Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my duty to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the Senate amendments conveyed by this message raise an important point of constitutional principle.

The amendments propose to amend the definition of 'Northern Australia' in the bill. Such change in the definition would change the destination of the appropriation in clause 41 of the bill.

There is doubt that the Senate may proceed in such circumstances by way of amendment because of the requirements of section 53 of the Constitution. Among other things, this section prohibits the Senate from amending a bill so as to increase 'any proposed charge or burden on the people'.

The matter for consideration is not so much one of the privileges and rights between the two houses but of the observance of the requirements of the Constitution concerning the appropriation of revenue.

I am advised that the view has been taken, where expenditure is appropriated in these circumstances, section 56 of the Constitution requires that the proposed appropriation be recommended by a message from the Governor-General. I understand that such a message has been obtained in this case.

If the House wishes to entertain the proposal reflected in the Senate’s proposed amendments, the House may choose to proceed by alternative means.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That:

(1) the House endorses the statement of the Speaker in relation to the constitutional questions raised by Message No. 487 transmitted by the Senate in relation to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Bill 2016; and

(2) the message be considered immediately.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will be supporting this proposition moved by the minister, but we are somewhat bemused that this government that has just begun this term, because this is week 2, allegedly, of this current sitting of parliament, is frankly so incompetent that we have circumstances whereby we have this occurrence. It may well have occurred early on in my 20 years in this place, but certainly since I have held the position of Leader of the House or the Manager of Opposition Business it has not occurred. This is quite unusual. It has occurred because the government failed to understand what was appropriate when it put together the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Bill.

Due to the very strong advocacy from my colleague the member for Perth, the government has recognised that it made an error in its original drafting of the bill on the definition of 'Northern Australia'. The substantial amendments that the government has foreshadowed will have to be moved in this House first and then carried in the Senate second. That is what should occur. Mr Speaker, I know that you and I would agree on the primacy of the House of Representatives under the Constitution. It now needs to be done through this rather convoluted procedural action moved by the government.

We certainly endorse your statement, Mr Speaker, on the constitutional issues. You are quite right, of course. But we find it extraordinary that the government had to have the Australian Constitution drawn to its attention in what is week 2 of a parliament that was convened to consider two pieces of legislation, one of which it dropped. That says it all about why this government should be put out of its misery on 2 July. It simply has not been competent to act like a government. It continues to act like an opposition in exile on the government benches.

This extraordinary proposition that is before the parliament today, which as I said the Labor Party will facilitate, is a change to legislation which has been advocated primarily by the member for Perth but supported by the Australian Labor Party to try and get this right. Of course, we facilitated the passage of the northern Australia infrastructure legislation through the parliament after it was prorogued. We put it through very quickly to try and help this fledgling new cabinet minister over here, because it is in our nature to be constructive, which is why we will support this proposition. But we say that Australia does not have long to wait before it has a government that understands the way the parliament works and is actually able to govern competently. We will have that opportunity. This bill only provides for loans for northern Australia, but it is legislation which we support, but we support it being conducted in a way that is obviously consistent with the Australian Constitution. My colleague the member for Perth will speak about the substance of these changes when the minister moves his amendments subsequent to the procedural resolutions that are currently before the House.

Question agreed to.

Message from the Administrator recommending appropriation for the bill and proposed amendments announced.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate's purported amendments be disagreed to and Government amendments Nos (1) to (3) made in place thereof.

We have made these amendments after strong advocacy from the member for Durack, on our side of the fence. She has pointed out that the original definition of 'northern Australia' was first outlined by Infrastructure Australia in their Northern Australia audit. After her strong advocacy and after consideration and consultation, we have expanded the definition to include all of Exmouth and the Carnarvon region as well as the local government shires of Wiluna and Meekatharra.

The point here is that we have had a vision for northern Australia. The fledgling shadow minister for infrastructure, who would only wish to get back on the treasury bench—and I am afraid he will have to wait long after 2 July for that—did not have that vision. His party did not have the vision to develop Australia's north when they were in government for six years. Alternatively, we have recognised that that part of our country—above the Tropic of Capricorn and including some of the areas below, representing some 40 per cent of Australia's landmass but only five per cent of our population—needs critical economic infrastructure to reach its economic potential. That economic infrastructure may be transport infrastructure: roads, rail, airports and ports. It may be energy infrastructure, it may be communications infrastructure or it may be water infrastructure.

Why is water infrastructure important? Because 60 per cent of Australia's rainfall falls above the Tropic of Capricorn, but we save only two per cent of it. So we need to create the dams that can help the irrigation of the North and help the 17 million hectares of arable land we have there to become the food bowl of Asia. What is so exciting about the northern part of our country is that it is on the doorstep of these burgeoning middle classes in Asia. Indeed, it is closer from Darwin to Singapore than it is from Darwin to Melbourne. It is closer from Townsville to Port Moresby than it is from Townsville to Brisbane. We have these key centres in Australia's north, whether it is part of Western Australia, whether it is part of Queensland or whether it is in the Northern Territory, which are on the doorstep of these burgeoning middle classes in Asia.

We can capitalise on that, whether that is in tourism—over one million Chinese came to our country for the first time just last year, and there were nearly 150 direct flights each and every week between China and Australia during peak season—or whether it is in agriculture. The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which the Leader of the Opposition was so sceptical of—indeed, he was against it before he did another backflip—has turbocharged our exports to China. In fact, the export of bottled wine, for example, is up more than 65 per cent since that agreement came in. Exports of lobster and crayfish are up more than 270 per cent. These are numbers that you will not hear from the opposition because they have been denying the economic prosperity of the exporters in our agriculture sector.

We have world-class universities in our north and we are setting up a CRC to get closer cooperation between industry and academia. We have put more money into Indigenous rangers and to strengthen biosecurity. We have more money—$100 million—for beef roads and we have held important consultation forums across Australia's north. There is road infrastructure, water infrastructure and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, a $5 billion concessional loan program which will see government partner with business as well as with the state and territory governments. This is great news for Australia's north and it is the result of a northern Australia white paper which was long overdue in this country and which it took a coalition government to implement. I thank the architects of that report, the member for Leichhardt and Senator Ian Macdonald, because they have helped put in place this infrastructure we need. This infrastructure is going to be put in place by the NAIF.

This is an important time for our country. It is an important time for the development of our north. I pay tribute to Andrew Robb, who also did an excellent amount of work. I am pleased that the definition has now been expanded, because so much more of Western Australia will now benefit along with Queensland and the Northern Territory. I commend these amendments to the House.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are very keen to support these amendments, which will give some justice to Western Australia. It was quite bizarre that the approach to Western Australia was so different to that of Queensland or the Northern Territory. In the Northern Territory a decision had been made that the North would be taken from the 26th parallel. Although in the north-west of Western Australia the North had always been taken as being from the 26th parallel, the definition in the legislation took it as the Tropic of Capricorn with some exceptions. In Queensland the definition was from the Tropic of Capricorn, but with around 65 per cent of the area between the Tropic of Capricorn and the 26th parallel added back in. In Western Australia, it went in the other direction and actually took areas that were north of the Tropic of Capricorn out—areas like Coral Bay, the Cape Range National Park and all the little communities up there. Major horticultural areas like Carnarvon were also excised. The contrast with Queensland could not be greater.

It is true that representations had been made to the member for Durack but, unfortunately, the bill kept on its course with these discriminatory executions and exceptions for Western Australia. The matter was brought to my attention—I mentioned this the other day—when I was in China at a Northern Australia investment conference. I was approached by Tony Beard of the Gascoyne Development Commission. I then started looking in detail at the legislation and found that it was worse than people had originally thought. It had the consequence, no doubt unintended, of excluding some of the areas north of the Tropic of Capricorn. I then paid an emergency visit to Carnarvon and met with the Gascoyne Development Commission, the Pilbara Development Commission—which was supporting the Gascoyne commission on this—and Karl Brandenburg and the Shire of Carnarvon, along with the growers from that region and with Vince Catania, the local National Party MP. I put together some amendments, got support from our side of the equation, spoke with Warren Entsch and contacted the member for Durack's office as well; I am sure they backed the need for change.

The real point is that Western Australia needs to be constantly vigilant. I have no doubt that this bizarre definition somehow emerged from the bureaucracy, but how can a bill treat Western Australia in such a discriminatory way? We need to be constantly vigilant in Western Australia to ensure that our needs are properly attended to and that the metrics of legislation and policy and programs are not forged in such a way to cause our state unequal treatment. This is a plea to all Western Australian members to be vigilant and to prosecute our case harder. It is not a case of being unreasonable; we simply want fair and equal treatment with the Northern Territory and Queensland.

I do thank all those colleagues—particularly Glenn Sterle and Warren Entsch, who has chaired the Northern Australia committee in an excellent way and has encouraged the development of a bipartisan approach. I would like to add that the Labor Party has always been quite a strong proponent of development in the north. (Extension of time granted.) Just yesterday we saw the celebration of the life of the now departed Rex Patterson and the role he played to ensure Darwin was rebuilt as a modern city after the cyclone. I could nominate many other instances, but the one I would bring to the attention of the House is the very substantial investment in social infrastructure by the last Labor government which allowed the second stage of the Ord River development to go ahead.

I have previously mentioned the developments in the Kimberley, where Chinese investors are bringing a great deal of energy, creativity and contact with supply lines into horticulture in the Kimberley. I do thank the minister for seeing the good sense and agreeing to the proposed amendments. With these we have the ability to take horticulture forward and to set up connections within Asia to bring in investors from our north in a collaborative partnership to open up new markets for us. They will bring some creativity to allow, for example, a vertically integrated beef business that promotes Kimberley and Pilbara beef as specialist brands, rather than as mere commodities. We need to bring horticulture and agriculture together to achieve this and we need to have serious investment by the CRC into those areas. I really want to thank again all those people in Carnarvon who brought this to my attention and who got behind the campaign. It has been a very good outcome for everyone.

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

We view with considerable apprehension the proposal being brought forward today. The Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia has the reputation—and, I think, a well-earned reputation—for being open minded as well as a man of action, and he has been given a very short time frame in which to get something done. But both the ALP and the LNP have no understanding that we do not want to hear what they are 'going to do'. When I was in a government that won every single election for, I think, 35 years, we did not go to an election saying what we were going to do, because that is an advertisement against you The immediate question, then, that leaps to people's minds—and I said this many times in the Queensland cabinet—is: 'Why haven't you done it? You've been there for three years, and you've been there for 12 of the last 15 years; why haven't you done it? You've had all this time and now you tell us you're going to do it next time.' Well, 'going to do it' is not good enough. We will be having a great picnic, please God, at the expense of the majors and saying just what I am saying here. I am not in the business of playing political games. I am in the business of reality.

The reality is that we were promised $500 million for water and we have not got one cent for one single project. Of the projects that the minister for water—and I am not knocking him, because he is one of the better guys over there—named for North Queensland, one is extremely detrimental to economic development and the other is the Ord, stages 2 and 3. I will not say anything against the last speaker, the member for Perth, or the positive remarks that she was making, but as a person at a distance I say the Ord River stages 2 and 3 will easily be the biggest farming operation in Australia, and it will be foreign owned. The biggest farming operation in Australia at the moment is Tasman Farms; it is foreign owned. The third biggest operation in Australia is Cubbie Station; it is foreign owned. What the hell do we own? If you want to know where is the money is, $23 billion of superannuation money is shipped overseas and put into the roulette wheel of the American stock market. That is a wonderful use of our money! If people knew where their superannuation was going, they would lie awake at night in a cold sweat.

Before the age of 'marketisation', as the wonderful Billy Wentworth, one of my great heroes, used to call it—before free markets, market fundamentalism, globalisation, whatever words you want to use; we all know it means economic rationalisation—occurred, 60 per cent of all superannuation moneys went into government securities, and, heavens, isn't that where it should go? If I put money away for my retirement, if the government is taking it off me and off my employer, shouldn't I get some sort of guarantee that it is going to be there when I retire? If you think that investment in the Australian stock market or, even worse, the American stock market is a good, safe employment of my moneys, then I do not think you know very much about economic history, recent or past. It is appalling to think that this money is at huge risk.

So, in the past, that money went into government securities and bonds. From the government securities, it built all of the rail system into the coal industry of Queensland, which up to three years ago carried the nation's economy on its back. Queensland coal was far and away the biggest export item, something like four times bigger than its nearest rival, with the exception of iron ore. How was the coal industry created? Where did it come from? Did it just drop out of the air? In 1960, I think it was, we were a coal-importing nation. How did we suddenly become a coal-exporting nation? (Extension of time granted)How did the coal industry, which carried this nation on its back for 50 years, happen? It happened because the money was there in the superannuation funds, and that money, with a government guarantee, was spent on building rail lines into the coalfields. We build 6,000 kilometres of railway line, at a cost of about $1 million a kilometre—and that is in dollars at the time, not dollars now, so maybe you would treble that to almost $20 million.

The great Sir Leo Hielscher—of the four biggest bridges in Australia, two of them are named after Leo Hielscher—was offered the head position at the Reserve Bank three times and at the World Bank once. He was maybe the most frugal, penny-pinching treasurer in Australian history. If you were a minister in those days, you would not even think about getting an increase in your outlays, I can assure you! But he said there was never any danger. We knew the markets were there. We knew the economics of producing the coal. All we needed was a railway line and a port, and we could get the coal out.

For the last 25 years, I have not known of a developmental project financed by the government anywhere in Australia. When the Liberals announced a $12,000 billion infrastructure package to boost the Australian economy, it was roads and rail in the city. As our little party says all the time: what do you get for a $5,000 million tunnel in Brisbane? And the ALP was skiting about this. They said for a $3½ million rail across the river, in Brisbane, you would get a 15-minute saving for the commuter, so he gets home 15 minutes early to watch the television. A few thousand people in Brisbane get home 15 minutes early to watch the television!

The LNP proposed, last year, that they were going to build a $5,000 million tunnel—which would make Brisbane the most tunnelled city in the world. To quote the great economist John Quiggin: 'If there is one thing that characterises recent Queensland governments, it is tunnel vision.' It is a beautiful phrase. Queensland would have 21 kilometres of tunnels and Sydney would only have 14 kilometres of tunnels.

If that $5,000 million were given to Minister Frydenberg and used to build a railway line into the Galilee, I would give you $4,000 million a year in revenue for the Australian people. I would give you 20,000 jobs, for the next hundred years, if it were used on the Hells Gate Dam and the Upper Herbert River proposals, which are almost identical but just further north. If that $5,000 million were used for those three projects—the two water projects have an income of $4,000 million a year. That is 40,000 jobs forever. The wonderful initiatives taken by our miners, along the Northern Territory border, for getting our phosphate out with a canal would give you $4,000 million a year and 40,000 jobs for the next hundred years. It would be similar with the silicon.

If you give us $7,000 million over a period—I think we can do it with guaranteed loans but maybe we can't—Minister—through the chair—if we can be provided with $5,000 million I most certainly can give you the canal and the phosphate for $4,000 million. I most certainly can give you the Upper Herbert River proposals and Hells Gate proposals and the Galilee coal— (Time expired)