Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week we learned that the member for Warringah, the former Prime Minister, perhaps the shadow Prime Minister in many respects, intends to spend his summer writing a follow-up to his book Battlelines. This book, Battlelines, shaped the government's approach to infrastructure policy across much of the last parliament, to the great cost of my constituents and indeed of Australians generally. It was in this book that the former Prime Minister set out his views on the role of the Commonwealth in financing public transport options, where he said that Australians were kings in their cars and had no truck with public transport options.

This reflexive ideological opposition to public transport hamstrung Australia's capacity to boost productivity in our major cities and impacted negatively, as well, on the lives of too many Australians, including my constituents, over the course of the time that he was Prime Minister. We saw very significant planned public transport projects such as the Melbourne Metro, the Brisbane Cross River Rail and projects in Perth and Adelaide as well delayed or frustrated by a blinkered ideological frustration that overcame cost-benefit analysis, excellent planning and demonstrated need.

So, over this summer, I hope that the member for Warringah, who has shown himself to be a driver of the policy agenda of this government just as much as that of the government he formerly led, reconsiders his approach to the role of the Commonwealth in investing in public transport in Battlelines II. I hope that when I and other members look to this new source of political wisdom, this new font of political wisdom, from the member for Warringah we will be able to quote from it approvingly rather than in despair when it comes to infrastructure.

On that note, I join this important debate in response to the infrastructure statement. Before I turn to make some remarks on the statement, on the contributions to it by both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, on some matters that particularly affect me in respect of the state of Victoria—where I am from—and on urban policy, I think it is appropriate that I acknowledge the quality of contributions of all members in the previous debate. I am particularly grateful for the thoughtful and considered contributions of government members in particular in paying tribute to Jo Cox in this place in a very appropriate manner.

Turning to the matter directly before the chamber, there are some matters of real concern that arise from a document that, on its face, is actually a worthy document and a useful tool to guide decision-making in the future. It is unfortunate, of course, that it took us so long to get this statement before us and before government; it is at least nine months too late. When one looks at the contribution of the Prime Minister in bringing this matter forward and talking about the Infrastructure Australia statement in the House last Thursday, we see—not for the first time, but I hope for the last time, although I am not all that hopeful—the gap between the soaring rhetoric of this Prime Minister and reality. He spoke of the plan as being the first independent assessment of Australia's long-term infrastructure needs. Making this boast is really churlish in the extreme, given his failure to acknowledge the work and leadership of the member for Grayndler in the course of the last Labor government in setting out a way forward to separate the political cycle—short term, unfortunately—from the long-term infrastructure cycle. In speaking to this, he failed to recognise the fundamental nation-building, nation-shaping role of an infrastructure agenda and to pay credit to the former Labor government and, in particular, to the member for Grayndler as a minister and as a shadow minister in setting out a framework—which I think is bipartisan in intent if not always in effect—around how a national government should support effective investments in infrastructure going forward.

Indeed, as I touched on earlier in reference to the former Prime Minister, the references in the Prime Minister's contribution to public transport sit rather uncomfortably with the very poor record of this government in supporting much-needed public transport investments in our major cities—in particular, in Melbourne. The shameful treatment of the Melbourne Metro Rail link means it has been delayed, and that delay will have very significant consequences on the liveability of Melbourne and on its productivity. That is a particular issue for Melbourne, where jobs growth has been so concentrated in and around the CBD, meaning the investments in heavy rail in particular are absolutely critical to maximising productivity growth and to reducing the burden on commuters as they go about their working lives and seek to balance their working lives with the other obligations that we all understand in this place. That is critical. We understand not only how long Australians on average work but the stresses and strains—health-wise, in particular—for people in the outer suburbs trying to balance long commutes with issues around child care and school pick-up responsibilities. The impact of this goes beyond the direct engagement with our children and our family lives. I know, as I think we all do in this place—those of us who represent suburban communities—the cost to too many people of having to opt out of activities outside of family life and work life. There are those wider costs that can only be addressed by having a real focus on infrastructure; it is not just productivity.

I will turn briefly to the circumstances in my home state of Victoria. It is of great concern to me that, while a good story is seemingly told in the response to the 78-odd recommendations of this report, there is a deeper and darker truth that impacts on Victorians. Victoria contains 25 per cent of Australia's population but has been receiving only around nine per cent of Commonwealth infrastructure spending under this government. Those statistics are stark on their face, but when one considers that Melbourne is growing so rapidly—it is the fastest-growing city in the developed world—the gap between investment and need becomes even more apparent.

Melbourne needs appropriate infrastructure investment support from a national government if it is to continue to be the world's most liveable city, as I sincerely hope it will, and if it is to continue to drive the sort of productivity growth Australia needs to maintain our living standards. We are of course the most urbanised nation in the world and these sorts of investments are critical to maintaining our living standards.

I have a couple of reflections on the city's policy more generally as well. There are some very useful recommendations in the report about a national urban policy agenda; however, I think a fair summation of the government's response is it is too little too late. The first act of the government led by the member for Warringah was to abolish the Major Cities Unit, robbing us of understanding and data about how our cities are functioning. That is a loss that has not yet been remedied, even as we seek to understand how important data is in driving effective infrastructure solutions.

When the current Prime Minister became Prime Minister he spoke of two points of distinction from the member for Warringah. The first was innovation. We have heard a little bit about the importance of innovation in Australian public policy making in recent days, but suffice it to say that the bright light of innovation has not in recent months burnt quite as bright as it did about 12 months ago. We have also heard a lot about cities—the other limb of the distinction.

The Prime Minister produced in the lead-up to the last election the Smart Cities policy, a wonderful glossy brochure lacking substance—perhaps a useful metaphor for the government at large, one might say. We heard a lot about city deals in the election as well in Townsville, Launceston and Western Sydney. Unfortunately, here the rhetoric has not met the reality. The city deal descriptor has not been an innovative policy response to meeting the infrastructure challenges of these communities, merely it has been a wraparound for targeted investments directed at seat marginality rather than economic, sustainability or livability concerns.

We on this side of the House do support real city deals and we call on the government to work harder to look at this concept to bring it to reality. We think there is room for bipartisanship when it comes to cities, and there are recommendations here that we can work with the government on to deliver more liveable, sustainable and productive cities and secure the living standards of Australians well into the future.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you ever want to understand why people deride politics and hate the spin and fabricated news that comes out of this place, look at this infrastructure document. It is exhibit A in the case against politicians. This infrastructure document is more a political puff piece than a genuine response to the types of things that people, particularly those in the region that I represent in Western Sydney, want to see when it comes to infrastructure. There is no better proof than the way the reported Western Sydney City Deal was announced recently by the Prime Minister. This was the big game changer. If something is being talked up beyond what it is, there will be the phrase 'game changer' and you can pretty much spot the fake.

The Western Sydney City Deal that the Prime Minister and Premier Mike Baird revealed is supposed to lead to the generation of 100,000 jobs for Sydney's west. Here are some of the things it is supposed to achieve. It is intended to provide a model for future arrangements to deliver more jobs, transport and services. Guess what? It is centred around one thing and one thing only—Badgerys Creek airport. It talks about a whole lot of things that they will do to improve infrastructure in Sydney's west.

Guess where it was announced? This great plan, this great deal, for Western Sydney was announced in Redfern. The member for Werriwa remarked to me that the only thing Redfern is west of is the CBD. It is about 40 kilometres from one of the suburbs I represent—Mount Druitt. So the geniuses in the Turnbull government from the Prime Minister down, including his army of advisers and army of infrastructure ministers—I do not know how many infrastructure ministers actually exist in this Turnbull government but there is a plethora of them—thought that there would not be a problem in announcing a Western Sydney City Deal outside of Western Sydney. How do you do that?

Deputy Speaker Wicks, I know your electorate is on the Central Coast. I know that as representatives we will have our differences, but you would be stunned if a Central Coast deal were announced in Sydney instead of in Gosford. From my perspective, announcing a Western Sydney deal outside of the region that it is supposed to benefit just shows that it is all about spin, not about substance.

Here is exhibit B in that case: not one of the Western Sydney councils has been engaged in genuine consultation about this Western Sydney plan—not one. The councils have very politely said, 'We'd like to talk,' when really they should have been screaming blue murder that those opposite would announce an infrastructure deal that will impact on them yet have no consultation or discussion with them whatsoever.

Again, this represents in the purest terms the problem with Sydney. As I have said previously, Sydney is a city of two halves where the east determines what the west will or will not get and has no consultation with the west. And we are supposed to cop it. We have no funding for better schools and no funding for hospitals. Mount Druitt Hospital, for example, lost a cardiac ward under the Baird government, which called it 'relocation'. People in our area know exactly what it was. To close a cardiac ward in Mount Druitt Hospital, which is in an area where heart disease impacts so many people, is scandalous. It got shut, and not a whimper.

We do not get the schools, we do not get the hospitals and we certainly do not get the roads investment. This government spruik that they are going to invest in the M12, for example. That is a good thing, but the big game changer—to use their term—is the M9. That is the road that will go west of the M7, but we have no details on how much money, when it is going to happen, when it is going to be spent, when it is going to go ahead—nothing.

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

Not a dollar!

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do not have anything—not a dollar, as the member for Grayndler rightly points out. If you want to talk about job creation, having the M7 and the M9 rolled out will open up land between those two motorways, which will then transform economic opportunity in a legitimately fundamental way. The M7 itself, for example, has provided the opportunity to create the Sydney Business Park. They reckon that in this Western Sydney deal between 70,000 to 100,000 jobs will be created, when the reality is that I have a project right on our doorstep that is going to create 60,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next decade. That is what happens if you have good infrastructure in place.

The challenge I have got for the Turnbull government is: build a motorway without putting a toll on it; build a motorway that does not slug Western Sydney residents. Everyone knows congestion in Sydney is bad. I always love how people talk about the need to put in a congestion tax. Well, guess what? We have got one. They are called 'tolls'. In my area I have residents who pay $35 a day for the privilege of sitting on a congested M7, M2, M4 or M5. While the Baird government will say, 'We are doing all these projects; we've got NorthConnex, WestConnex and all these other things,' that is rubbish. These roads are always congested. They improve a bit and then they congest a bit more. Why? Because the minute people find that they can travel more easily on those roads they go from public transport to private transport and those roadways get clogged. The government does not invest jointly in private and public transport options to make people movement easier in Western Sydney. That is a problem as well.

The other problem I have got is people who advise this government. There is a whole bunch of self-servers who advise this government on transport. I was very heartened to see that today in the Financial Review Joe Aston rightly observed that the great Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue held a big infrastructure conference yesterday, to talk about Western Sydney, 40 kilometres from Western Sydney at a Sofitel hotel. Fantastic! They are talking about Western Sydney outside of the region. They probably made in the ballpark of $250,000 on it.

Back in the late nineties when the second airport decision was shelved, Chris Brown, former head of the Tourism Task Force, said: 'The people around the country and my members around the country are asking, "Why are we looking at a very Sydney-centric decision?" There are projects like rail, which might promote greater regional benefit—a greater the longer term benefit—than rushing in at breakneck speed to get another airport, a third airport, for Sydney.' This is Chris Brown in 1999, when everyone was complaining about the decision—well, people in the east were complaining about the decision—to shelve Badgerys Creek Airport. He then gets appointed to government bodies to look at the second airport for Sydney and then, once he is done with that, he sets up a group, the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, that charges people money to go to a conference—and then he gets that money to generate further conferences and is able to influence the way decisions are made. I think that is wrong. I think there should be an ethical firewall between being appointed to a government body and being able to make money from that.

This is the thing: Chris Brown brings all of his contacts and he uses that to generate influence, particularly in my party, to try to get his decisions spruiked. When he gets that decision reinforced, he then goes and makes more money off it. He should not be known as Chris Brown; he should be known as China Brown, because he is the ultimate purveyor of soft power within our party, using all those funds to generate influence on projects that Western Sydney does not call for. This is the problem with infrastructure decisions in this debate: Western Sydney does not get the infrastructure it needs; it is given the infrastructure it does not want, that does not answer the longer term issues about what is required in our area. I am sick of having people in business positions and with powers of influence influencing various decision-makers when they do not live in the region, do not operate in the region, but make money off the region. As I said before, if the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue and its patrons live in Western Sydney and they are championing it—that is fine. But I will not have a dialogue that is run out of Balmain, pretending to be a Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, influencing infrastructure decisions that get cheered on in this infrastructure statement and totally overlook the needs of the area.

As I said yesterday, I have never heard Chris Brown or the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue criticise the Baird government once for the Nepean Hospital being the most stressed hospital in the state. But when Mike Baird announces $500 million for Nepean Hospital, they are out there like the government's cheerleaders, cheering it on. This is the problem with infrastructure, particularly in Sydney: people in the east making decisions in the west, and ignoring the region together.

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

Early on in his infrastructure statement to parliament last Thursday, the Prime Minister said something that I agree with. He said:

If Australia is to ride the wave of opportunity that the 21st century offers, we need better infrastructure.

From there, the speech went downhill. What we heard was that he had a plan; he was going to do a study; there was going to be an examination; he was going to have a committee to look after the reports that had already been done by a committee. What we did not have in an infrastructure statement for the parliament was, of course, any attachment of legislation to it or any appropriation from the budget—because there was not a project named; there was not a project advanced; there was not a dollar announced. I do not know why you would give an infrastructure statement to the parliament that does not announce any infrastructure, that does not have anything of substance in it whatsoever.

This comes at a time where infrastructure investment in this country is in freefall. The context here is the resources sector going from the investment phase to the production phase. At that time, because of the decline in infrastructure investment associated with the resources sector, what you should have had—when combined with the fact that capital is almost free and when the government earlier this year could have borrowed for infrastructure at long-term rates, at a rate of under two per cent per annum—is the government stepping in and ramping up that investment, because we know that there is a need.

The member for Chifley just spoke about the M9. Why didn't the government use last Thursday to announce funding for the M9? They did not even announce funding for planning for the M9, for preservation of the corridor, for getting the environmental approvals—nothing came from last week's announcement. This comes when public infrastructure investment has fallen by 20 per cent in the government's first two years. It also comes when the government continues to say that it is going to spend $50 billion on infrastructure in the forward estimates. It is just not true. Indeed, they are not even spending what they said they would spend in the budget papers of 2014. For example, in the last financial year the government did not spend $8 billion in 2015-16; they spent $5½ billion. When you take into account the fact that there was a $490 million payment to Western Australia to compensate for the GST, it is a $3 billion underspend on what they said they would do, or 35 per cent. This follows a $1 billion underspend the year before.

At this year's election campaign, we put forward a comprehensive plan for infrastructure investment: the Cross River Rail in Brisbane, Melbourne Metro, Adelaide light rail, Perth Metronet and Western Sydney Rail. We put forward a comprehensive plan. We put forward and have advanced in this parliament again the need for a high-speed rail authority to advance that proposal. The coalition just offered more cuts. The Prime Minister likes to ride on trains and trams and take photos on them. We want him to actually fund them, not just take photos on them. He spruiks city deals and yet all that does is match our commitments to UTAS in Northern Tasmania and match the commitments that we made to the stadium and regeneration of the City of Townsville. The vague promise in Western Sydney is, frankly, a pittance compared to what is required in Western Sydney. He said in last Thursday's statement that he is going to develop a freight strategy. There is one. It was done by Infrastructure Australia just after they did their national port strategy. It complements the two things together. Yet they cannot even fund the final section of the Port Botany rail freight plan. Through the Australian Rail Track Corporation, it can be funded off-budget, and they can fix the loop around South-West Sydney for a total of just under $200 million so that the freight corridor can be brought into the 21st century, where it should be. At the moment, for the last section between Mascot and the port, it is one way, so you cannot have trains going in and out to the port. If a train is going out, a train cannot go in. It is a two-way corridor with a one-way road. It is completely absurd. And yet they cannot do that.

If you look at the smallest programs, like the Black Spot Program, there was a 55 per cent underspend last year; the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program had a 65 per cent underspend on what was put in the budget; and the Bridges Renewal Program was 40 per cent down on what was promised. Last week I was reminded of their 2014 budget when they spent $70,000 making a video about the 2014 infrastructure investment plan. The video has been taken down because it is so embarrassing because none of it has happened. Then, during this year in the lead-up to the election, they took $18 million that was allocated to build roads, rail lines, ports and infrastructure and they spent it on TV ads to tell people what they did not have and what they were not getting.

The truth is that people need to hold this government to account. When it comes to Badgerys Creek airport, there is the circumstance whereby people get information from a website about flights based upon some theory. It is not based upon any flight paths that have been worked out. The government says that it can follow Labor's announcement of ensuring there are no flights over communities at night—and nor should there be. That is the advantage of the planning protections that were put in place around the Badgerys Creek site 30 years ago. That is why it is perfectly able to ensure that flights do not go over any communities at night from the second airport. The government should not have that contradicted by some bureaucrats on sites that are out of date. They need to get on top of that and they need to get on top of proper community consultation for that vital piece of infrastructure, not just for Western Sydney but also for the national economy.

This government needs to match up its rhetoric with reality. They need to start investing. They need to have proper consultation. They need to have proper infrastructure plans. They need to restore respect to Infrastructure Australia and put it at the heart of infrastructure development.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to speak in this chamber to note the excellent infrastructure statement made by the Prime Minister just last week. Of course, as part of the infrastructure statement, the Prime Minister released the government's response to the 15-year Australian Infrastructure Plan, which sets out a comprehensive agenda of recommendations across a wide range of sectors: transport, communications, energy, water and other areas. Seventy-eight recommendations are in the plan, relevant to all levels of government. Of the 78 the Australian government is supporting 69 of them. Our response reflects our recognition that reforming how we plan, prioritise and pay for infrastructure is critical to sustainable, long-term productivity growth. Our response demonstrates that the 15-year plan will guide key infrastructure policy directions for the Turnbull government. Many of these recommendations are reflected in reforms that the Turnbull government has already commenced. With the release of our response to the 15-year Australian Infrastructure Plan, we are progressing a number of other important reforms in the area of road, rail, freight, data collection, funding and financing. These reforms will support the Turnbull government's record $50 billion investment in land transport infrastructure. Indeed, if you include all areas of infrastructure, including the NBN, water infrastructure, regional funding and other major project funding, the Turnbull government is investing some $80 billion. This investment is expected to leverage many billions of dollars in additional spending from state governments and from the private sector across the economy.

Just this year, the Turnbull government has announced funding for a wide range of infrastructure priorities including Western Sydney Airport where we announced $115 million to fund preparatory work, including $26 million to develop a concept design for rail access that will accelerate benefits to Western Sydney. There is the Forrestfield-Airport Link, an enormously important rail link in Perth where the Turnbull government has committed $490 million. I was pleased to attend, along with the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the sod-turning ceremony of that important project just a few weeks ago.

There is the Flinders Link project in Adelaide, which will see the Flinders University medical centre connected to the Adelaide metropolitan rail network. There is the Inland Rail project, where an additional $594 million has been committed by the Turnbull government for the Australian Rail Track Corporation to acquire necessary land and to continue preconstruction work. We have announced significant new infrastructure investments in Victoria, including $350 million for the M80 Ring Road, $220 million for the Murray Basin Rail Project, $345 million for a rural and regional roads package and $75 million for an urban congestion package.

In the course of this year, we have also announced an additional $260.8 million in funding for the tunnel section at stage 2 of Perth Freight Link. We have announced $200 million of funding for Ipswich Motorway and up to $50 million for business case development with the states. We also announced funding for upgrades to the M1 in South-East Queensland, funding of $105 million for the Gateway merge and funding of $110 million to the Mudgeeraba to Varsity Lakes section of the M1. So very extensive funding commitments have been announced this year, on top of the already extensive commitments that we have made and a record level of infrastructure spending.

Notwithstanding that fact, what we saw in the response of the Leader of the Opposition to the Prime Minister's statement was a number of misleading and inaccurate claims about the Commonwealth government's spending on infrastructure. Like clockwork, whenever there is mention of this government's track record in infrastructure, the shadow minister pops up with his false claim that infrastructure spending has gone down since the shambolic years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. In fact, the Turnbull government is funding infrastructure at record levels around Australia. In 2016-17 we are spending around $9 billion. As The Australian's David Uren has pointed out, if you compare support for state infrastructure across the four-year forward estimates period of Labor's last three budgets and the coalition's first three budgets the average under the coalition was $27.8 billion, a 44 per cent increase on what the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government spent.

These facts are a little inconvenient for the Labor Party which is perhaps why the shadow minister seems to resort to continually making factually incorrect claims. But you would find it a futile exercise to look for intellectual consistency when it comes to what we hear from the shadow minister in relation to infrastructure policy. For example, he got very excited with the claim that the final budget outcome for 2015-16 showed a drop in infrastructure spending to support state activity from what was in the estimate in the May 2014 budget as to the amount that would apply for the 2015-16 financial year. The particular item he cited was payments to support state infrastructure services, and I emphasise that this is part of but not the same as total Commonwealth spending on infrastructure. It excludes spending on Commonwealth projects such as Western Sydney Airport and Inland Rail. The point is that it is not unusual for there to be significant variances between the amounts originally budgeted to be spent on payments to support state infrastructure services in a particular year and the final amount spent in that particular year. In 2012-13, for example, what happened? The amount originally budgeted to be spent on payments to support state infrastructure services was around $6 billion. The amount finally spent in that year was $3.6 billion. I can almost hear you thinking, 'Who was the minister at that time?'

The minster was, in fact, the man who is now the shadow minister. So, as I say, if we were to seek intellectual consistency in the pronouncements of this shadow minister you would find yourself deeply frustrated.

Then, of course, we hear his argument that it is somehow a matter of note that the $490 million commitment that the Commonwealth has made in relation to the Forrestfield project was linked to discussions between the Commonwealth and Western Australia in relation to the GST. Without going into the merits of that I simply make the point that the shadow minister seems to say, 'Okay, we'll look at this spending and say there is a shortfall, but we'll ignore this spending because that's in an inconvenient category.' You cannot have it both ways. Again, if you were to look for intellectual consistency in what you hear from the shadow minister you would be sorely disappointed.

We hear this consistent and utterly incorrect claim from the shadow minister that there has been no new spending on infrastructure since the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government left office. That is simply not true. I will mention just one area: the Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan—$3.6 billion for the Northern Road being widened for its entire length; the Bringelly Road Upgrade; and, of course, the M12, which will run from the M7 to the airport and the Northern Road. Just last week the corridor for the M12 was announced. None of this was delivered by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. In fact, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government never reached a decision in relation to Western Sydney Airport. It took a coalition government to do that. So this ridiculous claim made by the shadow minister, this wholly inaccurate claim that no new infrastructure projects have been committed to, was untrue the first time he said it and it is untrue each time he says it.

The reality is that the Turnbull government has a comprehensive program of funding for infrastructure. We are spending at record levels. We are not engaging in the sort of accounting tricks that the shadow minister engaged in. In 2013 it emerged that the amounts that had been supposedly set aside by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government for rail projects around the country—over $2 billion for the Parramatta to Epping Rail Link and over $2 billion for the Melbourne Metro—was all beyond the forward estimates. So, basic accounting tricks were being used by the previous government, and then the shadow minister complains that we have adopted a much more consistent and accurate approach in relation to our funding of infrastructure. The reality is that there is record infrastructure spending going on. We have just announced an important response to the 15-year plan. The Turnbull government is delivering for the Australian people.

Debate adjourned.