Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to add my voice of support to this suite of legislation before the parliament today. Through the funds established under the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008, the government is honouring its very strong commitments both throughout the election campaign and indeed over its first 12 months in office to invest in critical infrastructure within this country—not just physical infrastructure but also those very important areas of health and education. What is significant is that not only do we see those commitments being honoured through the establishment of these funds; this legislation effectively demonstrates that we are looking at a whole new way of doing business. This is about building significant partnerships with state governments, local governments, the private sector and the community to deliver very much needed infrastructure and to invest in those areas of community and social service that are most important in our country.

These measures have been put forward at a time when it is most critical. Whilst the government always had a commitment to ending the blame game, building partnerships with state governments and honouring that special place that local government holds within this country, the government not only is investing in health and education but is bringing forward spending—in fact, increasing spending—when the economy and therefore, most importantly, Australian households and families most need to be buffered against what is possibly the most significant global financial crisis that any of us have ever seen. So I am really proud to support this legislation because it does both of those things. I am particularly proud that the government puts particular emphasis on the funding of infrastructure through the Building Australia Fund, the funding of education through the Education Investment Fund and the funding of health through the Health and Hospitals Fund. All of this brings together through the COAG Reform Fund a new way of doing business with the states that brings to an end the blame game. It is not about passing the buck or pointing the finger; it is about investing where it is needed. Of course, as we know, the real winners out of this legislation will be the Australian people. No longer will they be part of the buck passing and the political football that gets played between different levels of government; this time they will actually be the beneficiaries of investment as a result of the partnership of those levels of government.

It is also important, as I said, that we recognise this legislative package in the context of the financial situation that we are in at the moment. We must understand that it is important to bring forward spending to invest in the infrastructure that enables business to continue to prosper and grow. It is very important that we invest in the long-term education of our workforce and our children. By providing critical services and increasing spending on health and hospitals, not only do we provide much needed services to the Australian community but we provide the jobs and investment that, hopefully, will buffer us and place us in a much better position than many of our Western counterparts at this critical time.

I am also pleased that we have seen a commitment, as a result of COAG reforms and the nation-building funds, to local government. My past experience, prior to coming into this House, was as a member of the Brisbane City Council for the best part of 13 years. I was most proud to attend the local government summit called by the Prime Minister and Minister Albanese last week here in Canberra. I do not think anyone who has not been involved in local government appreciates how significant that meeting was. For the first time, local government was around the table. For the first time, in a significant gesture, there were 585 mayors of local shires and cities across the country sitting down in the same room as almost the whole federal cabinet, and we were talking about the issues that matter to both levels of government. We were not pointing fingers; we were not blaming. We were actually talking about how the funds invested by the federal government can best get to those communities that need them and how all levels of government can work together to ensure that those funds are invested, not just for the short-term but for the long term as well.

Of course, what I was most encouraged to see was that this legislation actually came almost to fruition. We put our money where our mouth is on the weekend with that historical COAG meeting, where the Prime Minister, the cabinet and the premiers of the various states joined together to agree to some $15.1 billion of investment across this country not only to invest in critical infrastructure but also to ensure that the money is spent where it needs to be spent, such as in those critical areas of health and education.

More importantly, this money will help create 133,000 jobs across this country at a time when there is the spectre of increased unemployment, when there is the spectre of a downturn in the economy and when there is the very real situation of a global financial crisis. We are seeing our government, across the country, working in partnership with state governments to assist in the creation of some 133,000 jobs. As I have already said, it is not just creating jobs willy-nilly; it is creating jobs and investment in those areas that matter the most. Through the national partnerships that were established on that weekend, we see $1.1 billion to train more doctors, nurses and other health professionals. I cannot think of any other industry or area of employment where we have such a desperate shortage of trained professionals, and here we see $1.1 billion invested, with $500 million as a one-off contribution to deal with acute beds for over 31,000 patients. We all know that, as a result of the lack of doctors, nurses and health professionals, there is a lack of opportunity for people in all of our local areas.

I know that there is, particularly in my electorate of Bonner, a significant shortage of doctors, which affects medical centres and weekend access. That has placed incredible pressure on the emergency services of our public hospitals. It means that people on the weekend have nowhere else to go but to their local hospital, which places added pressure and strain on those already overworked facilities. Here we will have more doctors and nurses not just within our hospitals but also hopefully working within our suburbs and local communities to provide that after-hours service. We all know that kids do not get ear infections between 9 am and 5 pm, Monday to Friday; they get them at all hours of the day and night, and we need the support there in our local suburbs to get professional help.

There will be $448 million to deliver preventative health measures, including reward payments to the states for meeting specified outcomes. Yet again, this is a significant step in the reform of the COAG relationship. It is a real partnership, not just an opportunity to announce funding and blame the states if it does not happen. We have set up a partnership where the money goes to the states but the states have clear outcomes and clear criteria as to how the money must be spent. They have to meet benchmarks in order to justify the funding. This is a real partnership, one that the states are prepared to sign up to, because we know that together, with the opportunities and the funding given by the federal government, those outcomes can be achieved and we can deliver to the Australian community.

One of the most significant things that happened on that weekend—again as a part of the investment out of the nation-building funds, the education reforms and the reform of COAG—was the significant commitment to education that we saw once again coming out of the Rudd government, in partnership with the states: $42.4 billion for a national education agreement. That $42.4 billion will fund a significant number of reforms and initiatives which I look forward to and fully support, but to me at the moment it is the $557 million for government primary schools that I feel most proud of. We know that, for too long, primary schools, for one reason or another, have been seen as the poor cousins of secondary schools.

We all know that a child’s primary school education is now seen as probably as significant as, if not more significant than, the education they get in secondary school. If you do not get children engaged in the learning process in year 1, then you will never get them by year 10. If you do not have the resources, the staff and the support for those kids through the middle years—years 3, 4 and 5—they will not be prepared for high school. And, if they enter high school behind the eight ball, it is simply too hard to catch up. For the first time we see equal funding going to primary schools. I know, having travelled around the primary schools in my electorate, how welcome that funding and that recognition of the importance of primary schools will be.

Not only is this legislation important because it establishes funds that invest in the areas where we need investment; it is important because it acknowledges that the way we deal with the global financial crisis is to boost our economy to continue to see it grow and to ensure investment in critical areas. Not only do we see it as important that we invest in our workforce and address the skills shortage that has been ignored for too long in this country; we see a whole new way of ensuring that all of that funding and that investment actually goes to the people who most need it, and that is the Australian households and families out there who are trying to make ends meet.

It is because of the relationship that this legislation establishes between all levels of government that it is so significant. I look forward to seeing the results of that across the country, but in particular in my own electorate of Bonner. I look forward to working with the minister and state members to see development of the Port of Brisbane, to encourage that incredibly fast-growing area of employment and industry within the suburbs of Bonner. It is a critical piece of infrastructure for the economy of Brisbane and indeed the whole country—it is our second-fastest growing port. I look forward to seeing infrastructure investment there in the future.

This is a far cry from the lack of investment that we have seen in the past. I think it is a real shame that, over the last three years, the only real infrastructure that the electorate of Bonner saw was the opening of a Medicare office. That was something I supported. Unfortunately it was opened by the previous government. In a previous term they had actually closed that Medicare office but they did have the foresight to reopen it. But with this legislation bringing in these funds, the relationship with the states and the partnerships with local governments, we will see a lot more than just the reopening of an essential service; we will actually see this country, this economy and our communities grow.

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

This morning I would like to bring to the parliament’s attention what is, effectively, a reality check. That is, after only 12 months of a Labor government, under Mr Rudd and Mr Swan, Australia is less prosperous, which cannot be disputed; our economy is rapidly getting weaker, which cannot be disputed; and the outlook for Australian families and businesses is more uncertain than ever, which also cannot be disputed. When crucial decisions are needed, Rudd and Labor are panicked into taking poorly thought out responses and the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and cognate bills is one of them, and I will explain that during my contribution to the parliament this morning.

The government’s handling of the financial crisis worries all of us. They have actually made things worse. It must be difficult for my Labor colleagues to know and understand that things have in fact been made worse by decisions taken which have been poorly thought out. In Australia, household wealth has declined, prices continue to rise and job security is very significant on my radar. There has been a massive fall in job security. There has been a political strategy for Australia but no economic strategy.

I read Paul Kelly’s article in the Weekend Australian. Doubtless, many of my colleagues would have read the same article. Paul made the very interesting comment that, at a time when Australia is facing really tough times, the Labor Party is hell-bent on introducing legislation, currently being debated in the House of Representatives, which will see a further reduction in the security of people’s jobs. I think that is a very sobering comment from a senior journalist in the Australian press gallery.

The bill that we are discussing this morning is, by and large, funded almost entirely—

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

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

Is the member for Herbert willing to give way?

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

Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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

Just a point of clarification: given the statement by the member for Herbert about the legislation being discussed in the other chamber, does that mean that he still supports the previous Work Choices legislation and, if so, could he clarify that.

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

The opposition has given a commitment that it will support the bill currently before the parliament. Moving on, the bill we are debating here is funded almost entirely from the surpluses built by the previous government. The Building Australia Fund will have initial capital of $12.6 billion: $7.5 billion is from the 2007-08 budget surplus, plus there are the proceeds from T3 of $2.7 billion and the balance from the Communications Fund of $2.4 billion. The Education Investment Fund will have $8.7 billion—capital of $2.5 billion from the 2007-08 surplus, and the remainder from the closed Higher Education Endowment Fund. The Health and Hospitals Fund will have $5 billion, which comes entirely from the 2007-08 budget surplus.

When you look at the spreadsheet on the funding for the particular elements of the funds in this bill, you find that in aggregate there is $74.7 billion from previous Howard government funds and $15 billion from the Rudd government in 2007-08. The additional funding that will be required—$14.7 billion—does not look like being available because the Rudd government has been spending the anticipated surplus, which will have evaporated by the time that that money is required. So there are certainly some question marks over the funding in this bill, and I raise those questions with the parliament this morning.

There are some problems with the legislation as well that the opposition notes. In particular—and we saw this occur with the hurried announcement of computers in schools some time ago—running costs for all the projects will have to come from the states and territories and the federal budget. Those running costs include salary costs, on-costs and, particularly, maintenance. They will be very high for health, research and education projects because of staffing, and modest to high for the transport, energy, communications and water projects. So it is okay to tell the Australian people that we are going to have this massive Nation-building Funds Bill but it is not okay to provide for the ongoing costs and the maintenance costs that will result from the expenditure of these funds.

Investments that are proposed in these funds may also replace previously planned state and territory public works for no net economic gain. I am sure my Labor colleagues will be just as concerned about that as I am. We want to see new works. We want to see the state governments fund their responsibilities. We do not want to see them dropping what they had planned and then using the federal funding in this suite of bills to pay for what is their responsibility, which of course produces no net economic gain and not a single extra job. The RBA governor has very clearly said that it is still an important fiscal measure to pass the good policy test. Poor public policy proposals should not be accepted simply because they are presented as boosting short-term aggregate demand. No-one could disagree with that, and that is why we had to ensure that there are mechanisms in the legislation to ensure that any project that is proposed passes the good policy test.

I have been very much on the public record saying that the key element that Australia faces at the moment is protecting jobs. Yes, there are issues like deficits and interest rates and inflation, but there are also the issues of families and job security. It is a double whammy if an Australian loses their job: they are unable to continue to pay taxation for the revenues of the Commonwealth of Australia but they also impose an income support burden that the government has to pay out. But, more than that, it can be very traumatic for a family’s breadwinner or breadwinners to lose their job or jobs at a time like this. This is particularly the case in my region, where we have a lot of employment in the mining industry, where people are paid very significant sums for their labour in the fly-in fly-out operations and they have geared their operations so that they have very high mortgages. With the downturn in the resources sector and the mining industry, these people are losing jobs in North Queensland and finding themselves unable to meet their very significant mortgages. That must be very traumatic for the families involved. I saw on the weekend that another company—I think it was CopperCo—was placed in receivership in North Queensland. Century Mine is certainly under some doubt in relation not to closing but to jobs losses, and there will be others in the pipeline. In fact, many of the junior explorers have ceased exploring. So my view is that this legislation should be very much about jobs.

It will not surprise you to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have a wish list for where I would like to see money that may be available under this suite of bills spent in North Queensland. In relation to health, it is really important that the 100 beds that are promised by the state government for the Townsville hospital, to be delivered in 2011, are brought forward now. We recently had the situation where a cancer patient died on a trolley in a corridor in emergency after being there for eight hours. That appals everybody. It was because there are not enough beds in the Townsville hospital. The state government has continued to promise beds and has continued to say that the problem will be fixed, but it does not get fixed. The plans are there, ready to go. The sites have been identified. This is a project that we can kick-start immediately and one that will in fact generate quite significant employment.

The second project is the mall redevelopment in Townsville. Those of you who have been to Townsville will have seen that our front door is an absolute disgrace. Tourists say, ‘How could the capital city of North Queensland have a situation where its front door is in such a terrible condition?’ So we need a contribution, hand in hand with those from state and local governments, to redevelop the mall. Those plans are ready to go. We can start construction early next year and we can get another significant employment project running.

Roads are next on my agenda, as they are on many members’ agendas, and particularly the Mount Low Parkway, which is choked to death at the moment. It needs to be three lanes. Beck Road in Condon and Kelso needs to be connected from Harveys Range Road right up to upper Kelso. It currently does not connect and it needs to be built because it provides the alternative access to Kelso. Currently the only access is Riverway Drive, and if there were some kind of major accident on Riverway Drive there would be some significant problems. We need to make Riverway Drive four lanes from Bamford Lane up to Allambie Lane to reduce the delays that are currently happening because of increased traffic on that arterial road.

Education is my next focus, and particularly our star university of the tropics in the world, James Cook University. There is an opportunity to establish a very significant mining institute there. After all, we do sit right on the very edge of the north-west minerals province, probably the most important prospective minerals province in the world. I would like to see us help James Cook establish that mining institute to lead the world in research and provide assistance to the many mining companies in the region.

There are two more things on my list. The first is the ocean terminal in Townsville. Down at the port we want to see a new cruise ship terminal/defence terminal built. When the new LHDs come on stream that Defence has currently ordered, their customer is in Townsville—the 3rd Brigade. They are the ships that take the ready deployment force in the 3rd Brigade—1st Battalion, 2nd Battalion and, soon, 3rd Battalion—to whatever trouble spot they need to go to. They take the helicopters of 5 Aviation Regiment in Townsville along with them and they need to have suitable wharf space to embark the troops, the equipment and the ammunition. A joint-use cruise ship and defence terminal makes great sense and would be a welcome addition to our city.

Finally, at the weekend I was privileged to be on Magnetic Island, which is in my constituency, off the coast of Townsville. I was talking to the islanders and the deputy mayor, who was with me, about the need to complete the Nelly Bay to Arcadia pedestrian link. It is very, very dangerous around that headland, where the two bays are joined. It is not a large project. It is a project that has already been designed and that can be built now. They are the kinds of projects that we need out of these infrastructure funds: projects that will have lasting benefits but projects that can be built right now to get the impact that the government is seeking.

I draw the parliament’s attention to the concerns that we on this side of the House have in relation to the government not delivering, and this is in the context of this suite of bills that are before the parliament. When the Labor Party went to the last election, they said that they would deliver an education revolution, providing every Australian secondary school student in years 9 to 12 with access to their own computer at school, but this has not happened. We were told that the government had a national plan to end the buck-passing between Canberra and the states, that the blame game would be ended, but that has not happened. A classic example of that is the COAG meeting on the weekend, which was just more of the same. We have seen it all before. The premiers say, ‘We’re going to screw the Australian government for more money,’ things are done behind the scenes, it is all agreed that they will get a few more dollars and then the premiers go out and say, ‘We were very successful and we got some more money,’ but they were always going to get it in the first place.

The Rudd government promised to take responsibility for fixing our hospital system. ‘The buck will stop with me,’ said Prime Minister Rudd, but of course it has not happened. Mr Rudd said he had a tax plan for Australia’s future, but this has not happened yet either. Mr Rudd promised to build a state-of-the-art fibre-to-the-node national broadband network, and we all know where that is at the moment and the convoluted difficulties that the government is facing by not addressing the very specific issues in a proper way. If the coalition government had been re-elected, that NBN would have been well underway by now. Mr Rudd also claimed he was an economic conservative and promised to make sure our economy delivered for working families and to have policies on the cost of living, but of course that has not happened either.

It is sort of a depressing record for the first year of the current government and one that makes me sceptical about how this bill will go when it passes through the bureaucratic system. We will support this bill with amendments in relation to transparency clauses. We are particularly interested in clauses that look after the whole-of-life asset, the financial commitments from other stakeholders who will take up payments under this bill. We will ensure that money will be spent only on projects that satisfy competitive neutrality guidelines and we will ensure that all reports to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation from the advisory boards and the Future Fund board are made public. All of that is pretty practical and common sense, and I would hope that the government will accept those amendments when they are moved—I assume in the other place—and we will all get a better outcome. I certainly hope that this suite of bills will give the economy the boost that it so desperately needs at this time.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My first memory of politics is my mum and dad telling me that Gough Whitlam sewered Western Sydney. Whilst we might joke about it now, it was a big issue in 1972. Neville Wran, the former Premier of New South Wales, once remarked:

It was said of Caesar Augustus that he found Rome brick and left it marble. It can be said of Gough Whitlam that he found the outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane unsewered and left them flush.

There was a lot happening around that time, but I think it is telling that what my parents remembered most about the Whitlam government was that they put sewer pipes in Western Sydney. It is a message that has stayed with me to this day. It is a message that says infrastructure matters. Sewer and water pipes matter, broadband connections matter and good roads and public transport matter. They matter because they have an impact on people’s lives, and they matter most in our cities. Paul Keating talked about this in his first speech in this place in 1969. This is what he said:

Filthy sewers and lack of adequate sanitation are reminders of the shortcomings of government generally in this country … The bulk of Australia’s population, as you all know, is concentrated in the capital cities and regional areas, yet there is less attention paid to the problems of these areas than there is to rural areas.

The sewers have been fixed but otherwise he might have been talking about the last federal government. They took the myopic view that, unless it was shifting freight or shifting votes, they did not invest in infrastructure. Sometimes they did not even know what infrastructure meant. This is what the shadow minister for finance, Joe Hockey, said about infrastructure two months ago on Steve Price’s program:

You know what the biggest investment in infrastructure is? Investing in people. Giving them tax cuts, helping them pay their bills everyday. Giving them a job. That’s what I call investing in infrastructure.

Well, no. That is not infrastructure; that is tax cuts. There is a difference. Infrastructure is things like roads, rail, ports and broadband. The last government did not believe that it was its role to provide national leadership in this area.

That is now changing, as evidenced by this legislation, the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and cognate bills. This legislation is about national leadership. It is about nation building. It is about improving productivity, strengthening our economy and making out cities work. In my first speech in this place I said:

Seventy per cent of Australians live in our major cities. They are the engine rooms of our economy. Improving the performance of our economy means improving the performance of our cities—making them work.

That is why the federal government needs to be investing in infrastructure. Connecting people and places is good for the economy, whether that is on the roads, on a train or in cyberspace. Unclogging our roads and our rail lines is good for the economy. Time lost has an opportunity cost—time when freight could be sitting on our shelves and not sitting on the docks, on a ship or on the roads, time when we could be with family, at school, at work or at another job.

It should not come as a surprise then that the biggest problem identified in the submissions to Infrastructure Australia was urban congestion. The congestion on our roads already costs us about $16 billion a year or two per cent of GDP. The Business Council of Australia predicts that this figure will climb to $30 billion by 2020. That is $30 billion in wasted time. That is why the Building Australia Fund is important. But, on its own, it will not fix this. It has to be coupled with a determination to improve the efficiency of existing infrastructure. It also has to leverage private sector expertise in investment.

The Westlink M7 project is a good example of what I am talking about. This is one project where the former federal government deserves praise, where it did get involved in infrastructure for a city and leveraged its investment with that of the private sector. It got involved because it is a major freight route—a Sydney bypass. But it was and is also a boon for business, motorists and the people who live along the route. I have to declare an interest here. I worked for one of the companies behind the project—Transurban. I think it is a template for future projects. The M7 has had an enormous impact on Western Sydney. It has made Sydney’s west a better place to live and it has made it easier to get around.

It has also been a magnet for economic development. Some of Australia’s biggest companies have now relocated along its corridor. In the past three years it has created an additional 10,000 jobs in Western Sydney and generated more than $3 billion in economic development. But perhaps the importance of the M7 is best illustrated by the dramatic shift in public sentiment. During the construction of the road, Blacktown council put up signs saying ‘no orbit toll’. By the time the project had finished, they had become the project’s biggest fans. Transurban became Blacktown City Council’s corporate citizen of the year.

Roads like this make a massive contribution to our economy. Earlier this year a report from Ernst and Young found that the economic impact of Sydney’s network of motorways is greater than the economic impacts of Sydney’s Port Botany. I think we need to build more M7s, but I am not talking about motorways; I am talking about M7 type projects for our ports and intermodal terminals.

I mentioned a moment ago Port Botany. Combined with Sydney Airport it forms an economic hub that is critical to the Australian economy. Together, the port and the airport contribute tens of billions of dollars to the economy and employ more than 100,000 people. The challenge is to accommodate the enormous growth that both are expected to experience in the next few years. In the next decade both will expand dramatically. Passenger movements at Sydney Airport are expected to increase from 28 million to 60 million. The number of containers moved at Port Botany is expected to double from 1.5 million to three million. Making Sydney work means making this precinct work. It is critical then that surrounding and connecting infrastructure can support this growth. That is why a dedicated freight line is currently being built, that is why we need to widen the M5 and that is why we need to duplicate the M5 East. It is also why we need to develop an intermodal terminal at Moorebank with the support of the private sector, one of a constellation of land ports to help move freight in and around Sydney and to take trucks off our roads, particularly the ones that carry empty containers back to port. The corridor from the port and airport to Western Sydney is one of Australia’s key economic arteries. It is clogged and it needs federal help to fix it. The benefits of this will be felt by the entire country. It will make the port more productive, the transport routes more efficient, Sydney more livable and the national economy stronger.

We also need M7 type projects in our education system and our health system. That is what the $11 billion Education Investment Fund and the $10 billion hospital investment fund will do. And M7 type projects in public transport are what the Building Australia Fund will do. The former government refused point blank to even contemplate investment in public transport. This is what the current Leader of the Opposition said in 2006:

Urban public transport is unequivocally within the state governments’ bailiwick. The public know who is responsible.

My point is that by wiping your hands of responsibility you do not make the economy any stronger, you do not make the economy any more productive and you do not make your cities more productive or more livable.

I got firsthand experience of the benefits of national investment in public transport when I visited Tokyo earlier this year. Tokyo, as many members will know, is one of the biggest cities in the world. More than 12 million people live there. What surprised me was the blue sky. It had none of the smog that you might see in big cities elsewhere throughout the world. This is due in part to the success of the Tokyo public transport system. With 500 kilometres of metro rail lines, 86 per cent of trips are by rail—and the private and government operators make a profit from the fare box. It also means the city is more productive. More people get to work sooner and more people get home more quickly. It is not perfect but it does work. The scale and the density of Tokyo suit it.

Obviously you cannot compare this with Australia. We have very different cities and our populations are quite different but the key difference is national involvement, national investment in public transport, and that is what we have to do here. Already in this year’s budget the government commissioned a feasibility study into a metro link connecting the two largest CBDs in Sydney: Parramatta and the city centre. Also, studies were commissioned in Victoria and South Australia to look at how public transport could ease urban congestion. These are important things. The more efficient our public transport network is, the more productive our economy will be and the fairer it will be. Christopher Brown, the Managing Director of the Tourism and Transport Forum, made this point in the Sydney Morning Herald:

A young person denied the right to clean, safe and efficient transport links is the same person denied the right to education, recreation and participation in the workforce.

An elderly person denied access to transport is the same person denied access to health services and quality of life.

That is why all of the projects that the Tourism and Transport Forum have recommended in their submission to Infrastructure Australia are for funding in public transport. So the focus of government infrastructure funding is changing—and so it should—but so is the prioritising and the vetting of infrastructure projects. For the first time, this process is independent of government. The priority list that this legislation will fund is being prepared by the Infrastructure Australia Board, made up of representatives from the Commonwealth government, state governments, territory governments, local governments and, importantly, the private sector—people like Sir Rod Eddington from JP Morgan, Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group and Mark Birrell from Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, a former Victorian Liberal member of parliament.

They are the ones who have been given the task of developing the country’s infrastructure priority list. This has been fast-tracked by the Prime Minister. The list will be submitted to government this week and will model and prioritise projects that strengthen the economy and improve productivity. These are the criteria that a project must meet to receive funding: (1) how does it expand Australia’s productive capacity? (2) how does it build Australia’s global competitive advantage? (3) how does it develop our cities or our regions? (4) how does it reduce greenhouse gas emissions? (5) how does it improve our quality of life? This is how the projects will be judged. They will be judged on their merit rather than on their electoral margin. It is very different to the way the previous government did business. In this debate we have heard a lot about transparency and suggestions of slush funds. I have to say that it is a bit galling to hear that from the opposition, because there is no way that John Howard would ever have adopted an independent process for determining infrastructure funding. Remember the rorts? Remember the National Audit Office report which showed that 32 projects by the previous government were approved a week before the election at two minutes before midnight? Of those 32 projects, 28 were in coalition electorates.

This process will make sure we fund projects that deliver the best return to the Australian economy, not to the member with the most marginal seat. That is why it has the support of business. Tony Shepherd, a giant of the infrastructure industry, had this to say:

The $20 billion injection into the building Australia fund is a great development of the country. Finally, at the federal level, we have a recognition of the government’s obligations in terms of the investment and development of infrastructure.

It seems to me that there are two schools of thought in this place about infrastructure: you either leave it to the state and local governments or you get in there and do the job yourself. I think the federal government should be involved. Gough Whitlam did it in 1972. The big cities of the world, cities like Tokyo, work because their national governments help to fund infrastructure. The government of Japan helps to fund Tokyo’s metropolitan transport system, which carries 86 per cent of its commuters every day. There are other governments like this all around the world, and now this national government—the Rudd government—is doing the same thing. We have established a process to get the priorities right, backed with real money. That is what this legislation is about: working together with state and local governments and the private sector to fix the major arteries of our economy, to strengthen our economy and to make our cities more efficient, more productive and better places to live. For that reason, I commend the legislation the House.

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

I rise to speak on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, cognate with the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008. The Nation-building Funds Bill establishes three funds: the Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund and the Health and Hospitals Fund. My colleagues and I in the coalition have had a good, close look at the Nation-building Funds Bill and the three funds which it will establish—and with good reason. These three funds are furnished in their entirety, of course, with the wealth of the Australian taxpayers but also as a result of the careful work of the former Howard government, namely the 2007-08 budget surplus, our Higher Education Endowment Fund, our Communications Fund and T3, the third tranche of the sale of Telstra.

My colleagues know, indeed all of Australia and the world know, that the Howard government looked after its fiscal responsibilities with a great deal of care. This included paying off some $96 billion of debt inherited from Labor. Labor left us a $96 billion debt and we left them a $20 billion surplus. A mere 12 months later Mr Swan and Mr Rudd are talking about deficits. I might add also that before us Labor spent 2.9 per cent of GDP on infrastructure; when we left office that figure was 5.4 per cent. No wonder then that the coalition should look very carefully at how Mr Rudd and his colleagues are planning to spend this infrastructure money. It is because of Mr Howard’s and Mr Costello’s exemplary management that this country was the envy of the rest of the world. We were initially at least able to respond to the financial downturn from a debt-free position. It is obvious who is better qualified to comment on how this money should be spent. I hope those opposite are paying close attention to what my colleagues and I have to say in relation to these bills. Perhaps they may just learn something.

One thing the coalition has noticed about nation-building funds is that something seems to be missing. Missing are a whole load of things in fact, many billions of them—dollars, that is. The Rudd-Swan government announced in the 2008 budget that there was going to be $41 billion in the nation-building funds by 1 July 2009, $14.7 billion of which was to come from the 2008-09 surplus. Then Mr Rudd and Mr Swan started to talk about a modest surplus. Now they are talking about deficits. Chris Richardson from Access Economics was quoted last week as saying the budget was probably already in deficit. With the false expectations created pre-election and the consistent diet of spin and hype ever since from this government, the immediate demand for Australia’s infrastructure is projected to be at least 10 times the amount currently held in funds.

Let’s talk about the amount that is currently in funds. The inconvenient truth is that there simply is not enough money there to begin to address the nation’s needs. Given present world financial circumstances, it does not look as if this will change in the next couple of years. There is no immediate evidence that there will be a future surplus to bump up these funds. We are told the $12.6 billion nation-building fund will take $7.5 billion from the 2007-08 budget surplus, $2.7 billion from Telstra 3 and the balance of the Communications Fund, which is a further $2.4 billion. Of course, my colleagues and I do not agree that the Communications Fund should be rolled into the nation-building fund—more details as to why shortly. The $8.7 billion education fund will take $2.5 billion from the 2007-08 surplus and $6.2 billion from the former Higher Education Endowment Fund. The $5 billion health fund is based entirely on the 2007-08 surplus. The total of $26.3 billion is simply not big enough. Running costs for the nation-building projects funded by this money will have to come from elsewhere—from state and territory budgets and from federal budgets. We know that staffing costs alone will create high running costs for health, research and education projects. There will be significant costs for transport, energy, communications and water projects. What is more worrying from our point of view is that states and territories, especially Labor states and territories, may cancel their own funding for infrastructure works and simply take the funds from their federal colleagues to do exactly the same thing.

These bills need to be amended. I said I would elaborate on why I believe the Communications Fund should not be tampered with. These bills will axe the Communications Fund and channel its $2.4 billion into the nation-building fund. This Communications Fund was set up to meet the future telecommunications technology needs of people in regional areas in perpetuity—people like those in the 2.3 million square kilometres of regional area in my electorate of Kalgoorlie. With a budget in deficit how is the government planning to upgrade regional telecommunications infrastructure when this fund is closed? Once again, Mr Rudd and Mr Swan have demonstrated—

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

The member for Kalgoorlie will refer to people by their appropriate titles. That is about the fourth time you have done it and I would ask you to show the office the respect it deserves.

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

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have demonstrated their utter contempt and their disregard for regional, rural and remote Australians.

Another significant concern with this legislation is transparency—something that the Rudd-Swan government talks a lot about but is not prepared to demonstrate. I am very concerned that these billions of dollars will be used as a Labor slush fund to prop up marginal seats and inept Labor governments, which is why we have flagged an amendment to insert transparency clauses requiring the public disclosure of all documentation relating to proposed projects. That means all evaluation criteria, all business cases, all cost-benefit analyses and so on. I also believe all projects should be analysed by the Productivity Commission before any money is spent and that those commissioned reports should be made public.

Determinations by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation and the Treasurer that credit money into the relevant accounts must be disallowable instruments. We must ensure that money can only be spent on projects that satisfy competitive neutrality guidelines. That is to say, the public sector should not undercut the private sector in service provision. We will also seek to ensure that both advisory and Future Fund board reports are made public. We believe project-funding decisions must make certain of financial commitments from asset owners and stakeholders to meet costs for the whole life of the asset. This is particularly important. Ongoing costs can be several times the initial capital expenditure. Finally, we must prohibit federal Labor from mimicking its New South Wales state colleagues in getting the payment of fees upfront on projects—a practice which can and would compromise many projects.

I have already said that this infrastructure funding falls far short of the amount that is needed to begin to address current infrastructure requirements. Once again, the Rudd-Swan government fails to understand and appropriately address the needs of its constituents, just as it did a couple of weeks ago when it grandly announced $300 million in local government infrastructure funding. Western Australia was promised nearly $29 million in these one-off grants. This figure falls far short of the amount needed. The Western Australian Local Government Association says there is an infrastructure backlog requiring more than $2 billion of spending, not $29 million. The Local Government Association speaks for shire councils, including those in my electorate, where one CEO told me that the grant they had been promised by Mr Rudd and Mr Albanese—that is, the Prime Minister and the minister responsible for infrastructure—is only about 10 per cent of what they need. Cheers to that mob!

The guidelines on what the infrastructure funding can be used for are far too restrictive. So the Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government can pat themselves on the back and congratulate each other on how generous they have been. I choose to paraphrase—

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

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

Is the member for Kalgoorlie willing to give way?

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

I would rather get on with the speech, thank you. I choose to paraphrase Jack Waterford, in the Canberra Times, who said the local government handouts ‘demonstrate the utter poverty of federal ministerial and bureaucratic ideas for coping with Australia’s infrastructure needs’. I agree. From the way the government has gone about promoting this much vaunted, much hyped and much spun nation-building legislation, it seems that the government is still well short of ideas when it comes to coping with Australia’s infrastructure needs.

The Labor government say they want to get on with the job of nation building. That is something we have heard ad nauseam from the Prime Minister and his colleagues. They have talked constantly about ending the blame game. The Treasurer even used the phrase ‘end the blame game’ twice when he spoke on the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008 associated with this legislation. It is such a chronic and constant refrain from Labor that the public has been led to believe that Labor mean that, by ending the blame game, they will fix all the problems—that is, that they will solve the infrastructure issues of the whole of Australia. The Rudd government’s blame game refrain has misled the Australian people into believing that the government are going to fix something, that infrastructure is a problem which can be resolved once and for all. Of course it is not. We certainly know it is not. The government appear to believe otherwise.

Infrastructure spending is an ongoing requirement for all levels of government, across many different areas. I understand that about $450 billion worth of projects have been put forward for the Building Australia Fund, about $235 billion worth of which come from the state and territory governments. Simple maths tells us that $12.6 billion of the initial—and very likely final—capital that the Building Australia Fund is being furnished with will meet less than three per cent of these infrastructure requests.

No, the government cannot do it all—not even half, not even 10 per cent—with these funds. But they appear to believe their own publicity that they can. They have been sucked in by their own spin machine and are hopelessly lost in the vortex within. In their collective naivety they seem to think they can fix infrastructure in Australia for all time. Even worse, they have led the public to believe they can—just like they led the public to believe they were interested in standing up for all Australians only to continue to make decisions that favoured city or metropolitan voters over regional Australians. There was ample evidence of that in their canning of the Communications Fund.

Those opposite have also been talking about building the long-term productive capacity of our nation. I hear today the member for Blaxland chanting about how the cities are the powerhouse of the nation. I ask him to come out of the city and look at what is happening in electorates around Australia where exports are being created and money is truly being earned for the nation’s accounts. It is a significant sounding mantra which they all repeat as earnestly as their own favourite, ‘ending the blame game’. I point out that the Kalgoorlie electorate has already made a substantial contribution in the long-term productive capacity of our nation and it has the potential to contribute even more. There are a number of projects in the Kalgoorlie electorate which are very deserving of funding and which I have strongly believed for some time are genuine nation-building projects—and which, as such, deserve priority in the expenditure of any funds.

The House has heard me extol any number of times the virtues of the Ord River irrigation area and its long overdue and urgently needed expansion to stage 2. We know the Murray Darling Basin is struggling. Every new report about it brings more bad news. After a series of very dry years the basin has little water left. And yet my colleague Mr Hunt tells me that the Victorian government is being aided and abetted by the Prime Minister in seeking to take more water from this much stressed system for the north-south pipeline.

My electorate is separated from the Murray-Darling Basin by thousands of kilometres, but it can help. In the north-west of Australia, at the top end of my electorate, the Ord River irrigation area has enormous potential for expansion. There is a secure water supply and farmers in the Ord can grow just about anything. This area really has the potential to be the new food bowl for Australia and take much of the strain off the Murray-Darling area. It has the largest and most reliable water storage in Australia, with more than 20 times the volume of Sydney Harbour. It has the right climate and the right soils to expand into new areas very quickly. We could have crops in newly developed land there as soon as next year. Environmental approvals are in place and a native title agreement is in place. Everything is ready for expansion. The Liberal-National government in Western Australia has committed its immediate support to expanding the Ord. The Howard government promised to fund it before the last election. I accompanied my colleague the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Turnbull, on a visit to the Ord just two weeks ago. He was extremely enthusiastic about what has been done, what is being done, the potential for the future and most importantly the enthusiasm of those already living, working and producing in the Ord area.

I want to know what the Prime Minister and his government are going do about theOrd. Will they support it? Will they support the development of the area, of the Kununurra Airport and the port of Wyndham? Will they embrace the enormous potential this irrigation region has to expand, to contribute food, fibre and timber to domestic and export markets, to reduce the pressure on the Murray-Darling Basin and to build the long-term productive capacity of our nation?

Another opportunity to build Australia’s productive capacity comes through the development of more efficient transport and logistics. This is not only an opportunity for nation building; it is an opportunity for emissions reduction—something that it would seem those opposite are passionately concerned with, in theory at least. Emissions reduction is something the government seems determined to achieve even if it drives away the minerals and energy investments that helped build our economy and contributed to the very accumulation of funds that they are now planning to spend.

My home city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder is the service hub for around 60,000 people and the gold and nickel mines of the goldfields. However, we have a very inefficient situation in which the goldfields bound freight comes across from the east by rail and passes through on its way to Perth. The freight is subsequently unloaded in metropolitan Perth and then sent back to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, often by rail but mostly by road, having travelled an additional 1,200 kilometres past us and back again. It wastes time, money and resources and accumulates greenhouse emissions. A very sensible solution is to develop an intermodal transport hub right in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. This would reduce the unnecessary freight and heavy vehicle traffic through Perth and develop significant efficiencies. Under the Howard government I helped to obtain $3 million in funding to further develop this proposal. But a short-sighted—no, may I say a blind—state Labor government failed to see the benefits and chip in with their own funds.

Something that would add a great deal of value to an intermodal transport hub in Kalgoorlie would be the development of a sealed all-weather transport corridor between Kalgoorlie-Boulder, the goldfields and the town of Newman in the iron-rich Pilbara. Only about 300 kilometres of dirt road would need to be sealed to complete the link. It would have enormous benefits for the communities of both the Pilbara and Kalgoorlie-Boulder. It would mean Pilbara industries could use Kalgoorlie-Boulder as a supply and service base instead of Perth. An intermodal transport hub would improve freight efficiencies both between eastern Australia and the Pilbara and between eastern Australia and the south-east area as well as Perth itself. For the benefit of those opposite, that is real, and regional, nation building. Like the Ord, this is a project that requires support but does not require billions of dollars to realise great rewards and truly build Australia’s long-term productive capacity. If the Prime Minister and the minister for infrastructure and all those opposite are truly earnest about building Australia’s long-term productive capacity, and if they actually understand what that means beyond adding to the Labor fund of mantras, then they must see the merits of these projects. The government spin merchants have spun themselves into a deficit, but it is time they put some money where their mouth is and stood up for all Australians—not just those in the cities and those with state Labor governments but all Australians.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Rudd Labor government was elected last November on a platform of investing in the future of this nation. The previous Howard government went to the last election with a continued focus on short-term political gain and fighting ideological wars of the past. The Australian public were sick of this. They rejected that vision and adopted the Rudd Labor government’s focus on the future. During the election campaign many people raised with me their desire for a long-term plan for Australia’s future—that is, not just for next year, not just for the next electoral cycle but for the future. It was only Labor that provided that platform for the next decade and the decade after that. Since being elected, the Rudd government has got down to work on a long-term plan for this nation’s future. One critical part of setting the nation’s long-term future was set down in the 2008-09 budget. The budget not only provided much-needed relief for families, who welcomed the education tax rebate and the tax cuts, but also set up a framework for investment in the nation’s long-term future.

One of the cornerstones of this year’s budget was the creation of three investment funds to invest in infrastructure for the future: the Building Australia Fund, the Health and Hospitals Fund and the Education Investment Fund. For too many years the previous government failed to invest in critical infrastructure in these areas. But the bill before this House today, the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008cognate with the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008creates these three funds, which will provide significant investment for Australia’s future. Unlike under the previous government, which only had small infrastructure projects through the regional rorts program that delivered money to marginal seats, the projects that will be funded by these three investment funds will be subject to rigorous evaluation by independent advisory bodies, with the Building Australia Fund being guided by the newly created Infrastructure Australia.

The Building Australia Fund is the critical new fund that will finance capital investment in critical economic infrastructure. One of the critical projects funded by the Building Australia Fund is the national broadband network. The national broadband network is one of the largest and most important infrastructure projects that this government is embarking on. A national broadband network is critical economic infrastructure desperately needed by this country. I have spoken in the House before about the lack of effective broadband services in my seat of Kingston. That lack of infrastructure is one of the biggest barriers to improved productivity for local businesses. Whether they are local wineries, local builders or local shop owners, they all have so much difficulty in either receiving orders or getting information out because of the lack of broadband. The lack of broadband services for business is one of the key issues brought up with me time and time again. Residents of Kingston are disappointed that the previous government failed 18 times to provide effective broadband for our local area. But it is not only businesses that have problems when it comes to broadband; families also have huge issues when it comes to broadband. Whether it is paying their bills or embarking on education, lack of broadband is a barrier to many families in my electorate of Kingston to be able to do all of the everyday things that many Australians take for granted.

In addition, the Building Australia Fund will invest in other critical economic infrastructure, including roads, rail and port facilities and, most importantly, for the first time this government will invest in urban transport. Urban congestion, clogging up our cities and roads, not only is leading to a significant increase in carbon emissions but also is frustrating for drivers and those trying to move goods around. Rather than putting this in the too-hard basket, as the previous federal government did, this government is committed to working with the states to find solutions.

Investing in critical economic infrastructure is so important. The residents of Kingston have certainly welcomed the input into this and the creation of Infrastructure Australia. As the local member, I have welcomed seeing that one of the projects the state government of South Australia has requested funding from the federal government for is the extension of the rail line from Noarlunga to Seaford. This extension will be critically important for many residents along that passage, especially in Seaford, Seaford Meadows and Seaford Rise. We are seeing a huge influx of new houses being developed in that area and there is very little public transport. I have certainly welcomed and supported that submission by the South Australia government.

As I said, many of the residents of Kingston have welcomed the Building Australia Fund but they are doubly happy at the Health and Hospital Fund. The Health and Hospital Fund was also created as part of the budget. This fund will provide money to invest in health infrastructure, including capital infrastructure for our hospitals and investment in medical technologies and research facilities. For too long the previous government just blamed the states when it came to our medical infrastructure and allowed many of our medical facilities to become very run down. However, this government knows that we need to make the investment into our health system so that Australians everywhere can enjoy world class health care. Investing in medical technologies and research is critical not only for the health care of Australia but also for its potential to contribute to scientific breakthroughs for the world.

The third fund is the Education Investment Fund, which will provide capital investment in higher and vocational education and in training and research institutes. Capital investment in education is crucial to ensuring that we continue to grow our nation’s productivity, which will allow us to continue to enjoy economic prosperity. The creation of the Education Investment Fund will invest in these areas. It will support capital expenditure for the renewal and refurbishment of Australia’s tertiary education and research institutes and will improve their capacity. Many higher education institutions in and around my electorate have welcomed the creation of this fund. These institutions benefited earlier in the budget with funding of some $8 million, which they were not expecting, to improve their capital works. For 11 long years under the previous government, investment in these institutions was non-existent. The previous government just expected these institutions to do more with less. This attitude has led to many of our institutions not having the state-of-the-art facilities and equipment needed to prepare students for the next chapter of study and employment.

These three funds will provide critical investment in productivity growth for the future. The creation of these funds could not come at a more critical time. Australia, along with all the other developed and developing nations around the world, is currently facing a most significant challenge with the global financial crisis. This crisis has seen the slowing down of economies across the world, and the Rudd government have acted decisively. Part of our global security package included the announcement that the government will fast track the nation-building agenda. Fast tracking the nation-building agenda in the short term will act as a stimulus to the economy, protecting jobs and growth, and will also benefit Australia after the global financial crisis has come and gone. The benefit we will gain through productivity growth will continue well into the future. This government is committed to investing in infrastructure to increase the nation’s productivity.

As I have said, in stark contrast to the previous government, we want to work with, not against, the states and territories to build this nation. Our government, from day one, has indicated that the best way to deliver results on infrastructure is to work with all levels of government, including the states and territories and local councils. We have started this work through reforming the COAG process and through holding the inaugural meeting of the Australian Council of Local Government. The government recently announced $300 million to be delivered to local councils for local infrastructure. This has certainly been welcomed by my constituents and the councils in my seat of Kingston.

One of the bills we are debating today is the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008. This bill will provide a mechanism to deliver financial assistance to the states and territories. This mechanism covers delivery of money from the three nation-building funds that we are debating today, from the annual appropriation and from special appropriations. The delivery of funds will be set out in written agreements that cover the terms and conditions and also set out the benchmarks that the states and territories must meet as a condition of receiving this funding. We saw on the weekend that the federal government is serious about working with the states and territories. We saw a package that will deliver to the states and territories an extra $15.1 billion investment in health, education, housing and disability services. This extra money to the states also comes with significant responsibility on the states to truly improve services in all of these areas.

We promised the Australian people at the election that we will build a nation that is equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. We are committed to building our nation’s roads, rail, ports, broadband, hospitals, universities, TAFE colleges and vocational education institutions. We believe that this is the way that Australia can grow its productivity and become a more prosperous nation. We are also ending the blame game by working with the states, territories and local councils, not against them. I commend this legislation to the House.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—It gives me great pleasure to speak in the Main Committee on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008. During the term of the former Howard government we saw unbridled growth. We saw the economy increase in size by some 50 per cent. We saw the longest period of uninterrupted growth in the history of this nation under the stewardship of the Howard government. That situation has changed and we are now in the grip of a very significant economic slowdown. Unfortunately, during all the growth that this country enjoyed, state Labor governments neglected their responsibility to continue to invest in infrastructure. Sadly, when you look around the states, so much of this nation’s infrastructure has been neglected and run down. So many issues in the field of infrastructure remain unresolved.

One of the really disappointing things I have seen as a member of this House since 2001 was the federal government investing in infrastructure only to have the state government at the same time take away its support for investment in infrastructure. We see no more glaring example of that more recently than with regard to the Pacific Highway. Substantial federal funds were devoted to the highway, but in the latest New South Wales state budget what did they do? Did they put their shoulder to the wheel and increase funding for this very important transport corridor? Did they ruck in behind the federal government and provide much-needed added assistance to get the highway completed as quickly as possible? No, they did not. What did they do on the issue of the Pacific Highway? They pulled $300 million in funding out of this vital transport corridor. That is $300 million of funding which would have created safer roads and provided more efficient transport of freight. That is $300 million that is desperately needed by the people I represent. So we had the federal government putting funds into the Pacific Highway at the same time as the New South Wales state government were taking funds out of it. When I look at these bills, I think that investment in infrastructure is an important issue and a good thing to do but, with sadness, I think of the fact that, just as quickly as we put the funds in at a federal level, New South Wales will be taking them out the back door. It is something that this parliament needs to guard against. We need to have performance indicators that guarantee that federal funding is matched or contributed to by state funding rather than allow incompetent and moribund state governments to pull vital funding from vital projects.

I would like to focus for a moment on the bills before the House relating to the Building Australia Fund, which relates to capital investment in transport, communications, energy and water infrastructure. The fund will be used for projects like roads, railways, urban transportation and ports. It was interesting to note in the recent budget announcements in New South Wales the potential to pull funding from the Port Waratah coal loader and the area around the port of Newcastle. For a state government to reduce funding to a port at this vital time, a time when we still have bottlenecks at our ports, just flies in the face of good sense.

The education fund will be used for capital investment in higher education infrastructure and vocational education and training. Presumably it will be funding such things as capital works at our universities and TAFEs. We also have the very important Health and Hospitals Fund. For too long state governments have run down the health infrastructure. For too long state governments have failed to build infrastructure that is vital to good health in this country. As a First World economy, a First World nation, we should not have facilities in the area of health that belong in last century and, in some cases, in the century before.

The Building Australia Fund will be made up of the remaining proceeds of the T3 sale, assets from the Communications Fund and an amount from the budget surplus, and it is important to note that these things are dependent on funding from budget surpluses. Most recently we have had D day—deficit day—the admission by the Prime Minister that we may well be, and are likely to be, heading for a deficit. So the question remains before this House: what does it mean for the future of infrastructure investment when we may be facing what has been euphemistically called a ‘temporary deficit’? What the Treasurer and the Prime Minister mean by a ‘temporary deficit’ is yet to be defined. One thing we do know of Labor: ‘temporary’, when it comes to Labor’s deficits, can mean a long, long, long time.

One thing that really concerns me in the area of communication is the fact that part of the funding for this is coming from the former Communications Fund, a fund that was set aside not only to ensure that people who live in regional and rural Australia have access to quality technologies that are known about today but also to provide for technologies that we do not yet know exist—technologies that are to come in the future. So that begs the question: under this new regime, who is going to provide regional and rural Australia with those new technologies that it will need to be competitive and to grow and that it will need if it is going to export to the rest of the world? It is a question that remains unresolved—and it is an important question.

I know that people in my electorate are concerned about the future of their telecommunications. I know that they are wondering what is going to happen with this national broadband network. We have a situation where the Rudd Labor government was going to provide fibre to the node to 98 per cent of all Australians, at a cost of $4.7 billion. Well, now we know that it is not going to be able to meet that promise in all likelihood. The question remains: how is the Labor government going to provide fibre to the node at a cost of $4.7 billion from taxpayers’ funds, create a commercial return and deliver that to 98 per cent of the population? It appears, tragically, that it may not be able to achieve that.

The alternative to not achieving delivery of fibre to the node to 98 per cent of Australians is that they may pour in a whole lot more of taxpayers’ funding. What will be the cost of moving from, say, 90 per cent of households serviced with fibre to the node to 98 per cent? Will it be $10 billion? Is it going to be $15 billion? It would be a very significant cost blow-out from $4.7 billion if you were going to have to spend $10 billion or $15 billion to fulfil your commitment to the Australian people—an ironclad, rolled-gold guarantee to deliver fibre to the node to 98 per cent of the population. Or, to take another alternative, are they are going to use some allegedly inferior technology—which is basically what they implied during the 2007 election campaign—such as wireless? During the 2007 election campaign, wireless was a bad thing. Wireless was such a bad thing that, on coming to office, they cancelled the OPEL contract, took away the access of people in regional and rural Australia to improved broadband services that were happening there and then and replaced that with a far-off promise of this mystical 98 per cent fibre to the node to be delivered in five years—or perhaps eight years, depending on where you live. Who is going to miss out and how long they are going to miss out for is still to be determined.

We have got Senator Conroy over in the Senate performing backflips with pike, trying to pull together a process that is obviously failing and trying to get the government out of a jam because they made some promises that they were unable to fulfil. The tenders have come in. They are not getting the sorts of results they were looking for. Telstra put in a non-conforming bid. Where is this process leading? I can tell you: it is leading to long and protracted delays for people in regional and rural areas in getting access to the sorts of telecommunications services they need to run their businesses, their hospitals and their schools. It is all out there in the ether. Kevin Rudd and his government are big on spin. The hollow men are out there; the publicity and spin machine is working double time to hide the fact that they are not going to be able to deliver.

Health is vitally important, and you have to give credit where credit is due: I will commend the Rudd Labor government on the Health and Hospitals Fund. I think that is a very good initiative. I regret the fact that much of these funds are going to have to be used due to the neglect of state Labor administrations. But it is a welcome step in the right direction.

In my electorate there is no greater need than for an upgrade to hospitals, particularly in Kempsey. Kempsey District Hospital is in desperate need of an upgrade. A recent OH&S report on Kempsey hospital said it was a good hospital run by dedicated staff, but it has infrastructure that belongs in another age—infrastructure that is not 21st century. It is infrastructure that barely coped with the 20th century. The report said:

The Hospital no longer meets the health care needs of the community or the health and safety requirements of staff. The Hospital does not come close to meeting current accepted health facility design guidelines and building standards. Clinical and office areas are no longer suitable for the purposes for which they are being used.

The report found that cleaning equipment was being stored in hallways. Patients are regularly left in hallways because of the lack of space. Some single rooms in the High Dependency Unit are not big enough to use resuscitation equipment or ventilators in. Here we have a facility that is so outdated and overwhelmed by the demands for its services that it is just not able to cope. Kempsey District Hospital should be a prime candidate for funding under the national Health and Hospitals Fund, and I recently presented a petition to this House to that effect. I commend the government for the Health and Hospitals Fund.

Health is a major issue. The North Coast Area Health Service claim that they are somehow going to be able to maintain services while cutting 400 jobs from the North Coast of New South Wales. In an almost Orwellian statement, they came out and said, ‘We are going to cut 400 jobs, but this will enable us to deliver more and better services.’ How do you deliver more services with fewer nurses? How do you deliver cleaner hospitals with fewer cleaners? How do you deliver a better maintained facility with fewer maintenance workers? It leaves Yes, Minister in its wake. A bureaucrat, Chris Crawford, of the North Coast Area Health Service has come out and made a statement that they are going to cut 400 jobs but that this will allow them to deliver more and better services. It is outrageous.

I conclude by referring to the North Coast corridor in relation to the Pacific Highway and the east coast rail line. They are vitally important links in our national infrastructure but, as I mentioned earlier, unfortunately the New South Wales government has stripped funding from the Pacific Highway. There was very heavy investment by the previous federal government under AusLink 1, and it continued under AusLink 2. To its credit, the current government has largely continued that funding. It is vitally important to reduce the accident rate and to ensure that our transport is moving efficiently and effectively. There is strong population growth along the North Coast of New South Wales and strong growth in the transport task between Sydney and Brisbane. It is vital that we continue that upgrade and vital that all major centres in my electorate of Cowper are bypassed as quickly as possible. The bypasses at Kempsey, Macksville, Urunga, Coffs Harbour-Woolgoolga and Ulmarra are vitally important projects and they must be done as quickly as possible.

What does the withdrawal of $300 million do? I guess if you asked the North Coast Area Health Service they would say, ‘It speeds it up; we will be able to build the road faster by pulling $300 million out.’ Sadly, the people of the North Coast know that is not the fact. The people of New South Wales know they will again be waiting longer and longer for the completion of this road. It has taken far too long to get the Pacific Highway to the level of duplication between Sydney and Brisbane that is currently being achieved. It just cannot be the subject of costcutting. The New South Wales government must be required by the federal government to reinstate that $300 million so that the project can continue.

The North Coast rail line is a vital link. The federal government was instrumental in investing in and upgrading that rail line. We should continue to invest in rail not only on the North Coast but right around the country. One of the secrets of an efficient and effective land transport system will be to get as much freight as possible off road and onto rail. If we do not do that, our roads are just going to clog up no matter what we do. It is vital that we continue to upgrade our North Coast rail line and our general rail infrastructure as quickly as possible. Infrastructure is vitally important to the North Coast of New South Wales. It is a strongly growing region. It needs investment and the investment must continue. I certainly trust that the federal government will continue to invest in the North Coast of New South Wales, as we have very urgent need indeed.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008 and it is with great pleasure that I do so. I begin by noting a couple of the events of the weekend. There were a couple of things that occurred on the weekend that are of some relevance to the bills before us. Of course there was the meeting of the Council of Australian Governments and the outcomes of that meeting have been well and truly broadcast right across this country because of the breadth and depth of the reforms that emerged.

The other event that occurred on the weekend was the passing of Joern Utzon, the great architect who made such a significant contribution to one of our great national icons—the Sydney Opera House. There was a great deal of controversy surrounding the Opera House at the time of its construction. That led to the situation where Mr Utzon was not able to remain in the city of Sydney long enough to see the fruits of his efforts, but indeed we all see in the Sydney Opera House one of the great icons of this country.

The particular difficulties that were associated with the public debate around the building of the Opera House at the time to some extent demonstrate just how difficult it can be sometimes to make longer term decisions when it comes to key items of infrastructure, whether they be economic infrastructure, cultural infrastructure or social infrastructure. Indeed, difficult decisions that are made by governments and the planners may not always be popular decisions in the short term but, if they are long-term decisions, then the fruits of those decisions can be enjoyed by generations to come. That is the essence of nation building. It is about taking those hard decisions to invest public funds in the infrastructure that will not only deliver the services that people require today but accommodate the needs of our community and our society into the future.

That is why I am very pleased to support the bills that are before the chamber today, because these bills represent two of the common themes of the contribution that has been made by the Australian Labor Party right across this country. They are underpinned by the philosophical propositions that, firstly, what we are about as a party, and what this government is very much about, is delivering a nation-building agenda, building the infrastructure that our nation not only requires today but will require into the future. The other theme is that we are committed to modernising our Federation. It goes without saying that, if we were to sit down and draw up the Constitution today, we would be starting from a very different point to our founding fathers, who contributed to that debate in the lead-up to Federation in 1901.

If we were sitting down and we had the opportunity to pick up the pen and to draft the Constitution today, it is most unlikely that we would have such a thing as states in our Constitution. To some that might be controversial, but the people I talk to in my community understand that our community, our society, our internationalised society, has moved on to a point where a greater focus at the national level on a range of initiatives is something that is always to be welcomed. We are seeing that as part of the agenda that is being pursued by this government. Many of the elements that came out of the COAG agreement that was reached on the weekend demonstrate that we are serious about breaking down some of those barriers that exist only because of the drafters of the Constitution being bound by the circumstances of the time—those circumstances of course being that the colonies came together to form a Federation and the rights of those colonies needed to be protected.

I will just reflect on one of the initiatives being pursued over the weekend, which related to the registration of business names. In this day and age it is hard to understand why the registration of a business name needs to be as complex a task as it is. Being required to register with some nine jurisdictions is simply not acceptable. It creates barriers that are unnecessary and unworkable. This is just one example of the rail-gauge economics that the Federation-modernising agenda of this government is designed to address.

I use the events of the weekend as the basis to enter into a more in-depth discussion about these bills. I think the significance of what is to be achieved under these bills is of tremendous relevance, and we see that significance on a daily basis. In fact, we saw the significance of it just on the weekend. I note that in large part the government’s commitment to these funds was driven by our commitment to tackling the economic circumstances that existed when we were in opposition. Many of these announcements—indeed, the Building Australia Fund in particular and the establishment of Infrastructure Australia, which has already occurred—were about initiatives that we were promoting as an opposition on the basis that we needed to do something as a nation to address some of the critical infrastructure shortages that our nation was facing. The Reserve Bank, on no fewer than 20 occasions, specifically mentioned the impact of inaction by the federal government and the impact on inflation. In doing so, it very often highlighted the infrastructure bottlenecks and the shortages that occurred as a result of the failure of the previous government to invest.

That is the background that gave rise to the need to invest in infrastructure and the creation of the Building Australia Fund, which is one of the three funds to be created under the nation-building bills. Obviously circumstances have changed somewhat since we proposed the creation of the Building Australia Fund, but I would propose to the House that, in the same way as it was the key area of our national economic circumstances that needed to be addressed by proposing the creation of this fund over a year ago, it continues to be the key area today, notwithstanding the change in economic circumstances. Indeed, the government is very actively making the point—and it is a point that needs to be made—that the pursuit of these funds and the investments that will be made and delivered out of these funds form a central part of our strategy to try and invest in the economic circumstances that exist in this country at the moment and to try and generate more economic activity so that we can do what we can to protect our economy against the global financial crisis as it spreads across the world. Notwithstanding the change in circumstances, it is just as true today as it was over a year ago, when we proposed the establishment of the Building Australia Fund, that we as a nation need to invest in these key areas of infrastructure—areas that have been neglected—because it is in our national economic interest.

The announcement specifically in relation to the creation of the three funds was made when the Treasurer handed down the budget earlier this year. The budget papers clearly set out the envisaged parameters of these funds. The three funds being established under the Nation-building Funds Bill are: firstly, the Building Australia Fund; secondly, the Education Investment Fund; and, thirdly, the Health and Hospitals Fund. The Building Australia Fund is largely to address the key infrastructure shortages in areas such as transport and communications. We have heard much talk about broadband. I listened with great interest to the comments of the member for Cowper in relation to the government’s proposals for a national broadband network. I simply say this: in the same way as I mentioned the Sydney Opera House and the challenges that mark investment in any great infrastructure for our nation, these things are not easy. If they were easy, then the former government would have done more than it did in the 11 years that it was in office.

In fact, one of the honourable members, in previous discussions before the House, made the observation that the former government’s approach to securing a solution on the broadband situation was simply the ‘Borat solution’. The ‘Borat solution’ is a reference to Kazakhstan, which is one of the three nations—and Australia was to be included—with the lowest and the slowest broadband speeds in the world. That is the legacy we have been left with, but as a government we are determined to do what we can. These are not easy challenges to confront. We live in a country that is full of vast expanses and it is difficult to deliver this sort of technology right across our country, but we are committed to doing what is possible to deliver those services to people. We are committed to delivering it not selectively to those in cities or the urban or outer metropolitan areas but to all Australians, where that is possible. Certainly that process is one that we continue to pursue.

Beyond communications infrastructure, there is transport—rail, roads and ports—and water and energy. These are key areas of infrastructure where there has been insufficient investment from the federal government. I know that the member for Cowper speaks for many on the other side when he leads this refrain: these are matters of state responsibility and the states have failed in these areas. One of the central realities that we deal with in this place, and right across this country in the national debate, is the notion of vertical fiscal imbalance. It is a complicated way of saying that the states do not have the capacity to raise as much revenue as the federal government, but they have the just as great, if not greater, burden of delivering services to communities right across this country. That is a fairly simple and enduring proposition that has only been exacerbated over time as the Federation has progressed. Perhaps that is another reason why we would not include the states as separate entities under of the Constitution if we were sitting down and redrawing it today.

We live with these realities, and in confronting those realities we say that vertical fiscal imbalance is something that must be confronted. That is why the Commonwealth government has to take more of an interest in these matters of national importance, in delivering the infrastructure that our nation needs—not just because the states do not have the money to do it, which is partly the result of our constitutional arrangements, but also as a recognition of the fact that these are national issues. The failure to invest in national projects of an infrastructure related nature has an impact on the national economy in the same way that it had an impact on the national economy by driving up inflation as a result of those shortages that the Reserve Bank warned against on so many occasions.

In the current economic climate we see that the national implications of inaction would mean that the federal government would not be using its financial resources, the resources of the Australian people, to invest in our productive capacity and our productive future. That is why the government and the Prime Minister, through the announcement of the Economic Security Strategy, identified the acceleration of the bringing forward of investment in these respective funds as part of the government’s agenda. We are bringing them forward so that the money being spent will be felt in the real economy, out there in our communities, sooner than what would otherwise be the case, helping to shield us against the impact of the global financial crisis. This year, these bills will ensure the allocation of $12.6 billion to the Building Australia Fund.

I turn my comments to the Education Investment Fund. That fund is designed for investment in higher education and vocational education and training. That will involve an investment this year of $8.7 billion. Funds from that fund have not yet been expended, but I simply make the point that our tertiary education institutions, whether they are universities or vocational education providers such as TAFE, have been underfunded and have been left in a state that is not befitting of a nation with our aspirations on the global stage. We are a nation that has much to contribute, much to offer, and a nation with a proud history of achievement in the education sphere.

I reflect upon some of the areas where money has been spent since the handing down of the budget by the government earlier this year. I note that, whilst these funds do not specifically come out of the Education Investment Fund, they were something of a down payment, if you like, on what we can expect to receive out of that fund. I note that earlier this year $15.85 million was given to the University of Western Sydney. It was announced in the budget and was in order to assist with refurbishments out of the government’s Better Universities Renewal Fund. There is much to be done and there is a greater capacity to do it with the establishment of the Education Investment Fund.

The Health and Hospitals Fund, of course, is designed for investment in health facilities, including renewal and refurbishment of hospitals, medical technology equipment and major medical research facilities and projects. This year $5 billion will be transferred into that fund. Health is a huge issue. I think we appreciate that, and that is certainly reflected in the nature of the response from the Commonwealth and the states and territories to the COAG meeting on the weekend. The additional resources being deployed to address some of the health needs that we experience within the community recognise just how big an issue health is in our community.

As I talk to people in my local community health continues to be one of their big concerns. There are enormous pressures on the health budget with the ageing of the population, with increases in technology and with a greater capacity to keep people alive for longer—which, of course, is a good thing but comes at a cost. All of these factors, such as the increasing cost of keeping people in hospital throughout those periods of their lives where they require the greatest level of care—in particular, the final days of their lives—are combining to put more and more pressure on our health system. That is a why a greater investment needs to be made in the system.

In terms of the making of payments out of these funds, I simply make the point that it is not just about delivering services and facilities that our community requires, although it is about that in part. It is also about acting in our national economic interest. I quote the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, who made some comments to the CEDA annual dinner in Melbourne on 19 November this year. He said:

... if governments are able to so order their affairs as to continue supporting worthwhile—and I emphasise worthwhile—public investment (even if that involves some prudent borrowing); then Australia will come through the present period.

The Reserve Bank, as I mentioned earlier, gave more than 20 warnings to the former government about the need to get inflation under control and to spend on the infrastructure that our economy needed. But even here we see another warning, if you like, from the Reserve Bank, this time straight from the governor—that there is no rule in economics that says that surpluses are always the best course of action for a government to pursue.

Certainly we support the pursuit of a surplus, and we are working hard to deliver one. But, in the end, national economic circumstances will require us to have a flexible approach that meets the needs of the circumstances that we confront. If it is good enough for the Reserve Bank governor to say that there may be a need to meet the investments that our nation requires by going into some prudent borrowing then I do not find it all that remarkable for the government to at least suggest that that could be contemplated in the future. We are certainly not suggesting that the budget is in anything other than surplus at this point in time, but we stand ready to make the contribution to ensure that our economy keeps ticking over and that we provide the jobs that our country needs.

I conclude by saying that the COAG Reform Fund is further evidence of this government’s commitment to delivering an improved, modernised system of federal relations. Combined with the nation-building initiatives that have been set out in the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, it will make an important contribution to our overall efforts to not only deliver the services our country and our communities require but do so in the context of shielding our economy from the great challenges that the global financial crisis poses. (Time expired)

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008. The Nation-building Funds Bill and the consequential amendments bill amend the Future Fund Act 2006, the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 and the Telstra Corporation Act 1991 and repeal the Higher Education Endowment Fund Act 2007. They do all of this to establish three of the government’s nation-building funds, as announced in the budget earlier this year. They are the Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund and the Health and Hospitals Fund.

The COAG Reform Fund Bill, which is being debated concurrently with the others, establishes the COAG Reform Fund, which is designed for the purposes of disbursing funds to the states and territories from these three nation-building funds and, as the need arises, funds from appropriation bills and special appropriations in the form of national partnership payments. The net effect of all of these bills is to implement critical elements of the government’s nation-building agenda, to upgrade and develop infrastructure in areas such as transport, communication, higher education, vocational education and training and health as well as to strengthen the national economy in the context of the global financial crisis.

Can I start by saying that these bills and these funds were conceived in the budget earlier this year, in May, in response to the parlous state of infrastructure in this country which had been left by the Howard government—a government which for 12 years allowed infrastructure in this country to wither on the vine. There is nothing more important for our economy than productivity. Indeed, the Reserve Bank Governor in April this year said this in relation to the significance of productivity within our economy. He said:

Ultimately, productivity is the source of growth in living standards. In the long run, if it is not everything, it is pretty close to it.

Of course, there is an intrinsic link between the productive capacity of our economy and the state of our nation’s infrastructure. Infrastructure is what allows the economy to flourish and to function. Despite 20 separate warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Howard government did precious little to deal with the parlous state of infrastructure in this country. It allowed Australia to fall behind. That is not just the opinion of Labor; it is not just the opinion of the current government. It is also the opinion of Engineers Australia, the nation’s peak engineering body. It releases report cards which assess the state of our national infrastructure. A review of the report cards in the last part of the Howard government, from 2001 through to 2005, makes very troubled reading indeed. The reports indicate that during that period the state of our roads, the state of our national electricity grid and the state of our sea ports all went backwards. Airport infrastructure stagnated. Overall, Engineers Australia gave the state of our nation’s infrastructure a C plus. In their closing notes they cited concerns over ‘significant problems’ in our nation’s infrastructure.

Even more disturbing was their 2007 assessment of national communications infrastructure. In the December report of that year they indicated that only Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane had a fixed communications infrastructure that could be deemed good—meaning that it can ‘generally satisfy the needs of most users’. Perth and Canberra were deemed to be adequate—meaning ‘it does not meet the needs of most users’. Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin got a D or ‘poor’ rating, meaning ‘major expenditure on telecommunications infrastructure would be of benefit to users’. And that was just the capital cities. I am mindful of the time. I will seek leave at this point to resume my comments when we return.

Leave granted.

When it comes to education, the legacy of the Howard government is one of neglect. Only 0.1 per cent of GDP was spent on pre-primary institutions during the final years of the Howard government, compared to an OECD average of 0.4 per cent of GDP, while countries such as Denmark and Hungary were spending around 0.8 per cent of GDP on education. When it comes to the other end of the education spectrum—tertiary education—we all know that, during the 12 years of the Howard government, we were the only country that reduced its spending on tertiary education as a proportion of GDP.

When we look at infrastructure, we see that there are many statistics around health. There were 4.8 acute hospital beds per 1,000 people in Australia in 1990; by 2005 that had dropped to 3.6. That compares with an OECD average of 3.9, but in Germany it is 6.4 and in Japan it is 8.2. There are many similar statistics which bear out the point that our health infrastructure has withered on the vine. Indeed, on 20 March this year the shadow health minister, Joe Hockey, said:

I don’t need to tell you that the overburdened public health system is struggling to meet the strain of its workload.

Never have truer words been said. The real question is: whose fault was that?

Infrastructure is crucial to regional Australia. There is no better example of that than in my electorate of Corio, which is based on the city of Geelong. We talk about Geelong having three themes going forward. The first theme is that Geelong is a lifestyle city. It is in a very beautiful part of Port Phillip Bay, with a raised peninsula and the north-facing Corio Bay. It also has access to the surf coast. Increasingly, people working in Melbourne are choosing to live in Geelong. But critical to making that part of the economic future of Geelong is the access that people from Geelong have to Melbourne, and that is an infrastructure issue. Anyone who travels on the road knows that, once you pass the Western Ring Road interchange, there is a bottleneck going into the city of Melbourne from its western approaches. That is an infrastructure issue which ultimately needs to be dealt with. The rail system is good in that it is very well patronised, but that means the trains are often overcrowded. Within Geelong, car parks around the train stations are very hard to find. Again, these are infrastructure issues.

We talk about high-tech manufacturing being part of the future of Geelong. We have multinationals; we have a great university, Deakin University, which has an increasing research base; and we have CSIRO research institutions in Geelong. In terms of multinationals which have a research capacity, there is no better example than the Ford product development unit, which is based in Geelong. All of those are the ingredients of a high-tech manufacturing sector in Geelong but, again, critical to that is infrastructure in the area of education. We need to make sure that we are teaching our kids the skills to perform in those high-tech manufacturing jobs, and we need to make sure that we are investing in research infrastructure so that we can create those high-tech manufacturing jobs.

Geelong also has a wonderful future in relation to transport and logistics, particularly to the north of Geelong, where you have an airport, a seaport, national highway No.1 and the national standard gauge railway all within a few kilometres of each other and all on the northern fringes of Geelong—and with land out there to burn, in a sense. So there is a real opportunity for companies to be based there, in what is a very geographically strategic position in the country. But to make all of that happen we need infrastructure.

I do not say all that as a wish list of infrastructure projects in Geelong, because this legislation provides a much more rigorous process than simply addressing the politics of the day. This is not about a three-year, short-term political time frame; this is about a rigorous process, through Infrastructure Australia and other important sources of advice, of assessment about what is actually in the national interest over a very long period of time. But I do raise those issues around Geelong to indicate the extent to which infrastructure has withered on the vine over the past 12 years and how important building our infrastructure is to getting the economies of places like Geelong going again. Getting the economies of regional Australia going again is very important indeed.

Finally, I conclude my comments on this legislation by making this point about where infrastructure was at under the Howard government as opposed to what the plans are now under the Rudd government. The former Liberal Party President Mr Shane Stone said in the year 2001 that at that point the party’s leadership was ‘mean, tricky, out of touch and not listening’. Well, little changed in the final years of the Howard government. Their approach to national education was indeed mean spirited; their management of the nation’s health system was tricky, as they sought to blame the shortcomings of the health system on the states; and they were out of touch when it came to the need for infrastructure within this country. By November 2007 one thing was certain, and that was that the Howard government were not listening to the people—but, then again, the electorate was certainly no longer interested in listening to them. The Howard government’s legacy is one of neglect.

The Rudd government intends to overturn that legacy of neglect, and these bills are critical to that reform. They will provide much needed investment in the critical areas of health, education and infrastructure. In the process, they will provide a buffer in the context of the global economic crisis but, more importantly, in the long term they will lift our nation’s productivity by reducing those capacity constraints on our economy. Australia should not be a C-grade student when it comes to infrastructure, health and education, and these bills are absolutely about helping our nation lift its grade. I commend these bills to the House.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to make a contribution to the debate on the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and cognate bills. I spent 20 years in regional development and I think I know a little about it, but I do not see much nation building in the measures that we have heard about so far. There is lot of spin in them but not a lot of work being done to actually get projects to the line.

Apparently the Prime Minister thinks, ‘Once you leave Brisbane and cross the Pine River, you can hear the sound of banjo music.’ Inherent in that is an antirural, antiregional attitude, one that is entrenched in this legislation. His one-man war against rural and regional Australia has begun, and he is using the treasure chest built up by the previous coalition government to fund his battle.

Measures contained in the legislation will create the Building Australia Fund, the BAF; the Health and Hospitals Fund, the HHF; and the Education Investment Fund, the EIF. There is a lot to consider in this legislation, but I would like to start by looking at the overarching financial implications. This is a complete smash and grab: get what you can from wherever you can and hang the consequences. Do not say I am just being tough on the government; I am not. That is exactly what they did in the Keating era, leaving $96 billion worth of debt for the then new government of 1996 to pay off.

In Labor’s program we have got money coming from the existing budget surplus, money coming from the proceeds of the T3 sale and money coming from the perpetual funds established by the coalition government, but the most notable feature is that the money appropriated in this bill, almost down to the last cent, has come from the surpluses provided by the previous coalition government.

Not content with raiding the $2 billion Communications Fund or taking another $2.7 billion from the Future Fund, this typical Labor bill will release funds from the $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund and take another $7.5 billion from the budget to top up both the BAF and the HHF. Taking into account the total funds identified in the bill, the BAF, the HHF and the EIF will share around $26.3 billion at their inception in January next year, a full $14.7 billion short of the figure announced in this year’s budget, just six months ago.

It would seem that Labor’s eyes are considerably larger than its stomach when it comes to making promises to the Australian public. Nevertheless, today we are waving goodbye to the budget surplus and pinning our hopes on a government that is all talk and little action. I am all for nation building. It is something that I have tirelessly advocated throughout my time in parliament. I think that in times of national economic hardship it is wise to use the budget surplus to keep our businesses and communities afloat. But I am greatly concerned that this government is about using the hard-earned surplus and perpetual funds from the coalition in effect to buy positive headlines in cities, while leaving regional Australia behind.

Before I move to the body of my concerns about the Rudd government’s nation-building legislation, let me talk briefly about the government’s early development programs and the indications that they might give us on how the government is going to handle the big-picture items that are inherent in this legislation. Let us not mess around with this. We are not talking about little stuff when we start talking about nation building. Let us have a look at what the indications have been thus far, perhaps in some slightly smaller fields.

I want to touch on one early indication of the government’s attitude, and that is that the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government spent the first six months as minister criticising coalition programs that were hugely valuable for regional and rural areas, programs that brought jobs, services and development. The most shameful aspect of Labor’s approach is that, while attacking the Regional Partnerships program for an apparent lack of accountability, they designed a program that has no scrutiny or oversight.

Labor’s Better Regions Program is $176 million worth of pork-barrelling, with 90 per cent of it going to Labor seats. The parliament is unaware of what criteria are being used to assess and approve these projects. And the minister has the temerity to criticise my dissenting report, in which I argue the case for providing funding to commercial businesses—which would actually create jobs—instead of building toilet blocks. The minister must be a little embarrassed that his terms of reference for this inquiry deliberately excluded any mention of job creation, particularly with the current predictions of a six per cent—and, if you listen to the National Australia Bank, 6.5 per cent—national unemployment rate within the next two years.

I contend that genuine economic development, sustainability and viability in regional areas hinge wholly and solely on jobs. Perhaps if the minister actually lived in a regional area he might understand. Rural and regional areas have traditionally relied on one or two major industries, most of them agriculturally based, for their economic survival. But for years there has been recognition that regional areas must diversify or die. I have heard Labor members say when in opposition and when in government that the range of businesses, industries and services must provide a resilient platform for long-term survival. Yet it would seem from the terms of reference of the inquiry into Regional Partnerships and what may follow in its place that regional development in Australia will not take any of that into account.

One Labor member told me—and I do not intend to name him, because that would not be fair—that in the lead-up to the election he was granted 18 different programs under the government’s pre-election $176 million Better Regions Program. As I said, there are no guidelines for those. When I have asked ministers, parliamentary secretaries or indeed my government colleagues the answer has been, ‘They were election promises.’ For a $176 million-worth program you can tear up the rule book, yet you can nitpick day and night over a handful of projects that failed under Regional Partnerships.

In my electorate I worked very hard with commercial projects. I am a great believer in the concept that we must create employment, and I ensure that my electorate is diversified. Hinkler has the ninth highest tourism employment rate of 150 electorates—10.9 per cent of all jobs in my electorate are in tourism. Manufacturing accounts for around 8.4 per cent of local jobs; agriculture, 6.6 per cent; and construction, 10.6 per cent. Also, education and training and health and welfare contribute to the jobs profile. Going back to that tourism figure, I am quite sure that the Hinkler tourism job profile would not be as high if the coalition had not invested in a number of small to medium sized enterprises such as the one we inspected while we were on the inquiry, Snakes Downunder—an excellent reptile park. From humble beginnings, it is now a beautiful place to take kids where they can see all the Australian reptiles and wildlife against cameos that show these creatures in their natural environment. Another enterprise was Mammino’s ice-cream. Imagine, an enterprise in the little town of Childers—both these enterprises are in Childers—making an ice-cream that sells all over south-eastern Queensland. It is rich, beautiful ice cream, too. My wife keeps it well away from me!

You might ask: ‘Where does all this come together? What are you on about? What are you trying to say?’ I am not claiming all the credit. There are other factors, such as the expansion of tourism in Bargara and Hervey Bay. But just listen to this: over the last 20 years unemployment reached an all-time high. In February 1996—that is, the month before we took office as a coalition—the unemployment rate in Wide Bay was 19.9 per cent. The Wide Bay region, the Tweed, Western Sydney, one of the Victorian regions—the name of which eludes me for the present—and the Mersey region of Tasmania were traditionally the worst five. They were always in that group. Isn’t it ironic that in the month before we left office the unemployment rate in my electorate was one of the lowest in Australia, at 3.4 per cent. I contend that the development of small to medium sized industry played a significant part in that. I think that is what the government has to look at, and commercial projects should be a part of that. You cannot just repair halls, tidy up swimming pools and build playgrounds and toilet blocks. Important as those things are—and I am not suggesting they should be dropped—you must counterbalance them with a serious approach to major industry.

The government is suggesting that it might put some of those previous, bigger projects into the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. But, of course, there is no program for them in there, and I am doubtful that they would ever do it. So we are just going to cut all those commercial projects off to one side. To create jobs, to create vital infrastructure, we need flexibility, dynamism, entrepreneurship and—let me stress—diversification. When one industry fails in a regional area, if you have a diversified industry base—as I was trying to explain before—you are less prone to those rises and falls of unemployment and social dysfunction.

The coalition has long championed investment in hard infrastructure, which will improve productivity, living standards and business development—for example, $38 billion dollars went into AusLink programs 1 and 2. I have heard many of my Labor colleagues praise those programs. It was the coalition which established the $2 billion Communications Fund which would have financed ongoing telecommunications upgrades across the nation. It was the coalition that established the perpetual Higher Education Endowment Fund of $5 billion. But, perhaps most importantly, the coalition had the money in the bank to undertake these far-reaching programs. At that time, Australians were confident that the government had a grip on the national economy and were secure in the knowledge that every cent put forward in these infrastructure programs came from our own coffers, not from a national credit card, not from borrowing and not from going into debt. Indications over recent weeks suggest that things are going to be very different in the future. We have a government that thinks that a dollar sign is the equivalent of decisive action and a Prime Minister more interested in lecturing the global community than governing his own country.

The Prime Minister’s thought bubbles are bursting left, right and centre, particularly in the rough and tumble of telco politics. The fact is that the bids might be in for the national broadband network, but rural and regional Australians may have to wait eight or more years before they get high-speed broadband services. Just yesterday, Telstra chairman Don McGauchie admitted that the company could only provide high-speed broadband access to about 90 per cent of Australia. The benchmark has always been 96-98 per cent. Where is the other 10 per cent going to come from? The plan would seem to be—particularly since the Rudd government has come to office—to squander the $2 billion established for the specific purpose of rolling out upgrades to country areas. I think that is both unnecessary and shameful.

The real shame in this situation is that, if the coalition had retained government, our planned nationwide high-speed broadband network would have been making its debut at about this time. Under the coalition’s Australia Connected, all Australians would have been able to hook up to fast broadband next year, using a range of technologies to ensure everyone had the ability to access broadband. Under the plan, the less competitive rural and regional markets would have had the security offered by the $958 million OPEL contract, and our $2 billion Communications Fund—which I spoke about before—would have been there for future proofing, if that particular program needed upgrading or if there were holes to be plugged.

In fact, in my electorate, only one little corner, at Didcot, would not have been covered by the OPEL plan. OPEL would have had the whole electorate covered by high-speed wireless internet and, as well as that, three major areas of ADSL+2, in addition to what other companies, like Telstra, were offering. But it has been scrapped by the current government and regional and rural people have no guarantee that (a) the government is even going to give Telstra the contract, and (b) if it does, what will happen to the 10 per cent of Australians who are going to miss out anyhow? And I suppose you could add (c) there will not be any money there to do it because we have squandered the $2 billion that was earmarked to do those sorts of jobs. So when you look at it, it is really quite sad.

In the remaining minutes I would like to speak briefly about the inland rail. If the government really wants to excite people, it needs to do something like the Snowy Mountains scheme; it needs to excite the Australian population to think about something beyond itself, to provide a project which will have an employment component to it while it is being advanced. We have two companies who want to do that inland rail: ATEC, led by Everald Compton, and GATR, led by Vince O’Rourke. I have a longstanding interest in this. I think a north-south railway line from Melbourne to Toowoomba, or alternatively Melbourne to Brisbane, and perhaps later onto Gladstone would be real nation building—the sort of stuff to infrastructure that the Opera House is to the arts. We have heard a lot about that today but we seem to lack the will to drive projects like this into the future. It is not as if we do not have competent people doing that. Everald Compton already has a mandate from the Queensland government to do the section from Gladstone to Toowoomba. He is now seeking the mandate to go from Moree to Toowoomba. Vince O’Rourke, who is arguably one of the greatest rail men in Australia, is held in the highest esteem in New South Wales and Queensland. In the report The great freight task, he said:

We are doing too much patching. Why don’t we build some really good railways? On a modern railway from Melbourne to Brisbane, freight trains could make their journey in 14 to 15 hours. It would be overnight. It is the just-in-time manufacturing inventory, logistics and integration with the ports that this nation needs.

That is his vision. While we have people out there wanting to do this, it is a travesty that it lays waiting for governments to pick it up. I would urge the government, as it looks around for nation-building projects, to take up the vision that Everald Compton has so widely articulated. Let us start getting semitrailers off the roads, let us start opening up some of the most productive parts of Australia, let us get a modern freight system and let us get it soon.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to support the three bills being dealt with in cognate before the House: the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008, the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008. I take the opportunity to focus on the COAG Reform Fund Bill, although I will make some reference to the nation-building funds bills. I indicate to the chamber that I intend to keep my comments to about 10 minutes, being conscious that some of my colleagues also want the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

The COAG Reform Fund Bill establishes the COAG Reform Fund, which will make payments of financial assistance to the states and territories on written agreements between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. Payments for the COAG Reform Fund may come from three sources: payments from nation-building funds, annual appropriation acts and/or special appropriations in the form of national partnership payments. National partnership agreements between the Commonwealth and the states and territories set out performance benchmarks and the amount of payment for each benchmark met. The COAG Reform Council will determine whether or not the agreed benchmarks on national partnership agreements have been met. For payments sourced from the nation-building funds, the terms and conditions for this financial assistance will be determined by written agreement under the Nation-building Funds Act 2008. The bill therefore modernises financial relationships between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. The COAG meetings held since the government was elected in November—one of which was held this weekend, of course—are designed to end the blame game and modernise the federation to create a new, modern relationship that will send us well into the future. COAG has an ambitious reform agenda, of course. It is focused on health and education, skills and training, climate change and water, infrastructure, housing, disability reform, business regulation and competition and Indigenous disadvantage.

I want to take the opportunity to indicate how important this program is and why a bill such as this, in establishing the new form of the financial relationship between the Commonwealth and the states and territories, is so critical to the long-term wellbeing of our nation. On Saturday, the most recent COAG meeting was held in Canberra, and it was an important and historic meeting in terms of many of the areas that it dealt with. It acknowledged that we are in a period of major reform, particularly to the specific purpose payments that have been a long-time feature of the relationship between the Commonwealth and the states. Given the circumstances in which these reforms are being passed through that process—we understand that global financial market conditions have created a great deal of pressure in our systems and for all governments at all levels—the way in which we arrange our agreements and funding to ensure that when government money is spent it is being spent against preset benchmarks with transparent measures in place to indicate how effectively that money has been released into our economy and communities is very, very important. No longer do we want to be able to simply say to the states, ‘There’s a bucket of money; you’ll get yours allocated on a particular formula and then you’ll sink or swim based on how you spend it.’ Clearly we now have a view that we have a common interest across all three levels of government in making sure that we all stand responsible at the end of the day for the outcomes in areas where the relationships in delivery of funding between the three levels of government have become more and more complex over time.

This program is a recognition of the fact that increasingly the people whom we represent in this House have become frustrated by their inability to pinpoint exactly who takes responsibility for an issue that they may have in the local area. I am sure all of us, as local members of parliament in our own electorate offices, regularly have those calls where someone will ring about an education, health or housing issue and we have to say: ‘That’s actually not under the Commonwealth’s area of responsibility; that particular part of the service delivery is under the state. Here’s who you need to talk to at the state level, and here’s how you can progress that through the other level of government.’ Increasingly, you have to go away yourself for a couple of hours to try and unravel the situation that they find themselves in and find out which components of that particular matter relate to state or federal responsibilities. A classic example was a complaint I had from a parent about a quality issue to do with the curriculum at an independent school. She had the view, which was not surprising, that it is the federal government that funds private schools and therefore it should be something I take up. I had to explain to her that the curriculum and standards are administered by the state authorities.

Those sorts of complex relationships, while we can understand why they have historically developed, have created, I think, that sense of frustration in the community about where the buck actually stops, to use the old political term. So what we are attempting to do here is to address that in a meaningful way with a reform that says that, when the federal government gives money to the states under these national partnerships, it will be done in a collaborative way that sets out up front, from the beginning, exactly what outcomes are expected and what the measures and reporting processes will be so that all people can see how that is actually progressing.

Given my own background, I want to particularly acknowledge the importance of the COAG program on education and schools in particular. It is very important that we come to an agreement on the computers in schools program. I know those opposite have been quite critical of this, but I have to say it is a real passion of mine. I have observed with frustration for many years as a teacher and parent—I have two sons, who are now 24 and 19, so well past their high school age—that kids would head off to school with a backpack full of textbooks that look very similar to the ones I had when I was at school. And if you looked at those little stamps they have in the front of them, where each student each year writes their name and the year it was issued to them, that is not far from the truth. I looked at that and thought how meaningless that experience is to the reality of the world out into which they are going to go seeking work. The only slightly parallel example I can think of is seeing, when I was walking through the Macquarie Street end of Sydney, a lot of the legal profession walking around dragging their trolleys full of books behind them. But in most professions nowadays that is a very uncommon experience. Most of them are digitally driven; they are connected with computers; they access information through a common database. That was the experience these kids were going to have going out into the world.

Indeed, if they are going into the trades, every tradesman now has in his ute not only the tools in the back but also, on the spare seat, the laptop with which he is doing his quotes and processing his business. To me it is a really major issue that we have to get our kids into the 21st century. The toolkit of the 21st century is the computer. It is only possible to roll out that program in a partnership with the education sectors—that includes the state schools, through the state and territory authorities, and the independent sectors, through their own authorities. So that is a really important part of the announcement from Saturday’s COAG that that program has been allocated the additional money that is needed to get it up and running. I would encourage people to reject the argument that somehow this is not a significant and important part of modernising our education system. It is; it is critical. While there may be criticisms about the rollout detail and so forth, the actual concept is a really important one in continuing to engage our young people in a meaningful education.

I want to acknowledge that it is also important that the primary school component of funding has also been increased. I know that we put a lot of focus and effort into the secondary school sector through the computers in schools program and the trades training centres. Some primary schools in my areas have been saying to me: ‘Look, we understand that you always address the critical end. These are young people about to go out into the workforce and therefore you cannot leave any longer the need to address the gaps that may be in their education, but of course you also need to focus on the primary school end.’ There has been an important shift in the formula for funding students in primary schools in the government sector, as that is what is dealt with obviously in COAG. I think that will see, as I understand it, $100 per student additional funding, and I think that will be very welcome in the primary school sector as well as, of course, the additional money for literacy and numeracy.

In my final moments, I just want to make the point that, as a former teacher, I know that change can be daunting. I know that accountability for anybody in any profession is always viewed with the concern, ‘I don’t mind being accountable, but how exactly are you measuring me and is it legitimate?’ I think the measures in here for school leadership and quality teaching are critically important. They support people who are already doing that. They allow them the opportunity to develop themselves further and I think that the program overall is a tremendous one. I commend all three bills to the House and I thank the House for the opportunity to address them.

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

Given that we only have 10 minutes and there are to be two speakers, my contribution to this debate will be very brief.

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

The honourable member should know that there is no limit, according to the standing orders.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, please. These bills will be returned to the House a bit before five o’clock, so I will make my contribution very quickly. The Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and related bills signal a new era in relationships between the Commonwealth and the states. The legislation also signals a new era in providing much needed funds and infrastructure for the people of Australia. The legislation is about partnerships and will lead to stopping the blame game and creating an environment where Australians can obtain the education that they need. The education fund was established in the 2008 budget. Australians’ health needs will be looked after through the health fund, which was established in the 2008 budget. Also, the infrastructure fund will provide much needed infrastructure in Australia.

This legislation is of vital importance, and it shows the difference between the Howard government’s approach to education and health and the Rudd government’s approach. The Howard government allowed skills shortages to develop in Australia. It did not address the educational needs of Australians and did not put Australia in a position to encompass the jobs and the intellectual needs of the world that we live in today. That is totally different from what the Rudd government is doing. You only had to go to the COAG meeting at the weekend to observe the difference. There has been an enormous injection of funds into the states for health, housing and education. There will be a $6.4 billion investment in health and hospital funding, and that is included in the national healthcare agreement. That is very different from the previous government’s approach. It ripped money out of our hospitals instead of investing in them and then blamed the states for the fact that hospitals were struggling to meet the needs of the people that visited them. This is all about ending the blame game and rebuilding our hospitals.

There are partnerships between local government and the federal government, with $300 million given to councils throughout Australia the week before last. That showed a recognition of local government. COAG negotiations at the weekend showed a very mature approach to the relationships between the states and the Commonwealth. The government will be delivering much needed infrastructure here in Australia.

The previous Howard government allowed bottlenecks to develop around our ports. It did not address the needs of all Australians in all electorates. Rather, it pork-barrelled into National Party electorates. If I remember correctly, just before the election it announced 32 projects under the Regional Partnerships program in 28 coalition electorates. That is far different from the very transparent approach set out in this legislation. This legislation will ensure that infrastructure, education and health funds are established and can operate to benefit all Australians.

From what I have listened to of this debate, the contributions from members on the other side have been very myopic in their approach. Those members have tried to find problems with this legislation, which will benefit not just a few Australians but all Australians. This legislation will ensure that 133,000 jobs are created within Australia and will make sure that Australia is in a position to meet the needs of the future. The Rudd government has stepped up to the mark with its economic security package, which millions of Australians will benefit from next week when payments start going into their bank accounts. People are able to recognise that there is a financial crisis on and that we need a visionary government, a government that is prepared to train doctors, a government that is prepared to invest in education and a government that will govern for all Australians. I commend the legislation to the House.

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to offer my strong support for the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and cognate bills. On indulgence, I would also like to add my sympathy to the family of Lieutenant Michael Fussell, who passed away at the end of last week. Having a strong contingent of service people in my electorate, it is always a worry to me to have our people overseas.

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

The honourable member does not need indulgence.

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am new in this place. The main purpose of these bills is to establish Labor’s three nation-building funds: the Building Australia Fund, the Health and Hospitals Fund and the Education Investment Fund. These funds will provide the finances to see nationwide improvements in critical areas such as transport, communications, higher education, vocational education and training, research and health. The Australian government is bringing about real change to the way we look at investing in our nation’s future. This government is committed to responsible economic management and we are committed to smart investment in those areas of the economy that will assist us to grow, invest and build on this nation’s prosperity.

Earlier this year the Prime Minister took decisive and early action to protect the Australian economy from the global financial crisis, which started in the United States and has rapidly spread throughout the world. The Rudd government prepared well ahead for this set of circumstances by ensuring in the May budget that we provided ourselves with a strong buffer for the future. The Australian economy remains sound, but we are not immune from the global slowdown and the real possibility of global recession. There are no easy solutions or quick fixes to the global financial crisis. This is going to be a long, drawn-out crisis which will have a real impact in Australia, leading to slowed economic growth and increased unemployment. We are in a strong position to tackle the challenges that come with global economic uncertainty, yet we do require strong economic management to assist in this challenge.

On 14 October the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announced the $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy to deal with the challenges of the global financial crisis, to support continued positive growth in the Australian economy and to provide practical support for the household. I know that thousands of pensioners, carers and families in Solomon are looking forward to the financial relief they will receive next week. Not only will it mean real and immediate support for pensioners, carers and families; it will also mean an economic stimulus for the hundreds of small business owners in the Darwin and Palmerston area at a time when everyone needs it the most.

To ensure that Australia is shielded from the impact of the global financial crisis, another component of the Economic Security Strategy announced in October was the fast-tracking of our nation-building agenda. To meet the infrastructure needs of Australia in areas central to our economy—areas like transport, communications and education and training—these bills have been fast-tracked through a historic investment in nation building that will ensure our economic security today and into the future.

The investments being made by this government are significant. This year the government will contribute over $12 billion, including proceeds from the T3 sale and the balance of the Communications Fund, to the Building Australia Fund for use in long-term nation-building projects. It will contribute almost $9 billion, including the balance of the Higher Education Endowment Fund, to the Education Investment Fund for education infrastructure and make a $5 billion contribution to the Health and Hospitals Fund for health infrastructure. The government is committed to making future allocations of these funds as budget circumstances permit. These three funds are particularly important examples of the government’s approach to nation building. They are designed to provide in areas where stakeholders agree there are substantial infrastructure gaps.

It is always good to have third-party endorsements of the budget and of these things. All members would recall the dozens of warnings the former government received from the Reserve Bank that it needed to focus on infrastructure spending bottlenecks in the economy and also increase spending on training. I will read a few of the responses to the announcement of the Building Australia Fund from peak organisations not known as Labor sympathisers by any stretch of the imagination. David Crombie, President of the National Farmers Federation, said:

Tonight’s announcement of the $20 billion Building Australia Fund is a positive move towards addressing critical transport and communications infrastructure. Too often Australia’s farmers face inadequate and grossly ineffective national and regional infrastructure in these areas, undermining the farming sector’s strong record of productivity and growth.

The ANZ Bank’s chief economist, Saul Eslake, said that in this budget the Treasurer ‘has created a more compelling vision of how it will deploy the enlarged surplus which it is projecting over the next four years’. This is exactly what the government should be saving its surplus for. I commend the legislation to the House.

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

I move:

That further proceedings on the bill, on the Nation-building Funds (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008 and on the COAG Reform Fund Bill 2008, be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.