Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009. This bill is designed to strip $2½ billion out of the Education Investment Fund, a fund established with much fanfare last year. It is a bill designed to strip $2½ billion out of this education fund and direct those moneys to the funding of the new Clean Energy Initiative. The Education Investment Fund was explicitly created just 12 months ago for universities and for vocational education and training—two areas absolutely critical to our nation’s capacity to increase productivity so that we can rebound as quickly as possible in the future from this economic malaise and repay the massive home-grown government debt being incurred by this reckless and panicked government. As well, universities and vocational education and training are two areas we were told ad nauseam were absolutely fundamental to the government’s so-called education revolution.

The government would not see this bill as anything of great moment. In the face of a $200 billion debt created in 12 months by this government, the government would say this bill is neither here nor there. But as one of the first bills introduced after the budget was brought down last night it is an ironic and powerful piece of symbolism. It captures the very essence of the budget. It is a snapshot, if you like, of the government’s wider problems. This bill in a sense symbolises the loss of control of the nation’s finances by this Labor government, the sense that this budget lacks coherence and gravitas, lacks any sense of the real problem that they are charged with tackling. The bill demonstrates the impact of Labor’s reckless spending spree. The bill highlights one of the many ways our children will quickly start to pay the price of this massive debt with the lower priority given to education. The bill confirms Labor’s lack of any long-term coherent plan for infrastructure. There is no sense of priority from one year to the next. The bill says that Labor’s commitments cannot be trusted, even after being put into l-a-w law. The bill betrays a great measure of confusion and panic about this government. You get a sense of a government looking for a $2 coin under the lounge cushion, a government raiding the kid’s piggy bank. You get this sense of panic and confusion. This government has lost control of the nation’s finances.

This bill flies in the face of all the government has said about infrastructure funds over the last 12 months. We had the Prime Minister on 25 August saying:

… one of the main vehicles for turning productivity around in the Budget was the announcement of a Building Australia Fund and an Education Investment Fund.

Of course, these have been massively underspent compared with the handouts that have been provided over the last few months. So much for priority. And now they are raiding these very funds. On 21 May last year the Treasurer said:

The fund will … ensure our education and skills needs are met in the long term.

Of course, that was 12 months ago. The fund is now $4.5 billion smaller than provided for in the Treasurer’s last budget. So much for those commitments.

The Minister for Education on 13 May last year, in announcing this Education Investment Fund, said:

The Rudd Labor government will transform Australia’s higher education and vocational education and training … institutions over the next decade with a new $11 billion Education Investment Fund.

Of course, it never got to $11 billion—$2 billion was taken out of it in the early stages. And now another $2½ billion is being stripped out of this fund. The minister went on to say:

The Education Investment Fund is a major component of the Rudd Government’s Education Revolution.

It was a cornerstone of the education revolution. So much for these pious sentiments, these strong commitments. They have lived off this sort of rhetoric for 12 months, and then quietly, in a deep night, they run this bill into the House, 20 or 30 minutes after the budget has been released. The Minister for Education went on to say last year:

This means that substantial investment can be made in our educational institutions in the coming years, transforming the capacity of these sectors to educate and train Australians.

The bill totally undermines the minister’s comment. It also undermines future comments by this minister and by the government and their commitment to the educational revolution. Having made a monumental mess of the introduction of computers in schools, they are now stripping funds—generated by the previous government, I might add—to use for other purposes. The funds are being used to cover their excessive, wanton and reckless spending; the tens of billions of dollars of handouts. We are now seeing the price being paid by our kids, by future generations, because of the lack of commitment and spending for university and vocational education. The minister also said on 13 May last year:

Decisions about annual disbursements from the Education Investment Fund will occur through the annual appropriation process, which would ensure transparency and allow parliamentary scrutiny.

Some very high sounding sentiments—the sorts of sentiments we have heard ad nauseam from all those on the other side, from all the ministers, on and on, about how they will ensure transparency and allow parliamentary scrutiny. These commitments are meaningless. How can you trust this? At 8.30 last night, this bill was introduced, half an hour after the budget was brought down.

The bill runs counter to everything said for 12 months by this government about the priorities they are giving to education, about how they will manage the finances of this country, about the commitments that people can assume are going to be followed through and about how they can plan future investments and other commitments because of the existence of these funds, which are now being stripped away for other purposes. This was all said for 12 months by this government and now, 15 hours after the budget, this bill is being rammed through this parliament. It makes a mockery of the commitments made by this government. This is Labor-style transparency and parliamentary scrutiny.

The Minister for Education said on 13 May last year:

The Future Fund Board of Guardians will be responsible for managing the fund.

Well, the guardians have had the rug pulled from underneath them. Nearly half the money has gone from the fund without any commitment of those funds for education and vocational education. What is more, we are told in the budget papers, in the most sanctimonious terms, that the $2½ billion of funds being transferred to the Clean Energy Initiative will only be used:

… subject to endorsement by the Education Investment Fund Advisory Board once suitable projects are identified.

It is not apparent to me, and I suspect to the advisory board members themselves, what particular expertise these education advisory board members have with regard to carbon capture and storage, solar energy generation and any other clean energy project that may be identified in the future. As it stands, only $400 million of the $2.5 billion being stripped out of the education fund is committed to particular projects. The remaining $2.1 billion is yet to be allocated. I can sense, at the very least, major confusion having members of the education board—people presumably highly skilled and experienced in education matters—now being required to endorse any transfer of funds ‘once suitable projects are identified’. What a nonsense. It does betray the confusion running through this government on all sorts of matters at every level. It is either confusion or a major snow job in the making.

All of this demonstrates the impact of Labor’s reckless spending spree. The $13.8 billion committed in last night’s budget to be spent in total from the three infrastructure funds—$3.2 billion from the Health and Hospitals Fund, $3 billion from the Education Investment Fund and $7.6 billion from the Building Australia Fund—is less than two-thirds of the $22 billion spent in recent months on Labor’s cash splash, less than two-thirds of the $22 billion spent on handouts.

The handouts have forced Labor to raid these funds for other initiatives. How short-sighted to run out there with the handouts—the cheques are still going out—and then be forced, in a matter of not even months later, to raid funds that were put in place 12 months ago which have been, in a rhetorical sense, committed to ever since. They are giving with one hand and taking away with the other. It makes a mockery of all that the minister has said about the education revolution program. The handouts have forced Labor to raid these funds for other initiatives.

It demonstrates again the impact of Labor’s reckless spending spree—what it has done to long-term planning, what it has done to sensible management of finances and government. Labor cannot even manage moneys given to them. Every dollar in those funds—every dollar of that $13.8 billion—was generated and gifted by the Howard government to this government. They cannot even manage moneys given to them, much less generate moneys themselves.

No fund or funding commitment anywhere across this government can now be trusted. Moneys could end up anywhere. Commitments, even commitments that have been legislated for, as we have seen with the education fund, are meaningless. Given that much of the foreshadowed investment takes place over the next seven, eight, 10 years, a lot of those commitments last night are many years away. With this money promised, committed, for long-term projects, what confidence can the community have that these projects will not be dropped or modified or dealt with in all sorts of ways in the years ahead in the wake of incompetent financial management?

This bill also highlights how our children will start to pay the price, as they will for decades, for this massive debt. This is just one example—unanticipated, but one of many. Not only will the $9,000 debt hanging over every man, woman and child need to be paid off in the decades ahead but diminished investments and services will also eat into the opportunities and quality of life of our children and their children, as signalled by this raid on the education funds.

This bill also confirms Labor’s lack of any long-term, coherent plan for infrastructure. Labor told us endlessly before the last election that they had a coherent, well-developed plan for Australia’s major infrastructure. We heard it time and again, as it was one of their four planks on which they sought to win government. It was one of their major commitments—along with the education revolution, which is in tatters after last night’s announcements. Here we are, 18 months later, seeing the first decisions about any major infrastructure—18 months after they said they had a plan. They said that they had worked out a plan, a comprehensive, well-developed plan for Australia’s major infrastructure. We have lost 18 months during which major infrastructure projects could have been committed to and major infrastructure spending could have been well on the way.

Last night’s budget represents the first decisions about any major infrastructure project since this government took office, and most of the projects announced last night as being under consideration were advanced by the former government. The only money being spent is money generated and gifted by the former government. And the total spending on major infrastructure announced last night is dwarfed by the total moneys sent out in cheques as handouts.

Where do the government’s priorities lie? What is their focus? How can you have any confidence that this government understands the significance of spending every dollar as wisely as possible, during the worst financial crisis in 80 years, if we are to see maximum impact on productivity to help us to come out of this crisis—whenever the end occurs—and enable us to rebound quickly, ahead of the rest of the world? Now the funds that were to go towards advancing the productivity and the human capital of our young people are being raided, despite the comments of the Minister for Education after last year’s budget:

One measure in last week’s budget—establishing the $11 billion Education Investment Fund—is an indication of the long term perspective we are adopting.

Labor has no coherent plan for infrastructure and no long-term perspective that anyone can have any confidence in. The approach of the government, as characterised by this bill, is no way to run our country.

While the coalition will not stand in the way of this bill, we do express great consternation about what it represents. It represents the government’s lack of any plan for recovery. It represents the government’s lack of priority and its flip-flopping under pressure. The content of this bill demonstrates the impact of Labor’s reckless spending spree. The bill represents the confusion and panic that appear to be gripping this government. The government’s loss of control of the nation’s finances is symbolised by this bill.

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

I rise to support the Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009 before the House today. Before I proceed to discuss the reasons why I support the bill, I would like to address some of the issues raised by the previous speaker, the member for Goldstein, particularly the way he addressed this bill and couched it in terms of what he claimed was the government’s lack of coherence and planning in addressing the global economic crisis. I would say to the previous speaker—except that he has now left the room, so I will say it on the record—that, in fact, quite the opposite is true.

Let me deal firstly with his criticism of what he described as wasted cash payments—that is, the cash bonus payments made at the end of last year and in April this year. There is one reality about hard times, and that is that the confidence of the people in the community, on the ground in streets and suburbs, is one of the most critically important aspects of sustainably getting through difficult economic times. If people are walking around their suburbs seeing shops boarded up and shutting down, if they are walking around seeing houses on the housing market sitting there with the ‘for sale’ sign out the front month after month after month, unable to be moved, then the message at the community level in the towns and suburbs in which we all live will be that times are terribly hard and that they should contract their own engagement in the economy and their own spending in particular. It is critically important that governments intervene early in those sorts of difficult times to retain confidence amongst the population about our capacity to work through these difficult times. I have no doubt that the circumstances we face would have been far worse going into this budget if people in our communities had seen a large number of retail and hospitality workers out of work. Often employed as casual workers, they needed to get a level of income up to sustain them over the Christmas and Easter periods, the most critically important times for them, and their employment was supported by that cash bonus system.

It may not be the employment area given the most attention but in my area, in the seat of Cunningham, retail is the biggest employer. We talk a lot, and quite rightly so, about the challenges facing our steelworkers and our coalminers, but the largest employer in my region is retail. Those retail workers are by and large some of the most vulnerable workers in our communities. They are women and young people in particular. They have as much right as any other worker in our economy to expect the government to support and underpin their employment during difficult times. That is exactly what that injection of money did in our economy—it supported those workers and those sectors of our industries in every one of our electorates in an important way, and that was reflected in our quite amazing achievement of growth in the retail sector compared to the rest of the world. So I really challenge the previous speaker’s argument that that was wasted and I think it is a complete abrogation of responsibility to the retail and hospitality sectors, industries and small businesses, and the workers that are engaged in those sectors.

The previous speaker did also say that we have lost 18 months in which we could have been progressing major infrastructure. I would simply say that I think that we have lost the last 14 years, during 12 of which they were in government. That is why it has taken us 18 months to progress on this stuff—because there was nothing done on infrastructure for so long. So it is a challenge this government has taken up, and taken up successfully.

This brings us to the bill which is before us today. The purpose of the bill is to repeal the credit of $2.5 billion from the 2007-08 budget surplus in the Education Investment Fund that was to have occurred on 30 June 2009, in order to make that finance available for the Clean Energy Initiative. This is an important commitment by this government and it does require, obviously, a redirection of funds. I think that the important thing to understand is that it does not, as the previous speaker claimed, indicate any lack of commitment to education and innovation by this government. There is still more than $6.5 billion in the Education Investment Fund for education and research infrastructure, of which $4.1 billion was committed in the budget last night, and also in the nation-building package that was announced by the Prime Minister in December 2008. The balance of $2.4 billion, plus investment earnings estimated to be around $630 million over the forward estimates, will be available for future education and research projects.

I want to put on the record today my great pleasure in the important commitment in the budget last night to the University of Wollongong of $43.8 million for an Australian Institute of Innovative Materials at their Innovation Campus. This particular investment will have so many flow-through benefits to my own local area, where we are struggling with the impacts of the global economic crisis, because it does a number of things. Firstly, it strengthens the position we have been developing as an area of innovation in manufacturing technology. We have a great manufacturing base. We have tremendous manufacturing skills. We have a world-class university, and we are matching all those together in order to develop a region people will look to for innovations in manufacturing across the sector.

I am a firm believer in the future of the manufacturing sector in our community. I was part of the economics committee that looked at a report for the former Treasurer before the election called Beyond the mining boomand how little we understood how prescient the choice of that particular investigation was. One of the clear things that came out for manufacturing beyond the mining boom is that Australia is well-positioned in problem-solving manufacturing. We will not compete on mass production manufacturing but in terms of specific projects, problem-solving projects, high-end technology based manufacturing, we are well positioned to be world leaders with our absolutely tremendous tradesmen—trained, I will plug, through the world-class TAFE system we have in this country and also extended through the solid engineering programs at our universities. This extension of that in our region will start to take that research at the university and turn it into generic prototypes which actually have the potential to develop new export markets and new manufacturing processes for our industry. This is a really important initiative. This budget delivered the most in one hit to our region that has ever been delivered in a budget. We do not often see solid amounts of investment into the Illawarra region—certainly not in recent times—but this was a real commitment to our region and it was very welcome.

It should be noted that the government has also provided for a $12.4 billion long-term investment under the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program. It is very welcome in my area and across my electorate and Jennie George’s electorate, with $50 million for our local primary schools. As a former teacher I am a profound believer that the environment you provide for young people in their schools sends a very strong message to them and their parents about how you value that education, and the facilities that they are working in are a major part of that. Full commendations to the Prime Minister for recognising that it is time to move the physical structures of our schools into the 21st century—it is a tremendous program.

Also important is the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program. Again, that provides $2.5 billion over the 10 years to enable all secondary schools to apply for funding for trade training centres. The Prime Minister was telling the Wollongong forum he attended on Monday with Jennie George and me about how he and Wayne Swan went back to the old trade centre at Nambour high and were quite horrified to discover it had not changed a single bit since they had been in it. I think he did say that Wayne Swan had passed that particular program and he had not. But it is very true: if we want young people to engage in the modern manufacturing development and trades sector then we have to provide them with modern facilities in the schools to do that. That is a tremendously important program.

The reallocation of funds to the Clean Energy Initiative that is encompassed by this bill is really a significant direction for this country to go in. The government will be using this money to stimulate economic activity in a sector that will support new green-collar jobs. I want to commend that. In my own area, the South Coast Labour Council, under the leadership of Arthur Rorris, has been developing in conjunction with and with the support of the state government a green-collar future for the Illawarra positioning paper. I am sure Mr Rorris will be keen to have the federal government look at that as well. It is about, for example, creating industries in the manufacture of wind farms in the Illawarra region—matching our steel, our trade skills and our ideal positioning with port access with the capacity to be part of the growth of the wind energy sector.

There are some really good initiatives, and this is exactly what the Clean Energy Initiative is about. It will support clean technology in industries and assist Australia’s transition to a lower emissions path, a very important part of delivering on our commitment for 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020. This objective supports the Renewable Energy Fund and the Energy Innovation Fund by efforts to encourage deployment of renewable technologies, including through the Solar Homes and Communities Plan, which I know is very welcome in our area and is part of the proposal of the Labour Council for developing some pilot important programs in our area.

An important thing to acknowledge is that this component also includes $2 billion towards industrial scale carbon capture and storage flagship programs. My own area is a major coalmining area. While the vast bulk of our coal is utilised in the steel-manufacturing sector and not the energy production sector, we do understand how important this sector is to local economies and the need to find new, cleaner ways for coal-fired power to be part of the solution into the future. That is what the development of these flagship programs delivers.

I commend the bill to the House. I think it is a really important initiative. It does not indicate a lack of commitment to education at all; I would be the first to say so if I thought it did, given my background. It is an absolutely important initiative and I commend the bill to the House.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also support the Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009. I want to raise some points of concern for consideration, not so much by government but by the community, with regard to a lost opportunity over the last 12 months which is now seeing a significant amount of money—$2.5 billion—set aside for the Education Investment Fund being redirected. I think it raises very real issues for Australia that the government should consider if they are serious and genuine with regard to the education revolution. The language I hear from this place, from peak organisations involved in the education sector and from many international voices in the education field is proving to be on many occasions at odds with and significantly different from the language that I hear in my home electorate from teachers, students and those who are, on a day-to-day basis, delivering on the front line of education. I am not giving an opinion one way or the other regarding which language is right, but there seems to be a significant disconnect between what is happening on the ground and how the government would like to see education delivered in Australia today. I therefore look at this shift of $2.5 billion as a lost opportunity in the education field.

Whether it is, once again, due to the lack of quality of submissions that have been put forward by the various education sectors throughout Australia in trying to tap into the mindset of government on the education revolution or whether there are other reasons is unbeknownst to me. But I do think it raises the point that here was an opportunity for good money to be spent doing good work in an area of much-needed government reform, the education field. We are now seeing that money being redirected away from an area in need of great support.

Much is being done in the education field. In fact, from the various voices on the ground in the Lyne electorate, it would seem there is a deal of difficulty keeping pace with the amount of money that is being offered by government and the opportunities that are presenting themselves. It is certainly the desire of government to have the education revolution; however, as we are seeing with this bill, opportunities are being missed by communities such as mine on the mid-North Coast.

So I hope this is not a dropping of the ball on the concept of an education revolution. I hope that what goes with this $2.5 billion redirection in the education field is instead some greater assistance to those on the ground to produce quality submissions, some greater assistance to the states and some pushing of the states to really consider the options now available in the education field as to how it is delivered. Hopefully, we will live in an era where the focus becomes more and more on student needs and student wants and on flexibility in delivering education in all its forms to students. Whilst I will be one accepting this shift, I am certainly disappointed that the shift is away from an area which is much needed within my region, so much so that in my first eight months of being the federal MP we have set up two mid-North Coast education and skills forums, one in Hastings and one in Manning Valley, to try to really up the ante on the importance of education and skills development within our region.

As I say repeatedly, our area has a comparatively low education level—and we do need to do a lot of work to improve that—and I do think it has direct correlations with our other comparative disadvantage figures. We have comparatively some of the lowest income levels throughout Australia. We have comparatively one of the highest unemployment rates throughout Australia—it is over the 10 per cent mark at the moment. We have comparatively some of the highest poverty levels in Australia—we are in the top 10 electorates on the poverty scale. These are all directly linked. The role that education can play is to offer that long-term structural meal ticket out of the poverty, unemployment and low-income traps. So I hope this is not a dropping of the ball by government on the value and importance of education to this country’s future.

As for the money that is going into the Clean Energy Initiative, I also hope that this is a genuine attempt by government to shape a future for this country that is as much as possible a clean and green energy one and to start a shift from a brown economy to a green one. I would be deeply distressed and concerned if it was about vested interests getting their claws into environmental policy, in particular the vested interests in the coal industry getting a green win through this redirection of dollars. I have raised this issue in the Main Committee in regard to $100 million in a recent appropriation bill being put into the carbon institute. I raised the question of the process of a significant amount of taxpayers’ money going into what is at this stage still an unproven science. I was interjected upon by someone saying we need to prove it and that is why we are spending the money. I think an approach to public policy by government where significant taxpayers’ dollars, 100 million of them, go into what is still an unproven science creates an extraordinarily poor precedent. I could come into government with a tray of cow manure and say: ‘I can turn this into gold. It is an unproven science at this stage but give me the money and I’ll prove it up.’ That is the type of logic behind what we are seeing and therefore I hope that this is not, once again, a failing, through poor public processes, in handling taxpayers’ dollars.

I hope that this concept of carbon capture and storage is not about vested interests but about the long-term future of this country. There are areas that deserve funding support for future activity. I mention Copenhagen in that context as I think there is some great potential as to that. If one thing comes out of that meeting at the end of the year it will be that a thing such as a tree in the ground prior to 1991 does have a value and that these arbitrary lines that have been drawn by developed nations—by which, for example, a tree only has value if it is planted post 1991, which I think that came out of the Bali agreements—are flawed logic and do nothing to protect biodiversity, and therefore carbon storage, on a global scale. I note that there are various projects like the REDD projects around and that, for example, Macquarie Bank is investing in one in Cambodia. It would be great to see some of this activity happening in Australia. If this investment by government facilitates greater attention for the role of the public tree—its worth in being in the ground as well as its worth in being out of the ground, and its role not only in carbon capture but also in protection and promotion of biodiversity—then we are getting good economic and environmental outcomes all at the same time.

It is the mandate of government, as part of the budget process, to see this redirection of funds. It is not for me to oppose that. I do think it flags some issues on both the education and the energy front. On the education front, I really hope, regardless of the global economic times or whatever else, that the language that we have heard and the commitment that we have seen in the first 18 months of this government continue. There is at times a need to drag the states and various providers by the ear to the table of genuine reform in the education sector. But it is important and good work—in many ways, the most important work that government can do for the future of this nation. So I hope this redirection away from the education field is not a dropping of the ball.

I also sincerely hope that this redirection of money is focused on sequestration or pasture improvements, or what I have talked about regarding the public tree and the role that it plays in carbon capture and storage, rather than, once again, some vested interests getting a green-brown win out of government. In no way am I saying that the coal industry does not have a role to play or that the coal industry is not of value in Australia. But, if we are serious about shifting the direction of our economy to meet the needs of the future, vested interests must be kept at bay in this process.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009. I think it is important that the context for this legislation and indeed the context for the budget that the Treasurer delivered last night be considered. We are experiencing the deepest global recession since the Great Depression and there are a few basic facts to be considered. The world economy will contract by 1.5 per cent. Other advanced economies are in deep recession. Australia is in recession. The economy will contract by 0.5 per cent in 2009-10. Unemployment is going to rise and the terms of trade are to fall significantly.

The reason I start with those basic facts is that it is not possible or appropriate to approach legislation like this without considering the economic context that gives rise to the legislation and to the framing of the budget. This budget is about choices and priorities. Far from this bill exemplifying something wrong, as the member for Goldstein attempted to say, about the approach that the government has taken to the framing of this budget, this bill exemplifies the very stark contrast between the opposition and the government in relation to dealing with the economic crisis, difficulties and challenges that the government and the country are confronting.

The Treasurer has delivered a budget that is designed to support jobs now and deliver the investments to increase Australia’s productive capacity for future prosperity. I listened with care to the speech that was given on this bill by the Liberal infrastructure spokesman, the member for Goldstein, today. What was striking about it was that not once did the member for Goldstein talk about jobs. Indeed, the member for Goldstein spent the 15 minutes that he spoke for talking about debt and attempting to create the impression of confusion, lack of coherence or recklessness—those were the words that he repeated over and over in his speech. We had to wait until the very end of the member for Goldstein’s speech to hear the economic context this budget consideration is about, not about debt or creating some spectre of confusion, but rather a response to a crisis. We had to wait until the last minute of the member for Goldstein’s speech to hear him use the word ‘crisis’, when he spoke of ‘enabling us to rebound out of this crisis’. The starting point for considering legislation such as this is the economic context—it is the fact that there is a global economic crisis. That is why I start my speech by referring to that economic crisis, because it is that which gives rise to the decisions that are reflected in this budget.

It seems that those opposite are having a great deal of difficulty in facing up to the economic challenges confronting the nation. Only last week we heard from the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, who, extraordinarily, said: ‘It is inconceivable that we could have such a deterioration of employment in such a short time.’ It is not inconceivable—because it is in fact happening. The response of those opposite would appear to be one of disbelief in the economic events that are unfolding across the world, which are having a far worse effect on other developed economies than has yet been experienced in Australia. We hope that, as a result of the decisions that are reflected in this budget, that will continue to be the case. But for those opposite the deterioration of employment, and apparently many other economic events, is inconceivable.

We are yet to hear even the slightest level of coherence in any response by those opposite to this budget or to the economic decisions that have been taken by this government in recent months. Indeed, one would have to say that the response of those opposite to the present economic crisis is eerily reminiscent of the response of conservative governments in the 1920s and 1930s, including—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear—absolutely correct. History repeating itself.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always nice to have agreement from the member for Kennedy. It is eerily reminiscent of the response of conservative governments in the 1920s and 1930s—conservative governments, including in this country, which wanted to cut taxes, reduce government spending and allow wages to fall to, as they would have put it, ‘clear the labour government’. It appears that the conservatives on the other side of this House want to leave it to the market to sort out this crisis. They want to leave it to the market to do its worst to working families. That is not the response of this government; the response of this government is a coherent one which recognises a role for government and for economic stimulus and, in particular, recognises that economic stimulus can and should be delivered through infrastructure spending.

This government understands the need to invest in infrastructure to improve our productive capacity. Again, it was striking, if not a little puzzling, to hear the member for Goldstein referring to ‘the lost 18 months when major infrastructure spending could have been committed to’. That is what the member for Goldstein said, apparently forgetting that after almost 12 years in government the record of the former government was one of near complete failure to invest in the infrastructure of this country at a time, indeed, of boom economic conditions.

It needs to be recognised by those opposite—and indeed many of the commentators are recognising this—that Australia’s fiscal response to this economic crisis has been heavily tilted in favour of investment spending. That has been confirmed by the OECD economic outlook interim report, released in March 2009, which said that the Australian fiscal response had been tilted in favour of investment spending to a much greater degree than in any other OECD economy. Under this budget, the government will deliver further infrastructure spending to protect jobs now and to build our economy for the future. It is worth mentioning a few examples of that. In relation to rail, $4.6 billion will be spent on more efficient metropolitan rail networks, which will deliver significant economic and social benefits through less road congestion, lower greenhouse gas emissions and faster travel times for commuters. It is worth mentioning the $3.4 billion which will be spent for the Network 1 road freight corridor linking Melbourne and Cairns and the $389 million for port infrastructure to improve access to global markets for our export industries. These projects and others like them at a national level will reduce economic inefficiencies caused by the failure of the former government to invest adequately in the infrastructure platforms that Australia needs to build our future prosperity.

I will now go to the local level, because there is no doubt of the worth in my electorate of the economic stimulus package and the infrastructure programs that have been announced and are being embarked on. There is no doubt in my electorate about this government’s commitment to education. I will start with the first announcements that were made about larger buildings in schools under the Building the Education Revolution program. Schools in my electorate have received almost $22 million in funding under round 1. It is worth bearing in mind that those opposite in this House—the Liberal Party and the National Party—are opposed to this program. They are opposed to the construction of new buildings in every single primary school across Australia. They are opposed to the construction of new buildings in primary schools in my electorate, but the students, parents and teachers—the entire community—of my electorate have no doubt about the worth of that infrastructure spending or about the commitment of this government to education.

I should mention also the local infrastructure spending that is being delivered in my electorate through local councils. On Monday last week we announced that the City of Greater Dandenong has been given $7.27 million for a complete reconstruction of the Noble Park Swim Centre. No-one in my community is in any doubt about the worth of that kind of infrastructure spending. This is a pool which was built some 50 years ago, and very little has been done to it since that time. It is very much an important centre for community activity. It is much loved and is well used and it will be rebuilt in its entirety as a result of infrastructure funding that has been made available by this Labor government.

Another of the councils in my electorate, the City of Kingston, has been given $2.97 million for the substantial improvement of an equally valuable existing facility: the Kingston Heath Soccer Complex. Through that improvement and rebuilding work, the usefulness of that facility to the community will increase.

There are other programs that are worth mentioning that demonstrate the commitment of this government to providing infrastructure funding. This infrastructure funding not only provides an immediate economic stimulus, which is an approach to the management of the economy that is accepted by governments of developed countries across the world, but also provides valuable infrastructure that will serve our country in the future.

In last night’s budget, it was announced that funding will be made available for the Altona-Laverton precinct, which is on the western side of Melbourne, and, connected to it in a functional sense, the Dandenong intermodal terminal, which is in my electorate in south-east Melbourne. That is a very important project. It demonstrates a commitment to planning, to foresight, to thinking for the long term about the urban infrastructure and the transport infrastructure of Melbourne. It looks at the long term in relation to possible projects such as the expansion and development of the port of Hastings, a project which recognises the growth constraints and limitations that are faced by the port of Melbourne. Part of that long-term thinking involves developing a Dandenong intermodal terminal, which is a project that is already being worked on by the state Department of Transport, partnering with the Commonwealth government and the private sector on the development of what will be a Melbourne freight terminal network. It is going to involve the enhancement of rail connectivity to the Somerton and Laverton-Altona intermodal terminals, the port of Melbourne and a new Melbourne freight terminal in the Dandenong area. This is not in any—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is exported through those areas?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am asked by the member for Kennedy what is exported through these areas. The port of Melbourne is recognised to be Australia’s largest port in terms of freight. It has reached its limits—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Importing, but not exporting.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exporting as well as importing. The Port of Hastings, of course, is very important for exporting as well. The manufacturing products that are exported from the very large manufacturing centres in my electorate, both in Dandenong South and Braeside—to answer the member for Kennedy’s question—use the port facilities in Melbourne. In the next decades when the Port of Hastings is expanded they will no doubt be able to use the facilities of the Port of Hastings as well. This is long-range planning. The government is showing its commitment to forming relationships with private enterprise and with state governments to ensure infrastructure is well planned and provided for.

There are other aspects of this budget which demonstrate the government’s commitment to providing economic stimulus and at the same time useful infrastructure for Australia. I could speak of the Clean Energy Initiative, which shows how the bill that is presently before the House, like the budget as a whole, is about priorities. The Labor government understands the need for Australia to shift to a low-carbon pollution economy, to help build an economy with green jobs for the future. We see in the Clean Energy Initiative a commitment of $2 billion for carbon capture and storage and clean coal. Carbon capture and storage demonstration projects will support the development of industrial scale use of carbon capture and storage technology in Australia. There should be no doubt about the commitment of this government to using infrastructure funding, economic stimulus funding, for this kind of purpose.

The budget also contains renewable energy projects, which includes $1.5 billion for up to four large-scale solar electricity generation projects and $465 million to establish Renewables Australia, which is an independent body which is to be set up to support leading-edge renewable technology resources. Those two initiatives will help to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply will come from renewable energy by 2020. Concentration on building those renewable sources is a key part of a response to climate change. Those are initiatives that build on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, legislation for which is now being considered; the $500 million Renewable Energy Fund to develop, commercialise and deploy renewable energy in Australia; $150 million for solar and clean energy resources; and more than $500 million for the Solar Cities, National Solar Schools and Green Precincts initiatives.

It would seem from the response of those opposite—as indeed it would seem from their response to the budget as a whole—that they are unable to consider the full economic context in which this bill and the budget measures as a whole have been framed. Those opposite, it seems, cannot lift their eyes beyond the government benches, where they would like to be. They cannot look beyond this House to the wider world—indeed, to beyond our shores—where there is a global economic crisis occurring that is affecting the Australian economy and will continue to affect the Australian economy. The government is engaging in prompt and decisive action on the effects of the global economic crisis on Australia. This bill is part of that response. I commend the bill to the House.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was very pleased to be able to listen to the speech of the previous speaker. He is an intelligent observer and an intelligent member of parliament, and I think he is very conscientious as well. But he has said that the Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009 will mean less time wasted in cars, that car-idling time will be saved, that there will be more of a free flow of information via the broadband, that there will be swimming pools, that there will be more space in our classrooms, that there will be better traffic flows in outer Melbourne and that there will be more port facilities for exported manufactured goods. I am rather curious to know what manufactured goods we export and what we would have in the past.

Clearly we cannot compete against cheap labour in a lot of the Asian countries. They still have very cheap labour. They have economies of scale that we can only dream of. They have captive home markets, through tariffs, of hundreds of millions of people. We have no captive home markets. We have no tariffs. But, even if we did, we only have 20 million people. So we have no economies of scale. They have government-provided capital. If they want to build a factory, the government provides them with the money to build it. We have got none of those things. We cannot possibly compete in manufacturing. To say that you want to expand a port for manufactured items is quite ridiculous.

To give you specifics on my contention, I can talk about the motor vehicle industry. Seventy-two per cent of the motor vehicles purchased in Australia were Australian made in 1984, before that ratbag Mr Keating introduced his free markets. It was not a ratbag idea but it was a ratbag idea when nobody else in the world was doing it. It was an incredibly disastrous move when nobody else in the world was doing it. But he could not be told, he would not listen to reason and he would not look at reality. So now we have only 19 per cent—I have not got the latest figures but two years ago only 19 per cent of the cars purchased in Australia were Australian made. Over the next 10 years, on present trends, it will only be five per cent. So I do not know why you are expanding the port down there. The Liberals told me when they were building the railway line through the centre of Australia that it was going to cut the cost of imports dramatically. I said, ‘Oh, it’s a subsidy for imports,’ and no-one at the table laughed. It was quite extraordinary to me. I thought it was quite a good joke. But nobody laughed. They took it quite seriously. Was the previous speaker erudite? Yes. Intelligent? Yes. Conscientious? Yes.

I turn to the issue of green jobs. You must understand that if you want solar power—and I am not saying it is not a desirable social or environmental aspiration—you will be less competitive and all of your industries will be running on an extra handicap. Not only do we not have the cheap labour, not only do we not have the economies of scale and not only do we not have government investment but now we are asking them to run on a handicap. Let me be very specific. I was the Minister for Mines and Energy in Queensland and I secured the national prize for science in 1985 or 1986. As the minister, I personally won the national prize for science for the solar energy that we put into the first standalone system in the world on Coconut Island. So I speak with some considerable authority in these areas. I had a $30 million decision to make, which in terms of today’s money would be probably the best part of $100 million, in electrifying the Torres Strait islands. In that situation it is cheaper, on an isolated island in the Torres Strait, to put in solar power. But $140 to $200 a megawatt is the cost of solar or wind power. The cost to grid system power is $40. If you want to render every single industry in this country non-competitive, then go down that pathway. We have people who stand up here and say, ‘Oh, we will have 20 per cent renewables; isn’t that wonderful and marvellous?’ Yes, it is, but you just put the job of every single person in this country at risk. This is because you have made their industry—whether it is manufacturing, mining or agriculture—less competitive. You have put another handicap on the runners here in our country. Just how much burden do you think they can carry before they fall over? Look at the car industry and look at the agricultural industries of Australia and you will see that the last government, and the government before it, placed such a burden upon our industries that they are now falling over.

It is no use the opposition coming in here and saying what remarkably wonderful economic performers they were. Yes, they balanced the government budget, and they deserve credit for that, but did they balance the country’s budget? No, it was the most unbalanced budget in Australian history. The current account deficit was running at levels that simply could not be comprehended by anyone that had followed Australian economic history for any period of time.

The previous speaker, the member for Isaacs, also commented upon that fact. It troubles me deeply that the opposition is constantly attacking the government for spending money and deficit budgeting. I do not know whether these people are economically illiterate, but let me just compare three countries: Canada, New Zealand and Australia—dummies. The colonial pock marks were flashing in neon lights in 1932. Hjalmar Schacht took the Germans on an expansionary policy, John Maynard Keynes took Great Britain on an expansionary policy and Shikata, the Japanese economist, took Japan on an expansionary monetary policy. America, belatedly, went on an expansionary policy. The only three countries on earth that did not—the three dummy countries—were Canada, New Zealand and Australia. You can go down to the library and get any of the books out on the Depression and look at the graphs for those three countries.

The last speaker said that they are advocating exactly the same policies that they advocated in 1932. That is correct. It is really scary. They have learned absolutely nothing. They plunged Australia into the worst possible depression on earth. There is not another country in the world where anyone is advocating deflationary or non-spending policies. If the opposition were concentrating their attack upon the government and this nation-building amendment, as a government you have really got a hide to call this ‘nation building’. Building bikeways and putting insulation vats into your roof is not nation building. It is anything but nation building.

I have just done a series of interviews with the media—I do not know how much media we get out of these things—and I have said that if you want to see whether this is a nation-building budget look no further than the allocation of money for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. That is a nation-building department, a producer department. It has been reduced from $3,000 million down to $2,000 million. On the other hand, an anti-nation-building department is the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, whose job it is to stop us from building anything in this nation. I can give you a thousand examples from my own backyard without drawing breath. The department that stops things from happening—and, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams, you would be an expert in this area—has had its budget increased from $4,500 million to $6,000 million. So we have a budget and an amendment in the House touted as nation building which increases the money for the anti-nation-building portfolios and decreases it for the nation-building portfolios. This is Nineteen Eighty-Four—the brave new world is with us. If ever there was a case of doublespeak, it has to be calling this ‘nation building’.

It behoves me to point out to the House what nation building is, because clearly the opposition have no understanding of it whatsoever. In 13 years they never did one single dollar of nation building. The government have been there now for half their term, 18 months, and they have clearly demonstrated in this budget and in this amendment before the House that they simply do not understand what nation building is. I will tell you what it is. Nation building is Ted Theodore, the most important man in Australian history, using government money to build all of the sugar mills in Australia. They were almost all built with government money. That is nation building. There are 40,000 Australians employed in those sugar mills today as a result of the great wisdom and perspicacity of that one man and his enlightened governments, the early Labor governments of the last century.

Ben Chifley—probably the greatest Prime Minister we have had in this country, excluding Jack McEwen, because he was there for only a brief period—built the Holden motor car factory with government money. It was not GMH money; it was government money. That was nation building. That factory is still there today employing 5,000 or 6,000 Australians. It is still making most of the cars produced in Australia.

The building of the Snowy Mountains hydro, which is producing cheap, clean energy for Australia—and will do so forever—was built by Ben Chifley and government money. Governments do not build power stations in Australia any more. If you ask commerce to build a power station, it will build a power station where it has customers. There were no customers for the Snowy. It was built in the hope that customers would come. Massive areas came under irrigation. The great agricultural juggernaut of Australia took off with the diversion of those waters providing secure water supply to all the farmers along the Murray River. The vast bulk of Australia’s agricultural production comes from that area and security of production was provided by water from the Snowy. It was all government money, but in the last 22 years we have not built a dam in Australia—not one single dam. Not one single factory of any significance has been built with government money in this country.

When I was a young man, just elected to parliament, the government of Queensland was in the process of building a giant power station that did not have a single customer. Not one single megawatt of that 1,400 megawatts of electricity had a customer. Queensland built a giant railway line to a little siding called Blackwater. There was not one single mine out there to service that railway line. That would be unthinkable today. People would expect private enterprise to build it. In that day and age, governments built them because they had confidence in our country. That was nation building. As a result of that giant power station and that giant railway line, Australia today has a coal industry and an aluminium industry.

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

And a steel industry.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very good contribution from the honourable member, who knows this well. The steel industry is there because the federal government of the day, under John Button—who was sacked really for what he did here, I might add—put some $500 million behind John Prescott and his initiatives in conjunction with the steel industry of Australia and made us the most competitive steel industry in the world. They took us from 70 tonne per man per year not to the world’s best of 240 but to 700 tonne per man per year. That is how efficient that industry was under the enlightened government. That is nation building but there is nothing in this budget. The member for Isaacs went through it all. There is solar and wind power—that is very nice, it will help the environment. I am not condemning it; I am just saying do not call it nation building. It is a lie to call that nation building. Do not say that green jobs are nation building. That is nation destruction. That will take jobs away. If you demand that we do it this way when the electricity costs are going to be $200 instead of $40 a megawatt, you will be closing industries all over Australia—if you proceed down that path, which the government seems determined to do.

And sure, it is nice to have bigger classrooms for our kids—although, when we are having fewer kids, I would wonder about the wisdom of going in that direction. It is nice to have swimming pools, it is nice to cut our traffic flow times in the cities—those are all nice things, but do not call them nation building. They are not nation building.

Let me tell you what nation building is. Nation building is just providing approval for us to build a dam where all the water is in Australia. Three-quarters of our water is in the north of the continent which, except for a tiny belt of sugar cane on the coast, produces virtually no agricultural production. We are trying to do all the agricultural production down south where there is no water. This is extraordinary. Just give us an approval for 120,000 hectares of irrigation and let us be nice to the greenies and the environment because it will be producing ethanol. As Mr Gore said in his book An inconvenient truth, his first solution is ethanol. He said it reduces CO2 by 29 per cent. Sugar cane does not reduce CO2 by 29 per cent; it reduces it by 194 per cent because we do not plough. We do not put the steel through the ground or we do it once every six years. Unlike growing corn where you have to put the steel through the ground four or five times a year, with sugar cane we put it through once every five or six years. So the benefit for the environment is ginormous here—ginormous!

Just as good, the bagasse—what is left after you take the sugar out and turn it into ethanol—is then burnt to produce power. We can produce 25 per cent of North Queensland’s power and about four per cent of Australia’s power, which would be clean renewable energy. Bagasse is like ethanol—you burn it, CO2 goes up, but the next year every hectare of sugar cane pulls 73 tonne of CO2 back down out of the atmosphere and into the ground. So instead of it going up and staying there, it is now going around in a circle and that is what we mean when we talk about renewables.

Just give us the approval because the project will pay for itself. It would be nice to give us some of the superannuation money and to give us 10 per cent ethanol in our petrol, instead of what the last government did which was to give us a tax on ethanol, and Australia is the only country in the world to tax ethanol. We can do this one ourselves. Just give us the approval.

Probably everyone in this chamber would be familiar with Joe Gutnick. He is a very prominent man in industry and commerce in Australia. He wants to build a phosphate mine with money from India. India has a huge population to feed. They must fertilise their fields every year. They do not particularly like the Americans; they do not buy fertiliser from the Americans. They most certainly will not buy it—for religious and conflict reasons—from the Moslem or Arabic countries. They buy most of it from Russia at the moment but they are going to buy it from Australia. They are going to buy it from their own mine, which Joe Gutnick is setting up here in Australia. That is where they will get their superphosphate from.

Even if dumb government does not force them to do some upgrading in Australia—even if that does not happen—we will still probably get $3,000 million a year out of this project. If it is done the way that I would like to see it done, with a third of that being forced to be processed here in Australia, we will get $5,000 million a year. But that mine cannot go ahead without increasing rail capacity through an upgrading of the line from Mount Isa back to Townsville, and it cannot be done without north-west Queensland—the biggest mineral province on earth, producing $15,000 million a year—getting electricity capacity.

What we say is: ‘Give us that transmission line and we will give you an extra $5,000 million a year in income for the Australian economy. Give us that rail capacity’—and both these things will cost no more than $200 million or $300 million—’and we will give you $5,000 million a year in income for the Australian economy. That will give you back in taxation revenue $1,500 million a year, at the very least.’ That is the sort of logic used by the great men of Australian history—the men whose pictures we have up on our walls, like Theodore, Ben Chifley, Jack McEwen and Bjelke-Petersen. Those were great men who created the wealth that we enjoy here in Australia today. (Time expired)

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

It is always a difficult challenge to follow the member for Kennedy. There is much in what he said that I share concern about, and I am pleased that the member for Kennedy, like the member for Throsby, has in mind other major important national infrastructure projects that we hope one day will see the light of day. But at this point of time we are debating the commitments that the government made in terms of giving priority to the major national projects that have been recommended by an independent statutory authority.

I think the member for Isaacs was right about this debate on this bill: we have to consider the economic context in which these commitments are being made. And shame on the opposition for their huge emphasis on the issue of debt rather than understanding that the nation needs major productive investment in infrastructure to address precisely the impact of the recession on our nation. We are not immune from it. And, very importantly for regions like mine that are very reliant on the trade exposed sectors—particularly in coal and steel—those impacts are being very severely felt. This government’s main objective, as has been stated repeatedly, is to do whatever we can to protect the jobs of today while building the productive capacity of the nation’s economy into the future—a task which was beyond the wit of the Howard government for the 12 years that it was in office.

Very importantly, the government has made a substantial investment as part of the long and proud history of Labor governments investing in important nation-building projects. This bill gives effect to the commitment that was announced by the Treasurer last night. I certainly beg to differ with the member for Kennedy; of course you have to describe it as nation building, because the $22 billion has been allocated to build the transport, communications, energy, education and health infrastructure that this nation desperately needs to ensure a healthy and vibrant economy into the future.

It was because the former Howard government was asleep at the wheel—and did nothing in a fundamentally important way to tackle the constraints on economic growth that were so obvious in all the bottlenecks around the nation—that we moved very quickly, through the infrastructure minister, to think about planning, financing and building vital economic infrastructure for our nation. I think it was one of the greatest achievements in the early days of our government to introduce the legislation to create the independent statutory authority, Infrastructure Australia. That legislation was presented to this parliament in our first 100 days. And I think it is a great achievement that in a very short period of historic time—12 months or so—Infrastructure Australia has undertaken the first ever economic audit of the nation’s key economic infrastructure.

Last night we saw the end result of an assessment process that looked at more than 1,000 possible projects. The fact that 1,000 projects were submitted to Infrastructure Australia for consideration surely highlights the huge deficit in investment in infrastructure that we had under the former government. I am delighted that through our Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009 we will give effect to very important infrastructure projects. There will be $4.6 billion invested in improving metropolitan rail networks in six major cities. I sat with the now Leader of the Opposition on the environment standing committee of the House of Representatives, and we produced a very important report called Sustainable Cities. We did not have the courtesy of a response from the Howard government to the recommendations in that report but I think everyone on that committee understood the importance of investment in public rail networks. And, finally, $4.6 billion will see six major cities being able to address the very important issue of rail networks. A further $3.4 billion will be invested in Australia’s busiest freight route—the links between Melbourne and Cairns—and key roads feeding into that national highway also get a substantial boost in the announced priorities of yesterday evening.

Three hundred and eighty-nine million dollars is allocated to lifting the export capacity in two of our ports—one in Western Australia and one in the Northern Territory. I was particularly interested because I think this is a critical element of nation building, and I was interested to the extent that my colleague the member for Cunningham has taken the lead in getting community support and an analysis of what we believe will be a very important rail freight link for the Illawarra region, known as the Maldon-Dombarton rail freight link. Of course, in the 12 years of the Howard government there was no mention of what we might do to expand the export capacity of the port at Port Kembla, nor any consideration of the important road and rail linkages that would need to be provided to ensure a bright future for that region and a meaningful economic investment. It was only this government, in the lead-up to the election, that committed itself to a prefeasibility study, which has been worked on. Like the member for Kennedy, we cannot have every project funded immediately, but my understanding is that Infrastructure Australia will continue to consider projects of national significance, and it is certainly our intention to do what we can to provide the arguments in support of projects that we believe will be of lasting benefit to the Illawarra region.

The member for Isaacs indicated in his contribution that we have to acknowledge that this is the third tranche of the government’s economic stimulus strategy, and my region has benefited enormously from the investments we have made to date. In the first round of the community infrastructure funds, the three local councils received $3.3 million for a range of infrastructure projects. In my electorate there were nine projects funded. On the boundaries of the Wollongong City Council and in the electorate of Throsby, there are important upgrades for Dapto plaza and for sporting facilities, with commitments to upgrade lighting at Reed Park and Darcy Wentworth Park. The Shellharbour local government area will receive almost $900 000, again for a very important community project, the Myimbarr Community Park. Seven projects in the Kiama local government area will be funded.

Last week we were very lucky to have the Parliamentary Secretary for Government Service Delivery come to announce even more funding—another $5.2 million for our region. Shellharbour City Council is receiving $2.3 million for a much overdue upgrade of the streetscape and the business centre at Albion Park, and the Wollongong City Council will get $2.9 million for the Blue Mile project. Although it is a little bit out of my area, let me say that even though the member for Gilmore, along with her colleagues, voted against our economic stimulus package I was pleased that she came to the announcement of $4 million for Shoalhaven City Council for a youth centre in Ulladulla dedicated to the memory of two young men from that area who tragically perished in the Bali bombings.

So in the order of $8.5 million has been provided and invested in local community infrastructure that will not only improve the amenity for the people that we represent but, very importantly, provide a stimulus for sustaining and wherever possible creating employment opportunities. On top of that, Illawarra has been designated as one of seven priority regions because of our high rates of unemployment, and already both the member for Cunningham and I have been meeting with a range of groups to progress further funding to address the unemployment issue. Some of those projects will no doubt be infrastructure projects that will be available under the announced jobs fund. So that is going to be very, very welcome.

On top of that, within this bill, there is the Education Investment Fund. I want to particularly mention the enormous contribution that the commitment to Building the Education Revolution is having in my electorate, as the member for Isaacs pointed out for his electorate too. Last night we were delighted to hear that the University of Wollongong was to receive $43.8 million for a state-of-the-art building for our renowned Institute for Innovative Materials in Wollongong. That comes on top of an earlier commitment of $38 million to build for this nation the first-ever tertiary institute known as the SMART Infrastructure Facility, which I think is going to be of enormous benefit, attracting academics under the one roof to focus on methodologies and the science of infrastructure development and funding. So one university alone in our region will receive $82 million in the space of a few months. I know from the vice-chancellor that last night’s announcement will immediately lead to about 200 jobs in the construction phase and probably 100 to 150 sustainable jobs, apart from attracting the brightest minds to our region with the prospect of commercialisation of the wonderful innovations and technologies that are being developed at the university.

For my local TAFE, the Shellharbour TAFE—good on you, folks—there is $6½ million. You are a great institute and we are going to develop a top rate children’s services facility at that campus. That is going to be of great benefit to school leavers in the Shellharbour area, where we suffer high rates of youth unemployment, because, as people would be aware, if you are undertaking a diploma course in children’s services the government will waive the state training fee. I could not be more happy about that.

This comes on top of almost $50 million that we have announced in the last couple of weeks for 23 schools—10 in my electorate, 13 in Cunningham; 23 schools—in those two electorates. That was for round 1, for 20 per cent of primary schools under the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program. I would imagine that somewhere in the order of $250 million all up will flow through rounds 2 and 3. So people need to realise that this investment in our university, in the Shellharbour TAFE last night and in our primary schools will, conservatively, inject $340 million into education infrastructure in the region of Illawarra that we represent. That is a huge investment. It is going to have a huge stimulus for local jobs, for local tradespeople, for local small businesses, for local suppliers, as well as leaving our schools in a state where they are better equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century. I want to place on record my acknowledgement of the enormous importance of that kind of stimulus through education that we are seeing in our region. It is interesting, the papers only think about infrastructure in terms of roads and railways. And yet if I had said last night $340 million for a local road, it would have been front-page news. While $340 million into education infrastructure probably does not register to the same extent, we should understand that investment in infrastructure under this government goes way beyond just the traditional notions of road and rail.

Finally, I want to also indicate that I am very pleased that, in the context of this bill, we are going to substantially increase our investment in the clean energy and renewable sector. As members would be aware, I represent a region that is heavily reliant on coal and steel, but do not underestimate the intelligence of people in those industries about the need for this nation to move to a carbon constrained future. Because of our manufacturing expertise in the Illawarra, we are going to be very well-placed as we move in that direction—that is, providing the know-how through our university and our technical skills and hopefully grow new orders for our steelworks, which will go to the heart of moving the economy into a more carbon constrained future and, with that, seizing the enormous opportunities that will come from the growth of the renewable energy sector. You cannot fail to recognise the enormous potential that is going to be created by the world moving in that direction, and we want to maximise the capacity for sustainable green jobs in our economy.

The Renewables Australia body will be at arm’s length from government and will be particularly focused on matters relating to the development, commercialisation and deployment of renewable energies. Let me just say, our university is doing wonderful things in solar technology, so they will be pleased to hear this announcement. It will give them some impetus to continue on in that work. We will invest in four new commercial scale solar flagship projects; the contribution that solar can make, among a raft of renewable technologies, is incredibly important. Very importantly for a region like Illawarra and other regions heavily reliant on coal, the commitment to the technological breakthrough in carbon capture and storage is very important. It is important to our nation’s economic wellbeing, it is important to our export trade and it is important for sustaining regional communities and regional employment. So I am very confident that we can protect the jobs of today, that we can begin to transform our industries so that they meet the challenges of a more carbon constrained future and that we can generate new green jobs into the future. The commitment to a 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020 is just the kind of impetus that sector needs.

In conclusion, full marks to the Treasurer, to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, to the Minister for Education and to the Deputy Prime Minister. Well done in showing the community that despite the worst downturn we have seen in 75 years, this government will not be deterred from investing in the infrastructure vital to Australia’s long-term economic prosperity. The former government was asleep at the wheel; this government is determined to ensure that the productive investment that underpins our prosperity and underpins jobs has become centre stage of this budget and our commitment into the future. I hope that, despite the negative commentary we heard this morning from the member for Goldstein, the coalition is sensible enough to understand that this package is all about supporting jobs at a time when that support is needed most, as well as boosting productivity in the longer term. I am enormously proud that our second budget builds on Labor’s proud tradition and proud history of nation building. I commend the bill to the House.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will not oppose this bill, but it will certainly open people’s eyes to what the bill is actually about. Those listening to the broadcast or reading Hansard could be forgiven for wondering just what the bill is supposed to be achieving. For the purposes of assisting the House, I remind people that this is not about many of the things that many people have talked about; this is actually a raid on the Education Investment Fund, taking money out of that fund and putting it into the clean energy initiative special account. That is essentially what this bill is about. The rest of the discussion and book-ending of that very simple proposition—using flowery rhetoric and bold ambition and post-it note politics that we have come to recognise from the Labor Party—have not disguised the fact that that is what the bill is about.

The bill is about taking that money, which is money that, just a year ago, we were told in this parliament was going to achieve all of the things that now it obviously does not need to achieve because there is some other way of going about it. It is quite a remarkable transformation in the rhetoric of the Labor Party, and it underlines the fact that this is a government with a plan for its own political interests but no plan for the country, no strategy for our nation, its economic recovery and its future prosperity, only a strategy to save its grubby political soul. That is all we see, and this is another example of it.

Let me illustrate that point. This bill takes funds out of the education infrastructure fund. The $2.5 billion that was credited to that fund under the 2007-08 budget surplus—a surplus built on Howard government economic management, a surplus that has given scope for the Rudd government to do many things that they would never have been able to do had they been at the helm of our economy—and was to have been transferred by 30 June this year is now going not to the education investment fund but to a new fund. The original and announcement that were made 12 months ago and then backed up by successive pronouncements by the Rudd government ministers were designed to recognise, and I quote from the Treasurer, ‘A strongly held conviction of the Rudd government that education is the engine room of a more productive, more modern economy.’ There is example after example of Rudd government ministers and the Prime Minister himself going on about just how crucial, just how fundamental, just how conviction-driven they were about the education investment fund being the engine room for a more productive, more modern economy.

What we are seeing in this bill is money coming out of the fund that was supposed to be the engine room for a more productive, more modern economy, the main vehicle for turning around the economic fortunes of the country, or so the Rudd government said less than a year ago. That money has now been pinched and it is going into something else. Why would that be? Could it be that, maybe, the rhetoric was a tad overblown, that the plan was not clear? The powerful words, ‘The education investment fund would be the horsepower in the engine room for a more productive, more modern economy,’ are what we were told. The Treasurer said that in May last year, successive ministers went on about it throughout the last quarter of 2008, and you even saw some of those themes recurring over and over again in the political line of the Labor Party.

Obviously that is not the case anymore because the money is going, it is getting pinched and not going to that purpose. It is no longer the engine room of a more productive, more modern economy. That is not what the education investment fund is about, as the money going to it actually presents a different picture. There is now another purpose. You have heard Labor members in this place talk about a whole range of other things that that money would be spent on to achieve that purpose.

What are we to take from that? Are we to take it that there is not great coherence in the Rudd government economic strategy? I think we can. How can something be so profoundly true, accurate and insightful—and shouted from the rooftops of this parliament and from any stump that Rudd government ministers could get on—a year ago and yet not be now? I think it highlights the fact that the Rudd government do not have a coherent economic strategy. Their tactics are to keep announcing new things so that there is never any analysis, never any reflection, never any assessment of just whether the words actually mean anything and whether the actions follow up this soaring rhetoric. This is further evidence that Labor can talk a good game but cannot manage the economy.

If we needed any more stark evidence of that, last night’s budget gives Australia a very, very open-eyed look at just what kind of government we have at the moment. Last night’s budget takes Australia from being alert and anxious about the Rudd government’s economic competence and their ability to manage our nation’s finances to being genuinely and justifiably alarmed—so frightened that the Treasurer tried on an old television ‘time to look away’ warning so that viewers who may have found some of the images disturbing or some of what is really going on in the budget profoundly distressing had time, a chance, an opportunity to look the other way. Treasurer Swan’s ‘look away’ try-on was to not even mention the actual financial position and operating outcome for the nation’s budget in a budget speech—isn’t that the point? Don’t you present budgets to inform stakeholders of the financial position and performance at the end of the year, of what the bottom line outcome is? Apparently, in every other effort or enterprise on the face of the planet you do that, but not in the Rudd Labor government—you talk about everything else around the financial position and operating outcome except the consequences of the Rudd government’s tax and spend binge.

For those people who listened to the budget speech last night from Treasurer Swan and were wondering what the net outcome was, let me provide some insights. The budget reveals the high price, as our shadow Treasurer said, that all Australians will pay for the reckless spending by the Rudd Labor government over the past 18 months—those fundamental economic indicators of performance, the statement of our financial position, the consequences of our actions as a nation, overseen by the Rudd government. We will see one million unemployed by 2010-11, a record $58 billion deficit and a record net debt of at least $188 billion by 2012-13. They are the key metrics about economic management and budget performance, but you would not have heard them last night as Treasurer Swan did his ‘look away’ routine.

Part of that ‘look away’ routine is what this bill aims to do here, with the government shifting money around after having earned and pursued the political benefits of the Education Innovation Fund, after having made all the rhetorical statements and put the post-it notes up saying: ‘Isn’t the Rudd government clever? We are going to invest in education infrastructure because’—as they said over and over again—’that’s the engine room of a more productive, more modern economy.’ They made that claim, they created that impression with the public and then they went and shifted the money.

This is not like your pea-and-cup routine where the trickster tries to make it seem like there is no pea under any cup. This is the Rudd government’s pea-and-cup routine where the trickster, the Treasurer, makes it seem like there is a pea under every cup when really there is not. This is what we are seeing through this budget and this is what we are seeing through this bill, shifting money out of something supposedly aimed at achieving a ‘more productive, more modern economy’—and that is a quote from the Treasurer—and into something else that now is obviously more fashionable, more funky, more spunky. That is what we are seeing from this government.

There are funds going into the newly created special account for the Clean Energy Initiative, although it is not clear at this stage how that will work out. There is so little information available and the information that is available, as the shadow minister pointed out, suggests a rather interesting governance arrangement, where education experts will have some oversight role on the Clean Energy Initiative. I trust that that was an error in the budget papers and that it will be remedied at some point.

The opposition is not opposing this bill but opening everybody’s eyes to what is going on, to the need to recognise that we are in a difficult situation, largely created by the Rudd government, that will be with us for some time to come. I tried to alert people to this in early February. Remember that debate we had all night, when we were looking at spending $42 billion and we had 48 hours to discuss it—an amount of money that was greater than the entire budget of the state of Victoria? I was fortunate to speak a little after 1 am in the morning. I tried to caution people about the risks of sleepwalking into a poorly designed, irresponsible and unsustainable package dreamt up by a panicked government, where the only certain outcome of those actions was waking up to the nightmare of decades of excessive debt and deficit. Sadly, this is what we are facing. At a time when we should be working to ensure our nation is making wise choices, the right choices, in the face of the current global economic challenges, we are getting this post-it-note politics from the ALP, where they talk about initiatives and plans and get press statements out there but do not have the sound public policy to see the implementation completed and the outcomes that they talk about delivered for the country.

What we are seeing is the Howard government legacy of surpluses and savings being grabbed in both hands by the Labor Party. Despite their opposition to every budget restoration and fiscal strengthening action that was pursued by the coalition, the Rudd Labor government are grabbing the fruits of sound economic management, delivered by the Howard government, with both hands and swallowing them whole as part of Labor’s reckless spending spree. What we are seeing is the Howard government gift of surplus and savings transformed into the same old story: a Labor legacy of debt and deficit. That is what we are seeing here.

To a great extent, it was highlighted in some very insightful writings today by Lenore Taylor. She was quite perceptive in identifying that the so-called centrepiece of the Rudd budget—a big-ticket spend on infrastructure—is actually funding squirrelled away from the budget surplus created by the Howard government policy settings and repackaged. As she described it, it has had a makeover—it is like last year’s dress with new buttons and bows on it. She described how some of this nation-building infrastructure spending is not the amount that has been talked about by Labor members of parliament and Rudd government ministers, because some of it goes well beyond the four years of forward estimates. I highlighted in my earlier remarks how the assertion, the conviction, that the education innovation fund would be the engine room of a more productive and modern economy did not last 12 months because that fund is being raided.

You wonder how deep these convictions are when we are talking about budget measures that are way outside the forward estimates of the budget. Some of them will not be brought to bear for some elections to come. You wonder how many of these things will actually be delivered when a key hallmark of the Rudd government’s in its first budget was that it did not implement what was in the budget. The government will not actually be held accountable because it does not do those things; it quickly moves on to announce something new. As the media falls over itself to stay current and relevant and report the news of the day, there is no analysis of the announcements of yesterday or, if you aggregate all these media stunts and post-it-note-politicking ideas, an assessment of whether they actually amount to anything. We are still not sure.

Lenore Taylor identified where that money had come from: more than half of it was a direct result of Howard government actions, many of which were opposed by Labor in opposition, and the rest of it came from a budget surplus on Howard government budget settings. Those Howard government budget settings are interesting. My colleague and neighbour, the member for Isaacs, sought to assure the parliament that the Rudd government is pursuing a coherent economic strategy, despite the complete lack of evidence to back that up. He is a very learned lawyer and I would never profess to have his sharp legal mind, but a simple assertion does not make it a proven point.

So coherent is that strategy that we have been hearing about how the investment in infrastructure to increase capacity is what this budget is about and yet, when we look into it, we see a different story. So coherent is the Rudd government’s economic strategy that we were told we needed to tackle the inflation genie and that it was running amok, and you saw the Prime Minister and the Treasurer shirtfront the Reserve Bank and tell them how they had to put up interest rates to mug our economy—so risky was the inflation genie escaping the bottle. Mug the economy they did, and now we are wearing the consequences of that reckless politically inspired action.

The Deputy PM sought to pat herself on the back in international fora about the strength of our economy and our banking system and how reforms put in place were delivering that. Those reforms were implemented by the Howard government, only to be confronted by a juvenile and shrill attack on neoliberalism as if this were an unregulated jungle, when everyone I talk to points out that there is quite a degree of regulation in Australia and the United States—those terrible neoliberal economies that have been overseen by governments of all political persuasions! So coherent is the strategy that the Treasurer recognised the strength of the financial position he had inherited from the Howard government and how that gave him a very strong foundation—in one of his more measured moments, he was ready to acknowledge that point—and now, apparently, all the woes that he faces are a consequence of those same policy settings that he endorsed just a few months earlier. We talked about the education innovation fund. I have talked about the lack of coherence and how conviction-driven the government was on it being the engine room of a more productive and more modern economy, yet we are now seeing that very fund raided to apply money in other areas.

The member for Throsby made, I suppose, a gutsy effort to defend the Rudd government’s infrastructure credentials. She talked about transport, and rattled off a range of projects. I actually thought that she was talking about the next bill that will be debated, which was introduced just this morning, the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009. Amongst a range of things that bill actually seeks to re-badge projects done under the previous government in order to give them a new tag so that the current government can claim them. You can understand that to an extent because AusLink has been downgraded. Those road and rail investments under the coalition would have been $31 billion over five years, but under Labor it will be $26 billion over six years. So you can see why there is a need for re-badging to try to maintain this fiction that, in transport, Labor is somehow doing something quite remarkable when in fact it is actually performing at a far lesser standard than the previous government.

We heard about communications and Labor’s credentials there. They put up a Mugabe-esque tender process that, understandably, ended in shambles and hardship. Where the telecommunications industries and organisations of the world cannot do it we will have Ruddcom. There is no proposition about how to finance that, and in fact the only direct financial contribution is less than the amount that was put aside by the Howard government to make sure that the digital divide did not punish rural and regional areas. That communications fund was raided as well. For a bold plan where the economic case would be—you would have room left on an envelope even if you wrote it in crayon. So detailed and rigorous is the analytical process that, going out and selling that to people to invest in, if a private sector person did it they would probably be locked up. That is what we have got as a communications vision.

I want to turn now to energy infrastructure. I am very interested and keen to learn more about what will happen with the Clean Energy Initiative. It sounds as though it has the right flavour, but, again, the execution will be everything. What really must have amazed people is how the discussion then shifted to Infrastructure Australia, to how this independent statutory authority pored over these 1,000, I think, proposals to spend money on infrastructure and how central and crucial their role is, yet in the communications infrastructure spend they are frozen out. They are not even allowed to participate. On energy infrastructure we have no oversight indicated in the material available from Infrastructure Australia, and even though it is ‘energy’ infrastructure we have some suggestion that people from the education sector will have an oversight. Then we have in the budget announcements, which are said to be ticked off, endorsed and advocated by Infrastructure Australia, no mention of the ones that Infrastructure Australia recommended; they did not appear. There is no clarity about that. There is no transparency. So much for a coherent strategy! All we know from this government is that this nation is on a pathway to debt and deficit that will cruel us and our prospects into the future for not only this generation but some generations to come. We need to be focused on getting a proper strategy in place. (Time expired)

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

I rise to follow the shadow minister. The issues he related to over the period of his contribution were expansive, and I congratulate him for covering so many areas that we would all like to cover. The Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009 is required to give effect to the infrastructure spending in the government’s budget announced last evening. It is intended to redirect the $2.5 billion that was set aside for the EIF to the Clean Energy Initiative, announced in the budget. I am told, and we are led to believe, that will encourage further research and innovation in clean energy generation and low-emission technologies.

I wonder exactly just how relevant and reflective that will be in delivering job creation projects across Australia. When I say, ‘delivering job creation projects across Australia’, I primarily would like to speak about the opportunities lost in this budget to deliver job creation across rural and regional Australia. Whilst other speakers have covered a whole host of issues, and I have listened very carefully to them, I too would like to cover issues I see as being important and which may have been overlooked. If they were overlooked, as per the infrastructure needs of regional areas, then we can pretty much guarantee that those regional areas will be overlooked even when these funds are directed away from one fund and into another clean energy fund. I know there are many projects out there involving clean energy initiatives, and I am hopeful that they will be looked at on merit rather than in relation to the electoral value they might have in a particular member’s seat at the time.

I have had concerns generally about infrastructure requirements in regional Australia since the announcement of the $22 billion so-called Building Infrastructure Fund. The previous government had the same fund, and in fact had more money in their fund than the current government has in its fund. When the Rudd government took this fund forward and looked at the projects, they developed a bureaucracy to determine how the investments put up for funding would create jobs and provide sustainability and economic growth—all of those good things that you require in order to kick-start the country and to assist in getting us through some of the challenges we have.

I looked at the Infrastructure Australia list of projects on the website. I wanted to see where projects in my electorate sat and whether or not there was a clear understanding of the jobs that would have been created in the region if any the projects had received support. Wagga Wagga is the largest inland city in New South Wales and it is a major hub in my electorate. Many of the services are in that one area, and there is a hub-and-spoke effect out to the regional communities that it supports and assists. A lot of employment opportunities emanate out of those areas and they support infrastructure right across the electorate.

I have some very proactive councils. There is an intercouncil agreement between Albury City Council, Griffith City Council and Wagga Wagga City Council. They have come together not to compete with each other but to be formidable regional promoters and to position themselves clearly as a region that is relevant to the nation’s future. When I looked at the Wagga Wagga project and the Griffith City Council project—and they came out of the three regional cities combination—I saw the Bomen rail and road intermodal hub. It would be an excellent project. It was costed out. The application went to Infrastructure Australia. Wagga Wagga City Council costed out their involvement in that project. It would be a $30 million project. Wagga Wagga City Council were looking at putting in almost $4 million. That rail-road intermodal hub would most have created significant numbers of jobs and ensured that we got product to port in the most effective way possible. Then you could have started to build distribution centres right in rural and regional Australia.

There was also the Ross Road project in Griffith. The last government said it would provide $10 million for the Ross Road development project. Yes, it was an election promise and, no, we were not elected. But, of course, I will still pursue that project because it would be valuable and deserves funding. I looked at what that project would do in the heart of the MIA, where there is the most extensive horticulture production area. There are major industries—De Bortoli and Cassella wineries—that have significant exports. There is SunRice, which up until the drought years was the largest exporter from the port of Melbourne. You have to have essential infrastructure to create jobs, solve production issues and make us efficient and effective at what we do. These projects went to Infrastructure Australia and missed out, as many other thousands of projects across Australia did. I recognise that. But I am concerned about the electorate that I represent, and I know the disappointment that many people would have felt at this budget. Knowing that it was a tough budget, we all understood that not everybody could get funded.

I was most disappointed about this. I looked at two rail projects. One would have got B-doubles out of the main street. There are 150 B-double vehicle movements per day in the CBD. That was a project proposed for Griffith. It stands to reason that in such a high productive area we needed to solve this massive safety problem and efficiency problem. There would be efficiencies gained with the Bomen rail-road intermodal hub. It would be situated directly on the Sydney to Melbourne rail line. There is already an industrial park. It is focused on environmentally sustainable industry. It has biofuels. It has best-practice industrial development. It has Vinidex, which is a magnificent, environmentally friendly company that turns waste into active and productive reusable products. It is a tremendous, large-scale industrial park that is primarily focused on environmentally friendly outcomes. It desperately needs that rail corridor and intermodal status.

I looked at what was funded in the budget and at the regional rail express. I congratulate those on the Werribee to Sunshine, Victoria, rail line project. Obviously it was something that they wanted. But when I looked at what the project involved—that is, extension of platforms, other capital works to enable eight-car trains to operate on the Geelong and Bacchus Marsh lines, a new station, duplication of existing tracks et cetera—I wondered what the correlation in jobs, outcome, production et cetera on such a massive spend in that area would be. As I said, I am not complaining about that, because everyone deserves their own funding, but most of this funding has gone to urban and metropolitan projects. I found that really disappointing in the rail infrastructure program.

Then I looked at the Wagga Wagga Airport expansion. We have a significant airport that is looking at expanding. We would like to include a business centre at the Wagga Wagga Airport and build a centre of national aviation significance out there. That would all be to capture jobs. It would back onto private investment. It would back onto the investment by Regional Express Airlines whose heart is in the country, whose home is in Wagga Wagga and who has ports elsewhere across Australia. They have invested a huge amount of their own dollars to have a pilot training centre at the airport. When you have people coming in with private investment looking to build the centre, to build aviation credibility, to solve the shortage of pilots across Australia et cetera and you see that private money stacked up time and time again, you would think that the government would want to develop and assist those communities in rural and regional Australia to be relevant in future Australian growth and prosperity.

I was sitting here in the House last night looking at the Brisbane inner city rail feasibility study and the works in Perth in Western Australia and I wondered: when do rural and regional people ever get recognised? When does our relevance ever come to the fore? I am concerned about the way in which the money is being allocated. I was concerned to read an article by Adele Ferguson in the Australian today. She alludes to the fact that, after going through thousands of projects, Infrastructure Australia, which is headed by Rod Eddington, had identified a list of 100 projects. That article in the Australian today states:

To that end, IA identified a list of 100 projects in December with a view to creating a short list of priority projects in time for the budget. The deal was that the Government would take IA’s advice seriously, rather than do what politicians usually do—spend the money on projects that run through certain electorates—

and everyone is guilty of that. It continues:

The global financial crisis was always going to put the squeeze on the Government’s nation-building plan. That’s why it is surprising that the Government has ignored some of IA’s priority projects to do its own thing.

She goes on to say that the $488 million Bruce Highway project in Queensland and the $339 million port project in Western Australia are two projects that failed IA’s short list. They did appear on IA’s other list, but they certainly did not make the short list. Exactly what is taking place when these projects are being determined? These properly costed proposals from rural and regional areas that demonstrate the job creation capacity, the future nation-building capacity, how it will serve the nation and how it will position regional Australia to be relevant in the nation’s future just got passed over. This is terribly concerning.

I am confused by having this bill come up today that clearly focuses on just moving one fund to another to focus on this clean energy initiative. I do wonder—and I am very sceptical—how much of the funding in this bill will filter out to rural and regional Australia, will actually deliver benefits to those people who are also entitled to share in the nation-building programs. I am concerned and really disappointed to say that I can hardly see in this budget any sharing with rural and regional areas, not just in my electorate but in many other electorates as well. That will not stop us as members from trying to get our share of recognition. We will always keep coming back for more. We are always going to ask for more—I am certainly always going to ask for more. I can tell that many members on the other side of the House will also be back to ask for funding for the good projects in their electorates that could have been funded this time but did not get funded. I am sure they will come back for more for rural and regional areas as well.

Long hail and let us rail for rural and regional Australia. We are relevant in the scheme of things. We need to have the support of every agency, department and decision maker possible. We should not have to constantly overcome hurdles; we should have projects that can assist us to be relevant in this nation’s future building.

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

I congratulate the member for Riverina on her contribution, a lot of which I identify with and I am sure many other country members would as well. I know exactly the point that she was making about the political decision-making process and how from time to time it does not take an objective path, it takes a political path. I am well aware of that on a personal level, as the previous government often used a political agenda within my seat. I congratulate the member for Riverina on the way in which she represents her people.

Madam Deputy Speaker Saffin, I am pleased to see that you are in the chair because, if I could move outside the bounds of the Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009 for a few seconds, I would like to congratulate you on the role that you recently played in relation to obtaining funding for a very worthy group called Youth Insearch. If we are talking about nation building, youth are particularly important in relation to any nation that is developed long term. As you are well aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Youth Insearch program works with troubled youth. As a magistrate friend of mine said one day: ‘These aren’t the captains of the schools that we are dealing with. These are the young people that I’ll be locking up next time.’ This particular program, out of all the programs that I have had any association with in my time in politics, is one that is incredibly effective. So I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your role in this. I know many members of parliament were arguing the cause of Youth Insearch and I would particular like to thank the Prime Minister for his role in this as well. Our young people are critically important in any nation that we attempt to build.

The particular piece of legislation we are debating is about nation building. I was not here in the chamber to support him but I listened with interest to the member for Kennedy when he made his contribution, and a very good contribution I thought it was too. He went to the definition of what nation building is essentially about. Whilst it is very rare that I would disagree with the member for Kennedy—partly because of safety reasons!—there are a couple of things on which I would take issue with my Independent colleague. I am not so much arguing against what he was saying—I thought the points he was making were very valid; I am just not sure about the conclusion he arrived at in relation to the shifting of these funds from one bucket to another, from the education area into the clean energy area. I am not quite sure that the two things he was talking about, the need to nation build and his definition of nation building, actually rule out the potential for the transfer of this money to become a very important part of the future of this nation—and I am referring to clean energy.

The member for Kennedy made the valid point that government invested in the major sugar mills in Queensland many years ago, and I think he said that something like 40,000 people were employed because of that government investment. In his mind, that was nation building. He made the point—and a very valid one—that the Snowy Mountains Scheme was built as part of a nation-building scheme even though there were no major users of electricity in that particular area. He also made the point: ‘Build it and they will come.’ The energy they were producing was clean energy and still is clean energy and will go on forever if the maintenance is correctly done and if government does not sell it out to private enterprise, as the former government attempted to do. I would hope that this government would not go down that road, particularly when the issue was about maintenance of turbines rather than about any commercial advantage that could be obtained further down the track.

In relation to the sugar mills, the member for Kennedy mentioned, as I said, that the government built those sugar mills and now we have a viable sugar industry. Part of the reason we have a viable sugar industry in Australia now is because of clean energy. The Brazilians, the Argentineans and others in different parts of the world have moved into biofuels. So some of the competitor nations that were producing sugar at a much cheaper cost than we could produce it, and putting enormous pressure on the very important industry that the member for Kennedy spoke about, have shifted into the energy business from the sugar business, because there was a surplus in the world. That has removed some of the supply pressure on the global market and, as a consequence, our sugar industry is much more viable than it was even a few short years ago. I know there are some indirect allegations in relation to that, but there is no doubt in my mind that the development of the biofuels industry, a clean industry, has had a positive impact on the viability of other industries within this country.

The point I would make to the member for Kennedy, and to others, is that the development of clean energy will almost by definition have to be located in country areas. This could be a way of creating that nation building by creating new businesses in country areas. They may or may not be based on agriculture—in some cases they would be; in other cases they would not be—but most of them would have to be in country locations, so in some senses we may well be able to value add to some of the clean energy business alternatives that are out there. Obviously, solar energy is one for which governments in this country have done very little. Even though this is a start, I think we have to encourage the start and hope that this government is serious about promoting research and development on solar energy. Previous governments have not been; on this government, the jury is out. Wind and geothermal are mentioned in the budget, and this particular amendment bill refers to the transfer of money into those areas.

Second-generation biofuels are also mentioned in the budget documents. For those who do not know, that is the production of biofuels from cellulose, not from grain based biofuels, which some people in this House agree with and others do not. The second-generation research is into the enzymes that are used to break down the material in the fermentation process so that you end up with a clean, renewable fuel from plant waste. I would encourage the government to look very closely at the technology that is out there, particularly given our dependence on carbon based fuels.

Here again we have a mixed message, something the government is developing a format for, in a sense. For example, we originally had a message encouraging people to shift to solar energy in their homes, and then it became means tested. There have been a number of issues like that. I notice in the budget documents that, on the one hand—and that is what this bill is about—the government is encouraging research into second-generation biofuels because they are clean, they are renewable and they could create some future in terms of nation building, and not only the building of factories et cetera. Then, on the other hand, the budget papers mention that the taxation arrangements for fuels, particularly biofuels, will run out in 2011. So people doing this sort of research—and maybe Minister Albanese could comment on this in his reply—will be wondering: which is the message that we should be picking up? Should we be picking up on where this money is going to be invested, with the encouragement of research and the promotion of biofuels? In 2011, are biofuels going to be taxed the same as carbon based or fossil fuels? That is the question that really needs to be answered. Or is this a bit like the solar energy promise that only became a promise with the addition of means testing: ‘We’re encouraging it, but we don’t want much too much of it if it starts to cost us too much money’?

I think the government has to start to address these signals, because these mixed messages are out there, and if there are mixed messages in terms of environmental issues people do not move. We have seen it before. People got solar energy established and then, to their detriment, when they wanted to put excess power back into the grid, they were paid less than what they had to pay for the original power, so the incentive is not there. I am very much for promoting some of these alternative energies that the bill talks about, but the government has got to straighten out its message and work out what it is in fact encouraging. There are a number of clean energy initiatives that this bill will allow to be funded—and, as I said, I will be supporting this bill.

A number of speakers have spoken about what they believe nation building is about. With the minister in the House, I would like to congratulate him on a recent announcement within our greater region—and one last night, in terms of the $1.5 billion announcement of the F3 connection through to the New England Highway. That is not directly in my electorate, but the New England Highway crosses seven electorates, and that connection will be a benefit to all of them as well as a benefit to the nation. Cutting about half an hour off a trip from Armidale to Sydney will obviously have some impact on transport as well. So, in a very real sense, that is what nation building is about, in my view. Then there is the $1.2 billion package that the same minister, Minister Albanese, announced some time back. I think about $580 million went into that Hunter northern corridor: in terms of rail freight, the Ardglen tunnel got $280 million, I think, and there was another $280 million for associated loops and bypasses et cetera to concentrate the export effort on the Newcastle Port, and obviously a third coal loader and a whole range of other things happening there as well. That is something that was long overdue.

I know there are many members in this building who support the inland rail concept, as I do. You need to look at where the freight in the eastern part of Australia is. The Ernst & Young inquiry into the inland rail arrangements that took place a few years ago, under the former government, identified the potential market for freight. In Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland there have been 220 million tonnes of freight. It also identified that 110 million tonnes, or 50 per cent of the total freight load, was between Newcastle and Moree. That is why I believe that this development of the Ardglen tunnel—the Liverpool range, as they call it—is a very important addition in terms of nation building in my state and indeed on the eastern seaboard.

There are some collision points, in my view, when we are talking about a clean environment for the future, clean energy and clean food—and all of those debates are currently happening in this building. We have got the carbon debate, the emissions trading debate, the food security debate and the global emissions debate. We have got the economic debate and the carbon capture debate, which is trying to maintain an interest in fossil fuels while being able to sequester the carbon. We have got the methane and nitrous oxide debate, which impacts on agriculture. And we have got various announcements in terms of the research money going into those areas. But a particular collision point that is occurring in my electorate at the moment—and I mentioned it to the minister for resources yesterday by way of a question at question time—is the proposal to develop a coalmine on the Liverpool Plains, which is underpinned by magnificent and massive water resources as well as being part of some of the best land in the world, an alluvial floodplain.

The issues here blur the debate particularly if you start, as the government is, putting a carbon footprint over food or food production, and that may or may not become part of the emissions trading arrangements as time goes on. I would urge the infrastructure minister to really look at this particular issue on the Liverpool Plains. There again, we cannot keep running these mixed arguments and end up at the same destination. If we are serious about clean food and clean water we should not be allowing quite dangerous mining practices in an area where there is potential to do massive damage to the hydraulic nature of those groundwater systems and their interrelated connectivity issues with the river water system when—in the budget and in this very funding arrangement—we see time and time again reference to saving the Murray-Darling system.

The issue here is really about the different portfolios. I was pleased with the answer that the Minister for Resources gave to me yesterday. He actually crossed the boundary of defending his own portfolio area and moved—and I do not want to verbal him—to virtually saying that this was an issue that he and I and the Minister for the Environment should sit down and talk about, and I think that could well be productive.

The point I am making is that if we are serious about all of these issues we have got to start sending a clear signal so that the constituency can pick it up. I am encouraged by the words in the budget documents in terms of where this money that we are absconding with today is going to go. There are a lot of good words on solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels et cetera, and clean coal technology which just seem to be added into things these days. Whether it is feasible for the long term or not, let us have a look at it. But don’t encourage some and discourage others. Don’t let the interplay of big business and short-term politics interfere with the long-term agenda that these words in the budget documents actually put in place.

I think that there is no better example of that than this collision point between clean food and clean energy on the Liverpool Plains. If we are serious about going to second-generation biofuels, and the government in its own documents says it is, some of those areas not only have the capacity to produce clean, environmentally friendly food but also the capacity to produce clean environmentally friendly fuel. But if you endanger those things through the practice of mining on these very sensitive lands you remove both options and you have a situation which could develop into a short-term economic gain for the nation, and eventually a long-term loss for the nation and, potentially, a long-term loss for the globe.

I would urge the minister to take some of those comments on board. I personally thank him for his attendance in Tamworth last week. The people of Tamworth enjoyed his company and they particularly enjoyed his announcement of $5 million for a new indoor sports centre, which will provide a very important platform for the most important ingredient of our nation, our young people.

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

in reply—I thank those members who have contributed to this debate, particularly those who were constructive in their comments. Certainly I wish to refer specifically to the comments of the member for New England, who pointed out that infrastructure is about nation-building infrastructure but it can also be about community based infrastructure.

The people whom he represents in New England will benefit from both as a result of the Rudd government’s budget last night, which confirmed the $800 million for the Community Infrastructure Program including $5 million for the Tamworth Indoor Sports Centre that I announced with him in Tamworth on Saturday afternoon. I thank him for his warm reception in the fine regional city of Tamworth and I particularly want to acknowledge the fact that the young people from the basketball club were out there in big numbers.

When we talk about infrastructure we are talking about taking action today supporting jobs in order to create infrastructure for tomorrow, whether it be a community infrastructure facility such as that in Tamworth or whether it be the $1.5 billion that we allocated last night into the Hunter Expressway, which will be added to by $200 million from the Rees Labor government in New South Wales to total a $1.7 billion commitment over four years to build the Hunter Expressway. This is an expressway which has been identified as a priority project by Infrastructure Australia. It will add to the productive capacity of the nation and will benefit freight, and passengers in motor vehicles who live along the route of the New England Freeway. It is a project that will add to this government’s vision—and was one of the centrepieces of our budget last night—of the N1 from Melbourne right up to Cairns, with feeders such as the New England Highway, the Hunter Expressway and the Ipswich Motorway, making sure that whether it is moving people or freight we do so in a way which is as efficient as possible and, importantly, as safe as possible in order to maximise the capacity of the economy to grow. That is the government’s vision of nation-building infrastructure.

The budget we announced last night included a $22 billion investment in nation-building infrastructure. This investment will provide that economic stimulus in the short term which is needed but also the long-term benefits for the economy as it recovers into the future. The Nation-building Funds Amendment Bill 2009 is required to give effect to the infrastructure spending announced in last night’s budget. As well as investment in transport infrastructure, ports, road and rail, hospitals and higher education, the government will also invest $4.5 billion in a new Clean Energy Initiative, which will encourage further research and innovation in clean energy technologies that will play an important role in Australia’s transition to a low-pollution economy. The Clean Energy Initiative will help accelerate the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage, and it will assist solar energy and other forms of renewable energy.

To provide funding for these priorities, the bill repeals the crediting of $2.5 billion from the 2007-08 budget surplus to the Education Investment Fund that was to occur by 30 June 2009. This amount will be made available for the new Clean Energy Initiative. There will still be more than $6.5 billion in the Education Investment Fund for education and research infrastructure, of which $4.1 billion has been committed in last night’s budget and in the nation-building package announced by the Prime Minister on 12 December 2008. The balance of $2.4 billion plus investment earnings, estimated to be around $630 million over the forward estimates, will be available for future education and research projects.

Last night’s budget was a budget of which those on this side of the House are extremely proud. We are proud because it builds on the history which our great party has of nation building. It is a stark contrast with the failure of those opposite to invest in nation-building infrastructure over 12 long years. The fact is that we are investing more money over six years than those opposite invested over 12 long years. We are investing more in rail in 12 months than they invested in 12 years. Just think about that statistic—more in 12 months than they invested in 12 long years. It is only this side of the House that have ever been committed to nation-building infrastructure. Last night’s budget builds on our record and this bill is a part of ensuring that the proposals put forward in last night’s budget can be turned into action. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.