes.

By contrast, the coalition had a track record of getting out there and actually getting projects rolling. It allocated $38 billion under AusLink 1 and 2. Not only has the Rudd government not advanced infrastructure but it has actively sabotaged the work of AusLink 2 by turning it into a political football. Given the sorry record of state Labor governments on infrastructure projects—and I must say that Queensland’s record is bad enough but it pales into insignificance when compared with the New South Wales government—and the dismal start by this government, the need for greater scrutiny will be paramount under the Rudd government’s infrastructure program.

The coalition is calling for transparency in the workings and analysis undertaken with regard to all competing projects. There will be very strong concerns about how transparent the process will be. Even before any of the money has been allocated Labor has shown repeatedly that it is prepared to play political football with the issue in an attempt to score political points.

In early October it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald that the New South Wales government was told by the Rudd government not to bother applying for funds for a major Sydney infrastructure project. There were no votes in it because it did not give the political reward—forget the economic reward—that the Rudd government was searching for. Concerns that these funds were a political slush fund for Labor were exacerbated by a report in the Age newspaper that the original legislation was pulled by the infrastructure minister ‘because it gave him insufficient ministerial discretion over how the money would be allocated’. We know that he is going to allocate this in a nontransparent way unless we put in place the required transparency and the required amendments to this legislation.

Another case in point is one in my own electorate—and unlike the member for Oxley, I am happy to stand at this dispatch box, as I stood at that dispatch box and as I stood in that seat over there and argued the case for the Toowoomba Range Crossing. Under the Howard government we saw that crossing being given the green light. In the May 2007 budget $700 million was allocated to start building that road, a project that is probably going to cost $2 billion to complete. Yet as soon as Labor came into government, as soon as the new minister took his place, that money was withdrawn. He continues to refuse to say that that project will go ahead and he cannot give any reason. He knows that the money is there, he knows that it was in the budget, he knows that the need for the range is there, and so we are left to surmise that the only reason that that money has been withdrawn is because of politics.

Why do we know that? As is their wont, the member for Longman, who sits in this chamber, let the cat out of the bag in a speech that he gave when he actively advocated withholding infrastructure funding to coalition electorates as a ‘form of punishment’ for those of us on this side of the House who had the audacity to use the democratic process availed in this place to oppose new Labor taxes. So the penalty for us for using the democratic process, which we should all hold so dear, according to the member for Longman is that we be ‘punished’, that those on this side of the chamber should be punished for daring to oppose new Labor taxes. So he quite actively and quite blatantly stated in this House that there should be infrastructure funding withheld as a result.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government himself is not without blame in that area. He has certainly used every opportunity in this chamber to exploit infrastructure projects like the Toowoomba bypass. We saw him in this House produce a letter, which I dared him to table, where I asked him for the Toowoomba Range Crossing. He seemed to think that I had committed some sort of political sin and that, being the member for Groom and asking for a road that is probably 30 years overdue, I should be used as the target of a political point. I am proud of the letter. I wish he had tabled it. I wish that he had enough nous, enough politics, enough sense to understand that a local member advocating a road in his electorate, which stands up to all the guidelines that he is putting forward—and I will come to them in a moment—should not be held up to ridicule by the minister for a cheap political point. So between the minister and the member for Longman—and I am sure that there are others on the other side—the Labor Party is preparing to punish those on this side of the House. Those are the member for Longman’s words; I am not making them up. The word ‘punishment’ was said.

The Rudd Labor government has not even been up-front with our local community in terms of admitting that politics is now the obstacle to the construction of the Toowoomba Range Crossing. It has reduced the issue to cheap theatrics. It makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s claim that he would ‘govern for all Australians’. Based on the Prime Minister’s own criteria for the Building Australia Fund, the case is clear for the Toowoomba bypass. It is a bypass which fits all the requirements outlined by the Prime Minister and it is one project which needs to be built as soon as possible.

It is little wonder then that there are grave concerns about the $20 billion infrastructure fund becoming a slush fund for Labor. The potential also exists for state governments to duck their responsibilities and simply take infrastructure projects off their own books. Every single dollar allocated to the funds has been provided for by the surpluses of the previous, Howard government—every single dollar. The Rudd government has already shown that it has no economic strategy to manage the current situation and it will now have insufficient surpluses to contribute any significant extra dollars to these funds in 2009 and 2010. In fact, we will be damn lucky if there are any surpluses at all. According to the Treasurer, we are going into a temporary deficit situation. Who knows how long that temporary deficit will last?

I noticed last night on The 7.30 Report that there is a new interviewer called Terry—I thought it was Kerry, but the Treasurer called him Terry, and I assumed the Treasurer knew what he was talking about—and, when ‘Terry’ asked the Treasurer how long the temporary deficit would last, the Treasurer was unable to answer the question. For those of us who know the record of Labor governments, state and federal, that chilled us to the bone.

The coalition want full disclosure of the cost-benefit analysis for recommended projects and for those rejected as well, including all data, assumptions and models used. It means that there will be full transparency of PPP contracts. That is the only way we will have confidence in this whole process. We have already seen that, in their attempts to carry out major infrastructure, the Rudd government do not have the capacity to execute the plan. The first major infrastructure project was the computers in schools program, and that is already falling apart. Even where they are able to put computers on desks, they are unable to supply the data links to run them. I have a school in my electorate, in Quinalow, that has these computers waiting for the links to come but with no way in the world the line will run.

We see the absolute shemozzle that the minister for communications, Senator Conroy, has produced in his ham-fisted attempt to deliver broadband into regional areas. A project going nowhere would be the best way to describe the broadband proposal being put forward by the government. Telstra have put forward an almost farcical proposal, saying they will not proceed unless they are given a number of guarantees first. When you have economic managers like those on the other side and you are a corporate operator in Australia, I guess you would try to find some form of certainty in moving forward.

But the computers in schools program is falling apart. The government have precluded using any funds to pay for ongoing running or maintenance costs, including staff costs, and state governments are saying that they simply cannot afford to install these computers in their schools. The lack of economic understanding on that side of the House means that they are unable to foresee that there are whole-of-life costs in putting computers in schools. It is not just the capital costs of the machine itself; it is the time to install it, to operate it, to maintain it and to train the people who are going to be teaching the children how to best use it. This is a classic example of a government obsessed with photo opportunities but failing in terms of rigorous planning to see the project through.

These nation-building funds and the accompanying infrastructure projects they will fund do not represent a timely response to the global financial crisis or address concerns about the slowing Australian economy. These are major infrastructure projects, and again they highlight just how little the government has thought about them. It can throw the money at the state governments—and I am sure the state Labor governments will find a way to spend it—but, if we are looking for a long-term, quality infrastructure plan to come out of this, this money will not be spent in time to have a major impact on the current global economy and the effect that it is having here in Australia.

The Commonwealth’s plan, if delivered in haste and for the wrong reasons—which it is—is likely to result in a number of problems. Even if some major public infrastructure projects can be brought forward, there is a likelihood that they will be rushed and bungled and of dubious economic or social benefit. And if you want to see a good example of dubious economic benefit then go and have a look at the member for Oxley’s proposal for Ipswich Road. Go and have a look at what the vehicle numbers are going to be on the road by the time that road is completed in 2012. The legacy of the Labor government and the member for Oxley will be a road that is at capacity before it is even completed.

It is important to stress that a good public infrastructure program is based on an accurate assessment of each proposed project to see if it produces a net benefit to the public. The Productivity Commission ought to analyse all proposed projects and report publicly on their merit or otherwise. That would give us some confidence that all the talk we hear from the Rudd government, although it never delivers, can actually be turned into something useful and lasting. On roads, on education and on health, the coalition government got down to the hard work and it delivered. The Rudd Labor government continues to dither and politick.

The coalition will be moving a number of amendments to the government’s nation-building funds bills to provide transparency, to guarantee productivity, to reveal total costs—that is, whole-of-life costs—and to stop revenue-gouging by the state governments. On transparency, productivity, funding of ongoing costs and upfront fees, we require that sort of accountability to have any confidence in these bills.

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should commend the previous speaker, the member for Groom, for his impassioned speech. Being a fellow Queenslander I know he has a passion about the state. I am concerned, though, that he is not a little bit prouder of what we have achieved in Queensland. Certainly, investment in the area of infrastructure has been going on for many years. That investment has not been, to a large degree, underwritten by the federal government, and that is essentially what we are going to change as a government. We are nation builders, and I am going to talk more about this as I go through my speech today, because it is an understanding of our vision as a government. The Rudd Labor government is a nation builder, as were the previous Labor governments. Labor governments in the Whitlam years, certainly the Hawke and Keating era and now into the Rudd period are about long-term vision. Unfortunately, sometimes that long-term vision gets cut off along the way simply because the Liberal coalition governments come into office and they really do not understand what we are doing or pick up where we have left off in terms of putting those parts together.

I rise to speak on these three consequential bills: the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008. This package of three bills makes way for the government’s 2008-09 budget announcement to establish three financial asset funds to provide financing across sources to meet the government’s commitment to Australia’s future by investing in critical areas such as transport, communications, energy, water, education and health, with the COAG reform fund as the vehicle that will provide grants of financial assistance to the states and territories.The legislation repeals the Higher Education Endowment Fund, with the funds being transferred into the Education Investment Fund. It also allows for amounts to be transferred from the Future Fund to the Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund, and the Health and Hospitals Fund.

For a long time many Australians have been calling for funds to be invested back into the community. Last year we went to the election outlining our plan for nation building. We want to get on with the job, unlike the opposition, who have continuously delayed the legislative process in the House and the Senate. This is having an effect on the economy. Business wants the government to get on with the job and is becoming increasingly frustrated with the delays. In the current climate we need to ensure security.

The COAG Reform Fund will take effect from 1 January 2009. COAG has agreed to this new framework for federal financial relations. A key element of this new framework is the provision of new incentive payments to drive reforms. The Commonwealth will provide national partnership payments to the states to support the delivery of specific projects, to facilitate reforms or to reward those jurisdictions that deliver nationally significant reforms.

On budget night the Treasurer announced that we would establish three new nation-building funds—the Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund and the Health and Hospitals Fund—on top of the COAG Reform Fund. These cognate bills will lift our productivity capacity by providing leadership in the planning, financing and provision of significant national infrastructure projects. The COAG Reform Fund will not be a fund to bail out states and territories. They will be subjected to an agreement between the Commonwealth and states and territories. A national partnership agreement will set out performance benchmarks and the amount of payment for meeting each benchmark.

Financial assistance to the states will be subject to the independent COAG Reform Council assessment of whether the performance benchmarks have been achieved. At present the current law is convoluted and involves many complex payment arrangements in various areas. There is no specific account that currently exists to channel funds to the states and territories. This legislation proposes exactly that. This legislation will allow for the funds to be made available on the condition that the state governments meet their obligations. This is not a slush fund, as has been mentioned by those opposite.

This legislation will allow foresight in infrastructure, education, health and transport. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition in speaking on these bills yesterday laid out her achievements when she was the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Unfortunately, in her speech the Deputy Leader of the Opposition failed to mention universities. The previous government’s record on universities is appalling. An article in the Age newspaper on 4 March this year stated:

The Federal Government had cut total public funding to the universities by 4% in the period 1996 to 2004—compared with an OECD average increase in public funding of 49% for tertiary education in the same period.

…            …            …

Monash University vice-chancellor Richard Larkins said it would take the Government some time to rebuild the sector after years of under-investment. But a starting point, he said, would be to supplement the $6 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund by an extra $2 billion a year, bolster research grants, and deregulate the HECS funding system so universities could set higher course fees.

Universities went backwards under the Howard government and all that evidence points directly to a lack of understanding in terms of nation building. Shortly I will talk about how the education reforms and our education revolution are also part of this nation building.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition was also scathing of state governments. Again this is the blame game. We came to government talking about the necessity to get out of this blame game, but here it continues. She quoted Dr Henry Ergas, who is conducting the opposition’s current tax review. She said:

I would like nothing more than to stand here today and say that these additional funds were invested wisely by state governments.

…            …            …

Dr Ergas found that a very substantial part of the increased funding went to higher wages for public servants and increasing the numbers of public servants, increasing the public sector. Only a very small percentage of that windfall, of that funding to state Labor governments, was invested in the states’ infrastructure.

That is just a nonsense. In Queensland I have direct evidence and understanding of that. Queensland and the nation have had major issues with water. The critical last few years has meant some major investment. One critical investment was nearly $9 billion for securing water for South-East Queensland. The previous federal government contributed only $400 million for the western corridor and $100 million towards the green power for the desalination plant on the Gold Coast. Out of $9 billion spent by the Queensland government only $500 million was contributed by the federal government.

The Treasurer’s second reading speech stated that these nation-building reforms have two essential outcomes: increasing productivity and sustained improvements in the efficiency and quality of services for all Australians. He also said:

The reforms to the Commonwealth-state relations will be the platform on which significant policy change is delivered in Australia in key areas such as education, health and infrastructure.

When the Rudd government was elected we promised to end the blame game, to modernise the Federation, to build the productive capacity of the economy and to ensure better services for all Australians. This is a new era in cooperative federalism.

We talk about the enormous growth, and I have talked about Queensland. Certainly the member for Groom would understand the enormous impact of our growing state. It is very easy to blame state governments, particularly the Queensland government, for the building of infrastructure. There is huge investment, but there is also still huge growth in the numbers. Almost 1,500 people a week—that is a net figure—arrive in South-East Queensland. It is almost the case that they come across the border, find the Gold Coast, put their bags down and say, ‘We’ll stop here.’ People are moving to Queensland. It puts enormous pressure on the infrastructure that we have and we need investment to roll out new infrastructure.

I have previously mentioned in this chamber the population counter as you leave the Brisbane airport. Only two years ago Queensland celebrated its population reaching four million. Just last week I think the counter showed almost 4.3 million people, so 300,000 people in a short period of time have moved to live in Queensland. Particularly in the south-east that is putting enormous pressure on the infrastructure and this has meant that the Queensland state government has had to invest heavily.

I heard one of the Queensland opposition members some months ago having a go at the state government about the huge debt it is carrying. The debt is about nation building. It is about assets. It is about investment. It is about building infrastructure. None of the state governments around the country would be borrowing so much if the former federal government had played their part in investing in the states. The interesting thing for Queensland and my electorate of Forde is this. A number of times I have extolled the virtues of Forde. We are in the south-east corner of Queensland and are a Gold Coast hinterland seat. We are lacking good, solid infrastructure. That is due to 12 years of neglect. There was no funding federally to support some of the major projects that we have had to put together in Queensland.

With 1,500 people arriving in Queensland each week, we only have to drive on the roads in and around the city to understand. Not only are the roads choked and blocked but we now have extensive delays because of some of the road building that is going on. Good investment in infrastructure is what the Rudd government are all about. We are about aligning the three tiers—and we are now calling them the three ‘spheres’—of government to work together. I wonder whether the opposition really understand what we are attempting to do. They talk about us announcing inquiries and setting up committees and boards. That is exactly what we need to do. This is not ad hocery. This is not a case of throwing money at a problem. This is about building a future and building a structure. We talk about hard, physical infrastructure, but it is also about the social infrastructure and soft infrastructure that we must put in place. Nation building is not just about building roads and bridges. That is only a small part of it.

I briefly mentioned the three spheres of government. Last week was historic when over 400 mayors from the 569 councils around this country were brought together. That is the first time we have had local government members as a group sitting across the table from and talking to our federal ministers. This is a reform. We as a federal government are attempting to bring those tiers of government together. There have been reasonable relationships built between the state governments, and the opposition would argue that is because they have been of the same political flavour. I know from my work in government circles in an advisory capacity over the last few years that states are very competitive. Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, you would understand that as well. The reality is that those state governments worked together because they had a common interest. The common interest was essentially surviving without the support of the Howard government.

Now we have a new opportunity. While the political flavours around the country will change, that should make no difference to our ability to build our nation. Infrastructure Australia, the Australian Council of Local Government, the rollout of national broadband and the education revolution all fit as a package. It is about putting together a jigsaw. It is about addressing the needs of a nation via a vision and putting the appropriate pieces together. It is interesting to hear the opposition argue that we are putting up committees or running inquiries. It is all about information gathering. For the first time in 107 years local government want to engage with us as a government and want to be part of the discussion about how they better build infrastructure. The $300 million package is very much an incentive package to put money into small projects in local government authority areas to stimulate the economy. I will not go into detail about Keynesian theory and about investment by the public sector in stimulating the economy in uncertain times like now.

The reality is that Labor governments build nations. I spoke in this chamber yesterday about education, about education reform and about what we are attempting to do with curriculum. That is integral to building our nation. The member for Groom spoke about the computers that are arriving in schools as part of the education revolution. His view was that this was ad hocery, that we were just buying computers and sticking them on desks. The member for Groom and the opposition generally do not understand what the education revolution is about. It is not just about computers. It is not just about putting boxes on desks. It is part of the solution. The education revolution is very much about the way we teach and train our future generations. Computers are tools; they are only part of that process. Part of the solution is to have a nationally based curriculum, and we are working through the process to establish a national curriculum.

I mentioned in that speech the fact that change always brings concerns. The teachers in my electorate I have spoken to understand the need for a federal approach but are somewhat concerned. They explained that distrust developed over nearly 12 years of the Howard government. The schools had a lot of funding ripped from them in so many ways. It was a case of not providing the resources needed for quality education. The Rudd government took to the people at election time the education revolution initiative. Part of my history is as an educator. I have written and developed a lot of curriculum. It is very much the basis of getting an understanding of what we as a nation need and what skills we have to give our future generations to carry on the legacy that will be established by the Rudd government.

The funds will specifically go to the outcomes that we as a government decide are priorities. When I say ‘we’, it is about those three spheres of government talking together. It is about good dialogue and good involvement with those three levels of government. There is some concern from the other side that we would consider recognising local government in our Constitution. I am amazed. If we remember, back in 1974 the Whitlam government attempted it. In 1988 the Hawke government tried it. Of course, on both of those occasions the opposition that came from the other side essentially meant that it did not occur. We now have an opportunity. We have 569 councils. I am sure the majority of those want to see recognition. That recognition would allow us as a government to engage in the process of delivering good infrastructure on the ground, by having efficiencies and by cutting back on and getting rid of the red tape that causes so many frustrations at all levels.

I heard the member for Groom saying that Labor state governments are wasteful and are not doing the right thing, that they are spending unwisely. That is just untrue. I have given some examples about my home state of Queensland, which is also the home state of the member for Groom. I would have expected that he might have been a bit more proud of what we have been able to achieve. Queensland is a very strong state. There are a couple of other states around the country that are doing as well—and some are not doing as well.

The reality is that it is all about us as a federal government being able to engage at that level with the states and with the local authorities to provide much needed infrastructure. As I said, we have established Infrastructure Australia simply to be able to put some good processes in place to allow the delivery of all of that infrastructure, both soft infrastructure and physical infrastructure, as part of our nation-building agenda.

I spoke this morning in fact about the new funding arrangements with local government. This certainly replaces the old Regional Partnerships program. That just shows you what happens when you do not have a process and you do not have something that is quite critical in terms of how we apply funding directly to certain priorities. The inquiry looking at Regional Partnerships certainly supports the fact that there were some bad decisions made under that program. In fact I am being kind when I talk about bad decisions—there were some very direct and deliberate decisions made in favour of certain electorates. Without trying to politicise this too much today, the reality is that in my own electorate I have seen public funds wasted and ultimately not able to deliver the sort of infrastructure required on the ground.

I am going to conclude by simply saying that this is a major reform for federal and state relations and certainly at the local government area. State governments have been calling for reform in many years. We need to work in partnership on infrastructure, particularly social infrastructure such as health, communications and education. These cognate bills remove the complex system of federal financial relations. There will be performance based benchmarks for the states to meet their obligations in receiving financial assistance. There will be an assessment by an independent COAG Reform Council. This will not be money just handed out to the states; this will be managed responsibly, as I have outlined in my speech today.

The Rudd government are serious about ending the blame game, and we have. These bills are one step in cooperative federalism, and I commend the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance and Deregulation for moving this agenda forward. For all of these reasons, I commend these bills to the House.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have listened with some degree of interest to the last 10 minutes of the previous speaker’s contribution. One of the issues that I would like to raise in relation to this debate on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and cognate bills is the process of accountability and transparency in the use of public funds. The previous speaker referred to the Regional Partnerships arrangements. I would also like him to look closely at what the Leader of the National Party had to say, I think it was yesterday, in terms of the processes that the current government seems to be deliberating on at least in terms of Infrastructure Australia and some of the funding arrangements.

I was a great critic of the previous government’s accountability or lack of accountability, particularly in terms of some of their discretionary funding. But I think the new government, the current government, is potentially at risk of if not repeating the same mistakes and following the same trail then of committing similar mistakes. I think there was a classic example of this last week. The government put in place a meeting with local government and there were various funding arrangements reached. I have not heard one person criticise that, and the reason they did not criticise it is that everybody got a fair go. The previous government had a similar scheme with the Roads to Recovery program. Everybody got a fair go, they accepted the formula and they were pleased to get direct funding from the Commonwealth—funding direct to local government rather than passing it through the states.

The common denominator in those two schemes is that they are seen to be fair. I think the response from the mayors and others across Australia to that fairness should be sending a signal to government generally that you do not have to pork barrel to gain acceptance from the community. In fact, if you are seen to be fair, you are rewarded at the polls. A classic case is the Regional Partnerships arrangement under the former government and the way in which some of that money was expended, and the shameful way that some people who still reside in this place think it was a good idea. They lost government. Part of that process was the loss of credibility in terms of the broader electorate, even those who received the largesse. There were a number of examples raised in the inquiry. I have been part of that inquiry, and the inquiry has not finished yet.

One of the things that really does need to be examined is the Financial Management and Accountability Act and the penalties that accrue when there is a breach of the law. Quite clearly from what the Audit Office had to say in terms of the previous arrangement, there were breaches of the law. So one would have to ask, and people in my electorate have asked, ‘What is the penalty?’ There is none. Nothing happens. So what do we do for the next lot? Allow a system to develop in a full knowledge that you can breach the law without anything happening? I hope not.

I would hope that when the Minister for Finance and Deregulation does have a look at the Financial Management and Accountability Act and the breaches—he may not go on some witch-hunt to persecute those who perpetrated the breaches in the past—he remedies those failings for the future. The Australian National Audit Office and others, I believe, have the potential to assist in doing that. That is going to be a real test of this government, because it made great play of the weaknesses of the previous government in relation to the way it spent taxpayers’ money. I will be making sure where I can that when there are similar transgressions they are made public. It would be extraordinary if the minister for finance or the government does not want to fix the problem in terms of the penalties, the accountability process and the way in which the cash is followed. In the previous system, if recipients were getting $1 million, they had to meet certain milestones for whatever it was they were doing. The department or someone ticked them off—in some cases, no-one bothered.

The Audit Office—and I have great respect for the Audit Office; I think the work that they do is outstanding—do not have the capacity to find out who got the money. The money was spent on projects, some of which never occurred, and we do not seem to be able to find out who got the money. I think that is something that we need to know. If we are spending public funds, we should know who gets it. It is not good enough to say, ‘Well, I received it to have a look at something and I have spent it and then I did nothing with it because it was not worth looking at.’ There have been cases where there have been blatant transfers of taxpayers’ money to projects that were supposed to happen but did not happen. So what happens to those people? If we go out and speed in our vehicles, we break the law. We pass laws in here that the general public have to abide by, and here we are in this place abiding by breaches of the law.

I say to the members of the government who are here that, if you are genuine and you look at these problems and you solve them, you will be rewarded by the people. They have a view now, whether it be the whiteboard affair of the Labor Party years ago or Regional Partnerships of the more recent past government, that that is the way all governments operate. I have some faith in Prime Minister Rudd. I think he would prefer to go that way, but it is going to be a real challenge not to follow the path of ‘Because the others did it’, not to go to war in Iraq because Bob Hawke went there, not to use that old process, ‘We can do it; we can go without asking the people because the other guy did it some other time.’ So I challenge the members of the government: do the right thing by the people and you will find that they do the right thing by you. If you ever want an example, look at that local government conference the other day. I know people who are diehard supporters of the conservative parties in my electorate have sent Prime Minister Rudd glowing thankyou notes for being recognised for once and not having the stuff washed through the state and for being able to make a few decisions at the local level. That is the way to build infrastructure in this country: give the people that are on the ground the capacity to feel as though they are part of the process and that they can go ahead and do it.

I emphasise once again that the finance minister really has to have a hard look at the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997. Where there are breaches, irrespective of whether it is a minister, a departmental person or a recipient, there should be penalties. Those penalties should be clearly imposed upon whoever breached the law. There has to be, even for decisions where an electoral promise was made, some accountability at the ministerial level as to why that was chosen and not something else, irrespective of process. I ask members to look at a few of the comments that the Leader of the National Party made yesterday, because they were important. They were about what seems to be developing as a bit of a Clayton’s process of assessment of priorities in infrastructure. If that is there now, it is something that the Prime Minister and others really need to have a hard look at. If you put in place a dummy run of assessments to determine priorities across the nation and it is nothing more than a washroom to wash the money through to friends and those loyal, that is not picking the real priorities for the development of this nation.

One of those priorities that I see is obviously transport in the electorates of New England, Hunter and Parkes. The corridor to the port of Newcastle—and I recognise one of the Newcastle members here—is absolutely essential to this nation and our part of the world in the New England, the north-west and the Hunter. There is a third coal loader being built at the port of Newcastle at the moment which has a loading capacity of 120 million tonnes—an extraordinary amount of coal. There are major developments of coal in the Hunter, the New England and the north-west, some of which I am disputing in terms of some of the ground water issues. Nonetheless, there is major development taking place.

Ernst & Young carried out a $5 million inquiry that the former government instigated when it was looking at the inland rail route and the various options. I took the time to read the two volumes and they were pretty heavy going. One of the things that was identified as part of that process was that on the eastern side of Australia, the three states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, there is 220 million tonnes of freight movement—that is not export freight—and 110 million tonnes of that is in the Moree to Newcastle corridor. If we are serious about exports and all the things we talk about, there will have to be major upgrades of some of the rail facilities in that corridor, not just in the Hunter but on the Murrurundi Range and further, through to Gunnedah, Boggabri, Narrabri et cetera, which are not all in my electorate. That is critical in terms of priority on the eastern seaboard. I have heard some of the Queensland members talk about Gladstone, where there are similar issues. If we are serious about all of these issues, whether it be grain production, cotton production, coal production or other minerals, infrastructure of that nature has to be the first cab off the rank.

The other significant area that I would like to spend a little bit of time on is the issue of water and the importance that it has for this nation. We currently have a bill before the House looking at the Murray-Darling. I have amended some legislation in this very place. It was supported in the Senate yesterday. I was highly delighted that the Liberal and National parties supported the amendment. That amendment was going to allow a scientific study to be done of the interconnectivity issues of groundwater and surface water in the basin before mining exploration and mining took place. I am appalled that only some minutes ago the National Party withdrew its support for that amendment. The mining industry magnates have been at work overnight. An amendment that has been supported twice, not by the government but by the coalition, in this House and in the Senate has just been overturned in the Senate. That is a disgraceful betrayal of people who have put their trust in them. It is also a betrayal of a very important piece of infrastructure.

I am not against coal—I have just been talking about upgrading railway lines so that coal can be transported and so that coal loaders can be maintained—but I am against coal where the current state based approval process is so flawed that it takes no regard of the offsite impacts. The legislation that Senator Wong and others have brought into parliament about the Murray-Darling, which I support, ignores the difference and assumes that you can still have a state based coalmining approval process, but now we have a Commonwealth legislative arrangement for water. What happens when they interact? We do not have a process that actually works. We have some nonsense that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts carried on with here a few weeks back that, under the new bill, the minister or the authority may or could instigate some sort of inquiry if in fact there is an unintended diversion of water. Translated from French, that would mean, ‘If the mine has some impact on the water, we will look at it.’ What if it is irreparable? What does it mean to the $10 billion Basin Plan that all this is about? Why are we spending that money when we do not have the scientific knowledge of these systems and the contribution they make to our groundwater? And we talk to the people at Lake Alexandrina and say that we are doing something! We do not know what we are doing. We buy a bit of water out of a property and it becomes the major event of the year. But there is no water there.

Surely if we are going to develop inland Australia and infrastructure in inland Australia we really need to know what is happening in terms of our water resources. One of the reasons that this new bill has been introduced is to assess risk of various practices across the basin. Translated again, that means, ‘Check out the irrigation industry and do something where there has been overuse or overallocation’—and there has been. The National Party betrayed country people this morning. Here we are, removing the need for a risk assessment process for a coalmine, for exploration. What we have now is this flawed process—they cobbled together an amended amendment in the Senate—which virtually mirror-images the flawed state process, where when you go to mine you do an EIS, which has no regard for any offsite impacts because we do not know the scientific linkages between the water systems.

I would have thought that Senator Wong, Kevin Rudd and others who have played on this Murray-Darling stuff would have taken the time to actually look at the sites that are there. It is not about stopping mining; it is about removing an activity that can have an adverse impact on part of our environment. What you could end up with if the proper scientific work were ever done is a three-dimensional map which shows the areas of risk, and then we could assess the risk based on real science. Obviously there will be vast areas where there is no risk.

Senator Wong and others say that they are doing the Murray-Darling a great favour and leaving this state based process in place. They are saying that the state based water process did not work, and I agree that we have to bring it together to make it work. They leave this gaping hole in the system to allow the money men to pillage and plunder once more. I think that is an indictment of the three major parties. The Labor Party voted against it and the Liberals and Nationals changed their minds in the Senate, voting one way yesterday and a different way today. That is to their shame. They will never be able to say again that they support the food bowl in the Murray-Darling system.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have long been an advocate of significantly increasing the level of infrastructure investment in this country and am on the record in my previous role as the Secretary of the ACTU in this regard. I made a number of addresses dealing with this question. Anyone with experience in the real economy would be more than familiar with the fact that investing in infrastructure development is critical to jobs growth, expanding GDP, overcoming a number of the capacity constraints that have developed within the economy because of the failure to invest in infrastructure over the last decade and boosting productivity. So it is an essential economic activity. It is a lesson we have learnt from our experience of economic development throughout the 20th century but it is a challenge that was failed by the previous coalition government.

In this context I am very proud to be able to speak on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008. These two bills continue the theme of national renewal that is at the heart of the Rudd Labor government’s agenda. The process of national renewal has been underway for a year and the government is determined to continue to deliver to improve the economic performance of our country and to lift our standards of living and rebuild society.

The Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 establish the three nation-building funds that are the central instruments of the government’s renewed infrastructure investment. These funds are the Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund and the Health and Hospitals Fund. Those three funds taken collectively will finance improvements in critical infrastructure in transport, communications, higher education, vocational education and training, research and health. It is expected that they will drive up private sector investment in these areas as well. Importantly, the funds also complement the government’s Economic Security Strategy to help strengthen the Australian economy against the impact of the global financial crisis.

The bills establish the Building Australia Fund, as I said. I will deal with that fund first. This will finance capital investments in critical economic infrastructure in transport and communications but most notably, it would be expected, in road, rail, urban transport, port facilities and broadband. The government will constitute the fund by transferring the remaining proceeds of the Telstra 3 sale, the assets of the Communications Fund, which will be closed, and $7.5 billion from the 2007-08 budget surplus, leading to total funds in the Building Australia Fund in the order of $12.6 billion. Infrastructure Australia will give advice to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government regarding potential payments from the fund in relation to the creation or development of transport infrastructure. The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy will receive advice also from Infrastructure Australia regarding the potential for Building Australia funds to help create or develop communications infrastructure.

The Education Investment Fund will be constructed by closing down the Higher Education Endowment Fund and transferring $2.5 billion from the 2007-08 budget surplus, which will endow the fund with $8.7 billion to focus on capital investment in higher education and vocational education and training. In other words, the purpose of this fund in particular is to help provide capital expenditure for renewal and refurbishment in universities, vocational education and training institutions, research facilities and major research institutions. This broader focus is, of course, an important distinction between the Education Investment Fund and the former Howard government’s Higher Education Endowment Fund. While the latter was restricted to supporting capital renewal in universities, which of course is an important objective, the Rudd government’s fund will pursue that objective but will also support other research institutions and vocational education and training facilities.

Unlike the coalition, the Labor government respects and supports an important level of investment in vocational education and training, and that is evidenced in the approach that we are adopting. There are many more students who participate in the vocational education and training systems than the university system, as important as it is. If we are serious about renewing education infrastructure we should not be discriminating against one part of the education system. An advisory board will be established to provide advice to the Minister for Education and the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on potential fund investments within their portfolio areas.

The Health and Hospitals Fund is the third component or fund within the nation-building funds, and this will be endowed with $5 billion from the 2007-08 budget surplus. This fund will be focused on capital investment in health infrastructure, including funding for renewal and refurbishment of hospitals, medical technology equipment and major medical research facilities and projects. The bills also establish a Health and Hospitals Fund advisory board to give advice to the Minister for Health and Ageing regarding potential payments from the Health and Hospitals Fund in relation to the creation or development of health infrastructure. In other words, the board will give advice to the Minister for Health and Ageing to ensure that we are appropriately boosting investment in this area.

For each of the funds, evaluation criteria will be developed in consultation with the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, and this will provide the analytical rigour to ensure the appropriate use of moneys from the funds. The ministers with portfolio responsibilities are required to obtain and have regard to the advice from the advisory boards where the minister recommends a payment from one of the funds. What that means is that, unlike what happened under the previous government, investment under these nation-building funds will be made according to the strict application of appropriate and rigorous criteria. For too long, infrastructure funding was allocated on the basis of the margin of seats or the members that may hold them and the political party of which they are a member, rather than the general infrastructure needs of the economy. This must be a nation-building effort, not something along the lines of the coalition’s application of its discredited Regional Partnerships program. Nor will the Rudd government exclude the Treasury from input into major investment decisions. Unlike the current Leader of the Opposition, who apparently when Minister for the Environment and Water Resources opposed Treasury input into the $10 billion water policy fiasco as it unfolded, we think it is very important to include Treasury and appropriate bureaucratic advice in the formulation of responses and the application of these funds.

While the main purpose of the funds is to help meet our long-term infrastructure challenges, the funds will also help Australia meet some of the impacts of the global financial crisis. To this end, the government has announced that it will fast-track our nation-building agenda. This bill and the consequential amendments bill allow for interim arrangements to begin as soon as is practicable. This investment in critical infrastructure will result in a short-term economic stimulus, while at the same time expanding the economy’s growth potential. To achieve this bringing forward, if you like, of our infrastructure investment, interim advisory bodies will be established for the health and education funds. Of course, Infrastructure Australia has already been constituted, and I met with Sir Rod Eddington, the Chair of Infrastructure Australia last week. Infrastructure Australia is already concentrating on a priority list of potential areas for investment. The government has indicated that Infrastructure Australia is expected to produce that interim report on the national infrastructure priority list in December—so in the very near future.

We all have a number of projects for infrastructure investment that we consider extremely important, particularly in the context of our constituencies or the regions in which we reside and we are representing—and I am no different from anyone else in that regard—but, of course, these proposals will be properly considered by Infrastructure Australia in a national economic context. Not to be left behind by other members who may be speaking on this bill, I would like to mention a couple of elements. The previous speaker mentioned the importance of the coal industry to the Hunter region and the importance of the Newcastle coal export capability. There is currently investment going into additional coal-loading capacity—which I strongly support—through the port of Newcastle, but we also need investment in the rail infrastructure to ensure that there are no bottlenecks in getting the demand for export coal through to the port. I think that clearly sits within nationally appropriate consideration for Infrastructure Australia in investment in infrastructure that is of national economic significance.

The member for Hunter and I have adjoining electorates. My electorate of Charlton adjoins the electorate of the Minister for Defence, the member for Hunter. One of the important road transport investments that is of interest to both of us and to all residing in the Hunter region is the extension of the F3 freeway. That extension, which has been mooted and is currently under examination, would commence within my electorate and traverse a good deal of the eastern side of the Hunter electorate. There is also an important infrastructure need for that area. Within my electorate of Charlton, there is an investment that is on a much smaller scale but that is nonetheless economically significant for the Hunter region, and especially for the lower Hunter, and that is an infrastructure requirement known as the Lake Macquarie transport interchange. It is essentially a railway station at Glendale, a road overpass and the development of a road network that will link an industrial area in Cardiff, where about 10,000 people work, with a large retail centre operated by Stockland on the other side of a railway line which divides the industrial estate and the retail centre and would facilitate the movement of thousands of people into and out of that area every day using public transport rather than the motor vehicles that they are currently having to rely on, causing significant congestion and making it very difficult to get to and from work and the shopping centre. That is a more modest infrastructure investment that is extremely needed in the area and one which I strongly support.

This is an opportunity for the opposition to come forward and support the government very clearly in its objectives to accelerate the level of investment in infrastructure. Earlier, I made the remark that we have seen a decade of what I certainly consider to be neglect by the coalition government. If we are to get these funds established by 1 January 2009 and for the infrastructure funds to play a role in the government’s Economic Security Strategy, we need to get the legislation considered quickly. It is an opportunity for the opposition to get on board and be clear in its commitment to ensuring the economic growth of the country by supporting these initiatives. Labor has already begun the process of lifting infrastructure investment. We have committed to rolling out a fibre-to-the-node broadband network as an essential component of a modern economy—and it is. It is also very important to my electorate and the Hunter region. We have committed to investing in innovative solutions to secure our water supply, including recycling and desalination plants. We have committed to developing a national emissions trading scheme or the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which will help drive investment into innovative renewable energy solutions, including coal technology, by having a more market based approach to carbon pollution.

Also, I am very proud to say that this government has put housing back on the national political agenda, and that is a critical element of infrastructure. This is essential, given the housing stress so many Australians are under at the moment. An example of the government’s response has been the announcement of the Housing Affordability Fund. This fund will address the cost of developing new infrastructure associated with housing development in new suburbs such as water, sewerage, transport and parklands. Within the context of the global financial crisis and the consequences of that crisis in the residential mortgage sector of the economy, the government has undertaken to purchase up to $4 billion worth of residential mortgage backed securities to ensure that that part of the marketplace picks up again and that credit is available that leads to stimulations in demand in residential housing sales. So the government has already taken a number of initiatives to pick up the infrastructure baton, and these bills represent a significant step further in relation to that commitment.

The bills will establish nation-building funds with $26.3 billion at their disposal. If we are to attack the infrastructure crisis and avoid the costs of congestions, the pressure on an increasingly interdependent industrial economy, the reduced competitiveness that comes with it, the reduced living standards that are the consequence of a failure to invest and the growing environmental problems associated with crumbling infrastructure, we need to get these measures into place. In the past Australia has experienced the benefits of sustained, well-planned infrastructure investment. The commitment of the Curtin and Chifley governments to post-war reconstruction and infrastructure development, as we can see with the benefit of 50 to 60 years hindsight, was an enormously significant factor in the post-war boom that carried the country through to the early 1970s. Similarly, the Whitlam and Hawke-Keating governments made very significant improvements in the infrastructure in the western suburbs of Sydney, for example, and of Melbourne.

The OECD has estimated that the annual investment required in telecommunications, road, rail, electricity and water infrastructure is 2.5 per cent of world GDP. The OECD also found that if you add electricity generation and other energy related infrastructure investment, that figure should rise to 3.5 per cent of world GDP. That is the level of annual investment that is needed to ensure that needs are met and economic growth continues in a consistent and stable manner. A much quoted report from the Australian Council of Infrastructure Development and Econtech found that there was a nearly $25 billion backlog in infrastructure investment within this country in electricity, gas, road, rail and water infrastructure. Econtech calculated that, if that investment were made, it would result in a long-term increase in GDP of nearly one per cent and that exports would rise by roughly two per cent.

This should not just be looked at, either, in solely an economic context. Economic growth and development are very important for social development and the creation of social infrastructure such as schools, childcare centres and the like, and they help address inequities in the distribution of income in our society through the creation of employment and the improvement of living standards. So all of these measures are extremely important.

Linked to this nation-building agenda, too, is looking at infrastructure investment through the prism of climate change that I mentioned earlier. A vital role of Infrastructure Australia will be to provide advice on infrastructure policies arising from climate change. Reducing congestion and improving the efficiency of transport networks will play a very important part in the abatement of greenhouse gases and the improvement of urban amenity. The Building Australia Fund has a key role to play in this context.

As I said in my opening remarks, I have been a long-time advocate for increased infrastructure investment. For that reason I am extremely pleased that these bills are before the House. The three nation-building funds will result in $26.3 billion being made available to fund critical infrastructure in transport, communications, higher education, vocational education and training, research and health. It is important to pause to consider how important that is: $26.3 billion being committed to infrastructure investment in these areas will be very important to our economy and our immediate, medium-term and long-term economic performance. The early infrastructure investment will also be part of the government’s Economic Security Strategy, as I outlined, that will help Australia face the challenge of the global financial crisis. Advancing important infrastructure investment will have an important stimulatory impact on the economy in the short term.

We should never lose sight of the importance of investment of this nature. It is an extremely important initiative for government to take. It is critical, as it always has been in the history of our Federation, that the national government—the Commonwealth—take leadership in this area, work with the states and bring about investment in all areas of infrastructure to bolster our economy, to boost jobs, to lift living standards and to build productivity for the future economic security of this country.

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

It is always great as a rural and regional member to rise in the House to talk about infrastructure funding, because you always hope that funding will be made available in regional areas for key and vital infrastructure. I am sure that as a result of the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 there will be funding available to assist in building critical infrastructure in rural and regional areas. We would like to see transport hubs and intermodals. We would like to see refurbishment and rebuilding of terminal access for regional aviation. We would also like to see pavement strengthening and runway upgrades for aviation in rural and regional Australia, because there is no point spending an enormous amount of money on putting in an enormous amount of security at rural and regional airports if the passengers land on substandard runways. As I said, rural and regional members are always hopeful that infrastructure funds will deliver good and key quality infrastructure building projects in rural and regional Australia. The former government did that through the AusLink proposals, and we have major infrastructure building projects that are still in progress which will make a difference for all Australians.

The primary reason I stand here today to speak on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 is the establishment of the three separate financial asset funds: the Building Australia Fund; the Education Investment Fund, which I spoke on yesterday; and the Health and Hospitals Fund. Health is the key area that I would like to raise today, and I raise it with hope that the voices of the people in the region and the electorate that I represent in the Riverina will be heard. I am going to take this opportunity to speak on the bill with reference to the Health and Hospitals Fund and to the words in the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday on the financial and fiscal issues that are confronting Australia and the possible need to go into a temporary deficit but, in doing so, being able to shore up and build critical infrastructure projects such as hospitals. That was the thought that struck me when I heard those words spoken.

I want to again remind the House of probably the most urgent and critical piece of health infrastructure that is required. Earlier in the week I initiated a question in the House that was asked by the member for Cowper on the blowing out of hospital waiting list times for Wagga Wagga. The Minister for Health and Ageing indicated that money has been put into reducing these waiting times from the New South Wales state government perspective. I have always maintained that it was not going to be easy for the waiting list at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital to be reduced, because the infrastructure is simply not available to reduce any such waiting list—the theatre time is not available. The operational mechanisms of theatres are simply unacceptable and are almost unable to be used in many instances. There is an enormous regional referral centre that is responsible for the referral of over 170,000 people, at today’s count, to one hospital with around 220 to 240 beds.

The Wagga Wagga Base Hospital was made a regional referral centre. It was just an announcement made on paper. The rest of the hospitals in my electorate—such as Griffith, which services a community of around 30,000 people—were downgraded to being just local hospitals, and the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital was determined to be the regional referral centre. What happened in order to enable Wagga Wagga Base Hospital to fulfil the obligations of being the centre? Nothing happened as far as infrastructure enhancements go. All that happened, as I have said in this House time and time again, was that two-bed wards were made into four-bed wards and four-bed wards were made into eight-bed wards. It just seems to be an ongoing saga, so I would like to point out to the House the process that has taken place and the plight of the people of the Riverina.

I take encouragement and heart from the words of the Prime Minister that one of the benefits of taking this nation into a deficit would be the ability to build this important hospital infrastructure. I want to say, ‘Please, Sir, let us be first,’ because I think we deserve it. The Wagga Wagga Base Hospital was designed in the 1930s. During the latter half of the 1950s the then minister for health, with significant support from an ever-growing population, lobbied the Health Commission of New South Wales to replace the outdated and defunct original hospital. The current building that we have was built in 1962. There was no input into the design by our professionals: Wagga doctors, specialists et cetera. Then we had our original 110-bed facility transformed into a 220-bed facility by transforming those single rooms into doubles, doubles into quadruples and so on. Some small scale redevelopments have taken place, but there has really been nothing to enable the hospital to meet the capacity that is required of it.

We have been promised this capacity for the hospital for around 30 years by successive state governments, both coalition and Labor. On 20 February 1980, $15 million was provided for in the Labor state government’s 1979-80 capital works program for a Wagga Wagga Base Hospital redevelopment program. The amount was intended to finance all phases of the planning and the construction. On 12 September 1980, no money was allocated to the project in the government’s 1980-81 loan program. On 6 November 1980, the government promised Wagga Wagga that a new hospital would be built on the corner of Red Hill Road and Holbrook Road. They said that a 250-bed hospital costing $30 million would be constructed, starting in 1981. The then Premier, Neville Wran, said, ‘I see no reason why the site should not be prepared next year.’

In May 1981, the Liberal Party member for Wagga Wagga, Joe Schipp, said that there were warning signs that there might be delays to the development. In June 1981, the then Minister for Health, Kevin Stewart, confirmed that there was no specific allocation in the state budget for the promised Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. In February 1982 the government scrapped all plans for a new hospital. The then minister, Laurie Brereton, said that it was one of a number of projects scrapped because of a shortage of funds. In April 1982 the government diverted the planning money to some short-term renovation, and in July 1982 more than 1,000 people attended a protest rally to complain about the government’s treatment of Wagga Wagga, including the dropping of those hospital plans.

In March 1988 the then opposition leader, Nick Greiner, pledged to continue to work on the hospital if the coalition were elected. After the coalition won the election, they decided they would reinstate the architect for the new works on the hospital. In June 1988 doubts arose from Peter Collins, the then Minister for Health, because he said that the hospital works had not been included in the former government’s five-year works program. In July 1988 they said, again, that there would be no major redevelopment of the hospital for another five years but that there would be upgrading. Then in July 1988 Albury had a $70 million facility built. It has gone on and on. In October 1988 the hospital board said that the Wagga Wagga redevelopment had been set down for 1992-93 at a cost of $30 million.

We moved on and nothing happened in the nineties, and then in March 2003 finally the state government announced $400,000 for the planning of a new regional hospital at Wagga Wagga and the opposition pledged to build a new hospital in Wagga Wagga. In October 2005 there was a value management study done that said a new hospital was needed to be built on the existing site at an estimated cost of more than $222 million. Then in March 2007 specialists were angry that there was no ability for them to do their work. They were made aware that work on the hospital would not start before 2011 and could not be finished before 2015. On 15 March 2007 the Riverina residents held a public rally of around 2,000 people and demanded that they be provided with a new hospital.

The process moved on and the health minister in New South Wales indicated that, yes, there was an option for a new hospital under a public-private partnership or for perhaps the government to build it. Then came the debacle of electricity privatisation. The then Minister for Health, Reba Meagher, made commitments and said that the hospital would go ahead and that building would commence hopefully in 2009. Then there was an issue with Morris Iemma, the former Premier, wherein he had a problem with his own Labor colleagues on electricity privatisation, and ultimately electricity privatisation fell through in New South Wales. Of course, as a result of that, the then health minister, Reba Meagher, came out and said that because the coalition did not support electricity privatisation—and the member for Wagga Wagga happens to be a Liberal member—the coalition were responsible for the so-called demise of electricity privatisation. That was untrue; it was brought about by Labor members themselves. Even so, the minister came out and said that the hospital was tied to electricity privatisation, which was absolutely untrue. She also said that, because it was linked to privatisation, the base hospital would no longer be built.

This is the saga that has been taking place for nearly 30 years and people are tired of it. They are sick and tired of this process. Then we had the fall of the Iemma regime. We now have the Nathan Rees regime, with a new Minister for Health, Mr Della Bosca. Of course, New South Wales have found themselves in significant financial decline and are having problems with their budget, so a minibudget has come out. What was again scrapped in the minibudget? Wagga Wagga Base Hospital.

The Wagga Wagga Base Hospital has referral centres for Cootamundra, Temora, West Wyalong, Hillston, Hay, Griffith—you name it and they have got it. We are now finding that whether you have access to adequate treatment or bed treatment in the Riverina almost boils down to whether you can afford to go away to Sydney to have the most fundamental of care because the hospital is stretched to capacity. I find this absolutely unacceptable.

Rebecca Holiday, a young journalist with the Daily Advertiser, Wagga Wagga’s daily paper, contacted Mr Della Bosca’s office and was told, ‘The future of Wagga Wagga Base Hospital lies with the Commonwealth.’ So Mr Della Bosca conveniently wiped his hands of the future of the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and said it now lies with the Commonwealth infrastructure funds—the Health and Hospitals Fund and the infrastructure fund—which makes it very relevant to this bill. When we contacted the minister’s office to find out how I as the federal member for Riverina could initiate action from the Commonwealth on the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, we were advised that the minister’s office did not know that they were responsible for the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital construction because Mr Della Bosca had not advised the minister’s office that that was what he was telling the journalist from the Daily Advertiser. We then went back to the state government to tell them, ‘The Commonwealth does not know about the redevelopment of the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, so it seems that the ball is back in your court,’ only to be told again that it would be subject to the Commonwealth-state discussions on the $10 billion Health and Hospitals Fund.

I am thus taking this opportunity in the House to make this plea on behalf of the people of the Riverina to have the federal government minister assist the state government in moving forward the construction of the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital by enabling the state government discussions to make Wagga Wagga Base Hospital a priority piece of capital works infrastructure—to be built on time and delivered not only to the people but also to the professionals, who are working in absolutely unsatisfactory conditions, and the patients, who are being treated in absolutely unsatisfactory conditions.

I raised in this House the situation in the children’s ward. It was so infested with termites that the major problem and crisis for the children was certainly not the illness they were in hospital for but that the children’s ward was so infested it was on its last legs. It sat out on a veranda and it was obviously a major concern. The Greater Southern Area Health Service did move very quickly to have that remedied, for which I am grateful.

The bottom line in using my time in this House to be as constructive as possible is to say that I welcome nation-building funds, but out of those nation-building funds I want responsibility taken for the construction of the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital.

In closing, could I mention my absolute dismay at the demise of the Communications Fund, which again is robbing rural and regional Australia of their rights and entitlements. Again, I make the point that the Labor Party voted against the sale of Telstra in this House. I know because I was on this side of the House at the time voting against the sale of Telstra. I am astounded and dismayed that I now find a raid on this Communications Fund that will ensure that, with the bundling of this money, rural and regional people will be again left out when considering the need for up-to-date communications in rural areas. I express my disgust at that decision and believe that that is so unjust and so wrong for the government to now do this.

Debate (on motion by Mr Byrne) adjourned.