Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this most recent report from the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities, entitled Harnessing value, delivering infrastructure: inquiry into the role of transport connectivity on stimulating development and economic activity. Probably one of the great challenges and indeed opportunities that lie before this parliament, this government and our nation is to look at ways of improving transport connectivity across this vast continent. I certainly welcome this report and strongly support its recommendation that Australia needs to start planning our high-speed-rail network in earnest. I sincerely hope in fact that the release of this report and perhaps today's debate in this chamber help drive some action from this government, which has been so lacking to date.

There is no doubt that we desperately need to develop long-term plans for the future of our cities and our towns. Clearly, transport infrastructure is a critical component of town and city planning, and it is critical for the servicing of future generations. That is possibly one of the most pressing issues for our capital cities in particular at the moment. So we clearly have a need to look forward and to engage in strategic planning about what those cities—and, beyond the cities, the regional centres—should look like into the future. It is that forward planning that allows us not only to really start responding to today's problems as they arise but start to prepare and capitalise for the opportunities of tomorrow.

The report provides a considered analysis of these issues confronting us now. Those of us on this side of the House, anyway, have long argued that Australia needs to get moving on high-speed rail. I know that my colleague and friend the member for Grayndler will be speaking to this report soon. He has been a champion of the high-speed-rail project here in this parliament for a very long time, a matter which I will come to later in speaking on this report. Labor have been a strong advocate of high-speed rail because we understand that this is a massive game changer for the nation. It would open up the entire east coast and turbocharge regional economies in cities like Newcastle, the one I represent. The interconnectivity between those capital cities via our regional centres would become completely enlivened and engaged by a whole lot of new opportunities that present as a result of high-speed rail.

High-speed rail was certainly a transformational force in our country, decentralising the population. I heard members in the last debate, in fact, refer to the need to decentralise services, agencies and populations in the nation. Well, you cannot do that unless you have genuine connectivity back to cities and indeed other regional centres. High-speed rail is very much that element that would enable you to embark on decentralisation of the population and bring growth and greater prosperity into the regional centres. Deputy Speaker Wicks, I know you represent a regional centre not far from my own and that you know just what that could mean for the towns and suburbs that we represent.

It would indeed deliver new markets, create business opportunities, drive investment and, of course, create much needed jobs. It would help to relieve some of the ever-increasing population pressures that face our large capital cities. As I said, in my home town of Newcastle we stand to benefit enormously from an east coast high-speed rail network, as do many other regional centres and towns along the route.

The report before us today found that the high-speed rail link could carry around 84 million passengers a year when fully operational. Even if only a fraction of that passenger movement were to come in and out of cities like Newcastle, we would see a massive boost to our entire region. With an estimated 39-minute trip from Newcastle to Sydney, it would be entirely possible for you to live in Newcastle and commute to Sydney for work or indeed vice versa. Not only would this deliver growth and drive prosperity in my home city; it would help to reduce the burden on Sydney's resources and services.

One of the key recommendations from this report is that, if we are to harness the economic and social benefits of a high-speed rail network, all levels of government need to start planning for it now. We on this side of the chamber have long understood this. In fact, when we were in government we commissioned a feasibility study into the matter. That study found that, for every dollar spent on high-speed rail in the first section between Sydney and Melbourne, the project would return $2.15 in economic benefit to surrounding communities, making this an absolutely viable project.

As a result of that feasibility study, the former Labor government then appointed an expert panel comprising of the former Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, the Business Council of Australia Chief Executive, Jennifer Westacott and the late Bryan Nye of the Australasian Railway Association. They were tasked with the job of recommending what sort of practical steps would need to be taken to advance this project. The panel recommended the creation of an authority that would with the governments of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and ACT work cooperatively together across the four different jurisdictions on detailed planning and corridor acquisition. The former Labor government had allocated $52 million to that planning authority to ensure that vital work could be done so that we could identify and protect that transport corridor. We know that without that planning authority the 1,748 kilometres that is required is absolutely in jeopardy. Not only will the project never get started if we do not preserve that corridor now; it will forever endanger the project if we do not do it now because no-one can control urban sprawl across four states and territories without a coordinator authority to do so.

Regretfully, when the Abbott government took office in 2013 it chose to axe the $52 million that was allocated to the planning authority for a high-speed rail network—very short-sighted thinking at the time. Indeed, to my great regret, and to the Labor Party's great regret, to date that money has not been reallocated into the budget so that we might in fact embark on a genuine exercise of identifying and then protecting a transport corridor so that the most important infrastructure project that this government could possibly embark on—the high-speed rail network—could in fact happen.

I would strongly urge this government to take this opportunity now to, in fact, come in and support the member for Grayndler's private member's bill that is again before this parliament. It was reintroduced into the new parliament. It was a bill that helped establish that planning authority. It is exactly what is required to kickstart this project and bring it back on track. That bill not only sets out a means of creating that authority but it also requires it to move the project forward to the expressions of interest phase—again, such an important part. Today I again call on the government to support the member for Grayndler's private member's bill before this House. This is an opportunity too good to miss, and it is really time for this government to get this project back on track. (Time expired)

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not often that I rise in the House to speak on the outcome of a committee inquiry, so let me just say this one has captured my imagination and passion for regional development well before it became a topic for a committee inquiry. Early in 2016 our backbench committee, chaired by John Alexander, the member for Bennelong, was briefed by a number of groups presenting some very forward-thinking concepts for delivering much needed infrastructure and regional development at little or no cost to the government. We were asked: what if 26 to 28 per cent of residents in Melbourne and Sydney who love the city life but really hate the daily drag of driving to the city, paying tolls, finding parking, looking for long day care for their children were given an opportunity to live in a city environment without the hassles of city life? What if a digital, environmentally sustainable city could be built with a range of housing models, most of which would resolve the affordable housing issues, and enable employment? What if that could happen?

This is a visionary possibility and it relates to the core of the inquiry. That information was presented by the consortia with development and very fast travel front and centre of the concept. It is a forward-thinking change of planning and yet it is an achievable goal. The initial briefings were prosecuted by the committee to raise these to inquiry level, and the result is that the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities initiated this inquiry, entitled Inquiry into the role of transport connectivityon stimulating development and economic activity.

In Gilmore, my residents, businesses and entrepreneurs know and are concerned with the lack of transport connectivity. We know this is hampering business growth, employment and potential development, but the concepts of value capture for land zoning and consequent development go well beyond the local regional level. The first paragraph in the committee report says:

Transport connectivity is one of the pressing issues of the 21st Century. Australia is facing challenges of growing populations, urban congestion, changing patterns of settlement and the need for enhanced accessibility to employment and markets. These challenges need new and innovative solutions to the development of transport infrastructure. Solutions must also be found for integrating transport and land-use planning, financing transport infrastructure, and putting in place effective governance structures.

One of the primary motives included the potential for high-speed rail to act as a catalyst for economic and social transformation in regional development. You actually cannot have regional development unless you address the transport issue. The inquiry also investigated the economic benefits, the wealth creation that comes from improved transport connectivity.

There were significant factors to consider, and these included the benefits gained from 'value creation' and 'uplift'—terms we will talk about later—the role of the government in coordinating improved transport connectivity, the role of value capture and other economic instruments, and delivering infrastructure. We need to improve this transport connectivity to get better employment, to get product to markets. There have got to be cost savings in terms of reduced transit times, less traffic in the cities and reduced transport costs. Just imagine a string of cities between Sydney and Melbourne connected by very fast rail, with these cities being as big as Canberra and you being able to travel from one of these regional cities in less than half an hour. It is absolutely inspiring.

The committee found that the key benefit in improved transport connectivity is its transformational effects, making the regions more accessible, more liveable and providing opportunities for regional development which at this time we can only dream of. Carefully planned, multifaceted housing, transport systems that work and sustainability promise to make cities more efficient and liveable.

Improved transport connectivity is also critical to regional development. It provides opportunities for decentralisation and ultimately, instead of having these heavily weighted cities in our nation, we will have settlement outside of that where people can actually have a really good quality of life. Greater connectivity will promote the development of regional areas, making relocation to them more attractive and reducing the growth pressure in major cities—not to mention the cost of housing when everybody is trying to live in the city and there are not enough cities to live in. The key to this, especially in regional areas, is the development of high-speed rail, particularly from Sydney to Melbourne, where the population growth is enormous.

We have to allow the creation of these new centres. We need to seek expressions of interest for the development of high-speed rail in eastern Australia. Let me tell you that that expression of interest is already there. They wish to have that. They need to have the connectivity. They know they can do it if these new cities are built. We recognise that there needs to be ongoing investigation.

Good planning for this value creation—because that is what it is about: the more you develop the land, the higher its value. The basis for improved transport connectivity will improve the overall gain from the development strategy. We believe value capture has the potential to make a considerable contribution to the cost of the new transport infrastructure. In fact, they have modelled it to do exactly that. With very little input from the government, they believe that their economics stacks up in building these brand new, digital cities. It is just amazing. The owner of the land that is re-zoned will, of course, be the beneficiary, and that is how they are going to fund it. That is how they are going to build these new cities. Then there is another part of this equation where another group will come in and build the very fast rail, because, if you have got eight cities between Sydney and Melbourne all about the same size as Canberra, there is enough population there to sustain, support and make a profit from a very fast rail system.

We have to highlight the integration of transport and land use planning to make it viable to these potential developers who want to come into our country and make a massive difference. This is not pie in the sky. These guys have developed cities in other parts of the world. They are demonstrable, they are successful and they are working. We need some of that here. We need to have overlay zoning initially so that we have got short-term land use with long-term land use planning, and we need to make sure we get this happening very quickly.

The role of the Australian government in providing bipartisan leadership on this issue is particularly important, as its ability to leverage outcomes through control of funding is also important. With the idea of setting up a master fund, you have the creation of a single bucket of money you can draw down for a whole range of different projects. You have planning, development and benefit in there. It all has got to have an overarching picture.

Labor, the Liberals and whomever else wants to join in this party of a visionary future for regional Australia need to have this on board and need to follow it through with a 20-year plan—although, if we can get the zoning changes done in a fairly quick way, we are assured that one of these brand-new cities can actually be built within three years. It is amazing.

A broad range of value-capture mechanisms could be applied in an Australian context, although the different mechanisms are best applied by different levels of government and a high degree of coordination is needed. If you have land that is owned by the state government, they are going to want to be part of that uplift. If it is a private landowner, they are going to want to be part of that uplift. But we need an overarching policy that pulls it all together so that there is not one single factor that jumps in and pulls this apart. We need it to happen.

There is also a potential for the Australian government to develop a toolkit for the potential value-capture mechanisms, and I suspect that we should actually be developing that now. This inquiry was an exercise to investigate a decentralisation process where there could be private-public sector investment rather than a massive hit on the taxpayer. Governments, as a rule, are not very good at getting big infrastructure projects going unless it is roads, because nobody else wants to do that, because there is very little commercial return. There will be commercial return on the uplift value for this, and that is why it will work, so trying to get investment coming in from the government is going to be self-defeating possibility. This private-public sector possibility has got so much merit.

A really important part of this visionary process is that the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, in conjunction with state and territory governments and councils, develops a toolkit of value-capture mechanisms that can be applied by all levels of government, taking into account the different conditions in the various states, territories and local council areas because they all have their own little differences. The use of mechanisms in that toolkit should be a requirement in cases where the federal government is going to contribute funding towards major infrastructure projects, some of which are already in the pipeline. We must have a regional master plan perspective rather than a project-by-project approach. We need to have priorities so that, if there are better values, we put them as a priority project. We need to draw on the proposed value-capture toolkit to find the value-capture mechanisms and determine the amount of uplift that can be captured, because the three tiers of government can get financial leverage from doing that. In doing so, the Australian government should be prepared to act as a single point for the collection of value-capture revenues and the allocation of the project money. I suggest we start doing this now. Thank you.

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

This 230-page report is a significant piece of work by the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities, and the 13 recommendations contained in it are generally sound. They cover a range of areas, including value capture, high-speed rail, smart infrastructure, joint procurement and city deals. However, the upbeat tone of the report also highlights a gap that is there between what the members of the committee think should happen and what is actually happening under this government.

On value capture, you would think, frankly, that this was something new. That is nonsense. That is how the underground was built in London in the 19th century. That is how road and rail projects have functioned for such a long period of time, and it has become an excuse for the government to not fund projects. The Melbourne metro project and Cross River Rail both have value capture in them—that was a part of the Infrastructure Australia deliberations way back in 2012 when they were included on the priority list. That is why they were funded in the 2013 budget by the former Labor government. Funding was to come from the federal government, the state government and the private sector on the basis of, in the Cross River Rail's case, the uplift value around Woolloongabba Station in Brisbane, and, in Melbourne metro's case, the uplift value around the key points there. That would allow for higher densities around those rail stations.

There is nothing new in this at all. Nothing. But what you have is a whole lot of rhetoric from the government at the same time that we are actually seeing cuts to infrastructure investment. One figure above all is very stark in demonstrating that: for each of the 12 quarters that the Abbott and Turnbull governments have been in office—for every single one of them—public sector infrastructure investment, as demonstrated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is less than every single quarter of the 21 between June 2008—that is after the first Labor government budget in May 2008—right through to September 2013. Those are 12 quarters with less investment than any single one of the 21 quarters when Labor was in office. There is a stark contrast between the attitudes of an actual nation-building government and a government that comes up with excuses and, frankly, policy proposals in value capture that have been around for 200 years and pretends that somehow it is something new and a panacea for these issues.

The last speaker, the member for Gilmore, was saying that the federal government should be the government that captures the value and coordinates everything. Well, the truth is that, under our system of Federation, state governments have responsibility for planning—that is the way it works—and local governments exist as entities only under the auspices of state governments. This is perhaps well meaning but not in terms of actual outcomes we are seeing on the ground.

The government again, yesterday in question time, was speaking about the so-called $50 billion infrastructure plan that was announced in the 2014 budget. It is a nonsense! The answers to the Senate committee by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development show that the infrastructure program is worth $34 billion, not $50 billion, between 2014-15 and 2018-19. So there is one year left at the end there—2019-20. Perhaps they might argue that that is where the catch-up is going to occur, except the $8 billion has been allocated onwards—that is, from 2019-20 right through to the never-never. In some cases, it literally is the never-never. Take projects like the Bruce Highway, for example. It was a 10-year plan, so the figures that are included there are for right up until 2024-25.

Since the mining boom has moved from the investment to the production phase and there has been a drop-off in that private sector infrastructure investment associated with the resources sector, this should have been a time when public sector investment was stepping up to fill that gap to create employment and to provide a skilled workforce to keep the economy going. But what we have seen is the opposite. It is not surprising, because what we have seen is public transport projects stopped and new road projects announced in their place. There have not been very many; there have been only four or five road projects. As an example of this, the East West Link has not happened in Melbourne. They took money away from the Melbourne Metro and the M80 Ring Road project in Melbourne to fund the East West Link that never happened. Therefore, the investment has dropped off.

In Brisbane they took money away from the Cross River Rail and have not put it back into anything. In Perth they have the Perth Freight Link project, for which they have allocated over a billion dollars of Commonwealth money, but they have not dug a hole yet. That was announced in the 2014 budget. It is a road that will go through wetlands and destroy them. It is a road that has been rejected time and time again by environmental assessments in Western Australia. It has required special intervention from the government to overturn all those proper processes. It is a road that allegedly is supposed to fix the freight problems in Western Australia, but it will not actually go to the port of Fremantle. It will stop three kilometres short of the port. What is more, that is a port that the government reports all indicate will be at full capacity by 2022. Therefore, planning has to happen now for the outer harbour and for how freight will get to and from the outer harbour.

We have had from this government a series of attempts to capture projects that were already underway and pretend that they had something to do with them, as well as a slowdown in projects on the Pacific Highway and Bruce Highway. In the case of the Swan Valley bypass in Western Australia the name was changed to NorthLink and in Sydney the F3 to M2 connection's name was changed to NorthConnex. A new name does not make it a new project. They were projects that were already funded in the budget, so what we have seen is simply less.

What we have also seen is proper processes break down: Infrastructure Australia being sidelined, the Major Cities Unit being abolished, the national freight strategy being ignored, the National Ports Strategy being ignored and the priorities that are there for urban public transport being ignored. With Badgerys Creek airport, the government knows, and common sense tells you, to build in rail from day one when the airport opens. The government says, 'Yes, that is a good idea.' It is just not funding it and not progressing it.

On high-speed rail, one of the report's recommendations, recommendation 2, says:

The Committee recommends that state and federal governments consider appropriate coordination arrangements, including if and when a planning authority is required to progress high speed rail.

I will give you a big tip: there is a private member's bill before the parliament in my name right now to establish a high-speed rail authority, as recommended by the proper processes that were established prior to 2013. They should get on and do that. High-speed rail is a game changer. It is a game changer for regional Australia and a game changer for the national economy. It is something that would really change the dynamics. It should be given support and it should be progressed. It cannot happen short term, but you need to get the planning right to make sure that it is progressed. This government is not doing that, and it should progress the recommendations in this report. (Time expired).

Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to put on the record my support for this report; I would like to acknowledge the work that has gone into the report and many of the people involved; I would like to talk about the role of planning and particularly planning for infrastructure for the future of Australia; and I would like to call on the government to act now to tell us when the high speed rail planning authority will be brought into existence and what action the government is going to take on this particular report.

I have been a member of this committee and I am absolutely delighted to say to my colleagues in the House that it is a bipartisan report. For those people who worry about government getting together and doing things, in this case we have. The unanimous agreement of that committee says: we have got the report, we have got the agreement and now we need to act. My belief is that the future of Australia lies in quality infrastructure. As the report says, quality infrastructure—in this case high-speed rail—solves problems for the cities and it solves problems for the regions.

Deputy Speaker, as you would know, our trains have laid the foundation for Australian development, beginning in the late 1800s. I acknowledge the role and the vision of those great British engineers and entrepreneurs who came to Australia and went to Canada and India and built railway lines. These railway lines provided the absolute foundation we needed to grow and develop. It enabled our freight from the country to be moved to the ports and our status as a trading nation to get underway. It enabled our people to move. I, for example—and, I know, many people from rural and regional Australia—got on the train, went to Melbourne and went to uni. We did all our socialising on the trains as well. It is not just to go to university to study; it is to go to the cities for meetings, for medicines and for all the things that we need. Our train is the preferred form of transport. In regional Victoria our trains are our lifeblood, and there is another whole conversation we need to have about effective train delivery.

Today I would like to speak particularly about high-speed rail as the key for our future and how important this report is, and in doing so I would really like to acknowledge some of the people who have done an enormous amount of work behind it. I particularly want to congratulate and thank John Alexander, the MP for Bennelong. He has been our inner-city champion, our visionary. John, you have done a fantastic job. You have put hours and hours of work into this, and I think you should be congratulated on getting to this stage.

I would also like to acknowledge the previous speaker, the member for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese. He is also our inner-city city champion. As he said, he knows this topic backwards. He introduced the private member's bill, which is before the parliament now, to set up an authority that could fund what we need to do. The member for Grayndler has been a huge champion, and I would like to acknowledge and thank him for his work. I hope that he can work with the member for Bennelong in these two wonderful Sydney electorates to be of service to us regional people.

Then, in my electorate, there are the members of the Wodonga Council. I would like to put on the record my thanks to Patience Harrington and your staff, Michael Gobel and the full team. You have been working on this topic forever. You have been really strong regional champions. To all the staff and to the councillors over the years: you have provided visionary leadership, written reports, responded to inquiries, organised conferences and put Albury—and, in my case, Wodonga—firmly on the map as being one of the key places where this high-speed rail needs to go. To Patience and your team, this report is for you.

I would also like to acknowledge the work of another individual. There have been many, but the one I would, in particular, like to acknowledge today is Tim Fischer AC, former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-member for Farrer, who is a wise elder statesman and generally known as a good bloke. He loves trains. It was Tim who first introduced me to this concept of what a high-speed train could do for our community. Tim, I would just like to take a moment in this House to honour and acknowledge and thank you for everything you have done for us all, particularly in the area of trains and transport. You have been a real champion. You have carried the flag, the heart and the fire for a really long time. I just want to take this opportunity to thank you. Dare I say how much we love you and how much we appreciate your fascination and support for trains. You really are a leading light for us in our work. Thanks, Tim.

Finally, in an interesting way I would like to acknowledge Kevin Rudd, an unlikely champion. In 2008 I was a participant at the 2020 summit. At the 2020 summit in this place there was a working group on infrastructure. I had come from my community as a community worker to talk about the future. That infrastructure team brainstormed and workshopped on what were the drivers for the future of Australia. The report that we came up with, which has really influenced my thinking, was the need for regional hubs and the infrastructure to link us. If we could put that into place, we would have a country that was really well positioned for the next century—just like the English did for us in the last century. I want to acknowledge the importance of gatherings like the summit that bring people together across disciplines and across regions to ask, 'How can we make this happen?' But that summit was a long, long time ago. Since then we have had lots of reports, lots of discussions, lots of conferences, and we are still not there.

This report is particularly important to me because it is unanimous. It has clear recommendations. It says what needs to be done. I would like to remind the parliament, and particularly the government, that we can do this. We can come together around local, state and federal governments and we can do nation-building on a really grand scale. We all know about Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Authority. In my case it was the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation. What an amazing thing it was in the 1970s and eighties to be part of the visionary Australia that brought the tax office out of Melbourne and Sydney and invested in Albury-Wodonga. We brought manufacturing in. We built a city. I was a beneficiary of that. I know we can do visionary stuff. We can have a plan. We can have a vision. Most importantly, we can bring people with us. Bringing people with us from the city and the regions makes this country whole.

I am talking to the Prime Minister. I am talking to the government. I am talking to the minister for infrastructure. I am talking about: 'Let's do this.' We have the report. We have the recommendations. All we need now is the political will. We need the plan, as the member for Grayndler said, to get the corridor working. But what we really need is some indication from the government that they have a commitment to nation-building in rural and regional Australia, that they are prepared to do the planning, that they have the vision and that they do have the political will to do it. That is my call out of today: we have to have the political will.

In bringing my presentation and support for this particular report to a close, I would like to make a comment to three of my constituents, who are in the House today, and to acknowledge them for coming to Canberra, being part of it and learning how the process works. I would particularly like to say to the young people that, when people ask you about Canberra and how it works, you can say that in this report you have seen collaboration, you have seen people come and work together and you have seen a nation-building project at the heart of really good planning. You can say it is a report on an inquiry that has happened with the committee working well together. I am hoping in your lifetime, certainly before you are as old as I am, that you will live in Yackandandah or Wodonga or Wangaratta and you will be able to hop on this high-speed rail that has got internet and that works on time; that you can go to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Western Australia or wherever you have to go and you can still live in the country and live the lives that you need. I say to the Prime Minister: 'For these young people who live in rural and regional Australia, can you do this? Can you find the political will to build us a high-speed rail now?' I have been around a long time, and I do not want to be an old woman in a nursing home in Yackandandah and still not have it built. So my closing words are, 'Where's the plan?'

Sitting suspended from 12:56 to 16:00

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be able to speak on the report before the chamber by the Infrastructure, Transport and Cities Committee, Harnessing value, delivering infrastructure: inquiry into the role of transport connectivity in stimulating development and economic activity. I would like to start by indicating that I came onto the committee as the deputy chair for this report in this parliament, and so I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the work of the previous committee and all of those who contributed through submissions and attendance at inquiry hearings, as well as the secretariat. This report makes some very important recommendations, and I want to deal specifically with three of them in my contribution today.

First of all, the first recommendation is a very general but particularly important one. It says:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government examines ways to promote a better balance of settlement through decentralisation to the regions linked by faster transport connectivity and particularly through high speed rail.

For the purposes of this inquiry, the committee was very clearly looking at the significance enabling infrastructure has for the development of regions. Coming from a regional area, the greater Illawarra and South Coast, this is something that has been a critical issue for my local community for my whole time in parliament. In particular, I just want to indicate that we continue to pursue a very important rail link in the Maldon-Dombarton Rail Link. It is an opportunity to create connections between Port Kembla and the rest of New South Wales, which is very significant to the economic development of our region. So it was a great pleasure to be part of this committee and the formulation of the report before the chamber.

It is very true that as a nation we see increasing pressure on our cities and increasing pressure on the capacity of those cities, not only to deal with growth but also to provide the opportunity for their workforces to live in a way that enables them to access their work without ending up with 13- or 14-hour days through long periods of commuting. So the issues that the committee was addressing were significant and they also, of course, sit alongside other enabling infrastructure such as broadband access.

As a result of that, the committee's second recommendation goes specifically to the issue of high-speed rail. It recommends that we, as a nation:

… develop a framework for the specification and evaluation of proposals for the development of a high speed rail network in eastern Australia, …

The report specifically says:

… it is time to progress the planning work that must be done by all levels of government to facilitate high speed rail. The Committee recommends that state and federal governments consider appropriate coordination arrangements, including if and when a planning authority is required to progress high speed rail.

This is a matter that has, very clearly, had its time come. In fact, you could argue that its time had well and truly come in the years that have preceded us to the point where this report is before us.

It is the case in government that Labor was progressing the planning authority for the commencement of a high-speed rail on the eastern seaboard, and it is the case that the shadow minister currently has before the House a private member's bill to establish such a planning authority in order for this to be progressed. It was good to see that the committee feels the need for some sort of progression—there was a bipartisan agreement on the report. But it would be true to say that for Labor, we believe that there is not the requirement to spend more time talking about it; the model is there, the shadow minister has put forward a bill and it would take very little effort by the government to get behind that bill and to progress creating a high-speed rail authority to do all the detailed planning work that that line needs done. I would encourage members who are supportive of this report of the standing committee to look at what the shadow minister, the member for Grayndler, has put forward in this bill and to work with this side of the parliament to get that progressed.

There is no doubt that high-speed rail is a major enabling piece of infrastructure for the regions on our eastern seaboard. And for an area like mine in the Illawarra, we have been very strong supporters of a high-speed rail proposition in this country. The proposal that we were looking at went through the Southern Highlands, linking the Illawarra and South Coast with the Southern Highlands' stop, which would enable us to connect very quickly to Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. The potential of that to expand, in particular, areas of economic development opportunity in our region, such as tourism, would be very significant.

So I commend the committee's findings on the importance of the high-speed rail. I think it took some extensive and very powerful evidence about the difference that infrastructure would make. I would suggest that a good outcome from the tabling of the report would be bipartisan support for the shadow minister's proposition currently before the parliament.

Recommendation nine of the report addressed the issue of procurement. I thought it was particularly effective in its proposal that there should be a coordinated approach to procurement which would:

… ensure, when practicable, that Australian materials and products, skills and services are maximised in project delivery.

It is a really important statement by the committee, that when governments are looking at progressing these sorts of infrastructure proposals, we maximise the opportunity for our chain-of-supply businesses to have part of the business opportunity. I have to say that it was very timely, given that only in the second half of last year the New South Wales government contracted 500 new train carriages for New South Wales and the jobs are all going to South Korea, where the winning bidder was.

The disappointing thing about this for my region is that there were other bidders who had indicated that if they were given the contract, they were looking at creating opportunities for the manufacturing and outfitting of those carriages in my own area in Unanderra. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition in New South Wales, Mr Foley, said, at the time:

The Baird government is completely disinterested in supporting local manufacturing and local jobs. Here in the Illawarra we had a tenderer, Stadler, prepared to deliver 600 jobs here at Unanderra. We could have had 600 people working here assembling new train carriages and maintaining them, with hundreds of apprenticeships for local kids.

I think it is important to note that I very much welcome that last point, the continued commitment by the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, to federal-government-funded major infrastructure projects having a requirement also that one in 10 of the positions be apprenticeship opportunities, as we know how important that is for young people and for developing the skills base of this country.

In the short time left to me I just want to make the point that a large focus of this report was around creating viable home affordability options and ensuring that the infrastructure is in place that allows for new housing and development opportunities to open up. Just prior to considering this report, this chamber heard people making contributions on the report of the economics committee on housing affordability. I want to make the point that there are links between these two reports, and not only the fact that the chair of this particular report, the member for Bennelong, was also very closely involved before the election with the economics committee in looking at the housing affordability issue. Infrastructure is important to housing affordability and supply is important, but it is also important that you get the incentive system right. I just want to commend the member for Bennelong for continuing to put the issue of changes to the capital gains tax and the way in which we provide incentives, in order to better target them to homeowners and not just to housing investors. I am glad to see these reports presented together.

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

I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a few very brief comments in respect of this very significant report. I am very pleased to have been here in this chamber to hear the comments of the deputy chair, the member for Cunningham, who has given, I think, a very effective contribution, not just on the work of the committee and the report it has delivered to the parliament but on its context and its consequences.

I might very briefly touch on those aspects, but before doing so it is appropriate that I acknowledge also the work of the chair, the member for Bennelong, who has a deep interest in all of these issues and an evident passion for them. His chairing of the committee enabled us to have a very effective exploration of a range of critical issues, going to some of the great challenges all of us in this parliament face around productivity, environmental sustainability and liveability for all Australians. I also acknowledge the work of all my colleagues on the committee—it delivered consensus recommendations—and of course the professional and effective work of the committee secretariat, without whose work, I am very confident, the quality of the report would have been much the poorer.

The bulk of the 13 recommendations contained in the report go to questions around value-capture models and issues around high-speed rail. These are important issues, but we should not allow the sense to be generated that they are novel. This report delivers bold and new ground in respect of these issues. They have been at the heart of the provision of infrastructure, when it comes to value capture, for probably more than 100 years, but certainly going back to issues like the financing of Melbourne's City Loop—and I am sure there many other examples around the country when it comes to value capture. In looking at the opportunities to make sure that the costs and benefits of the infrastructure provision are adequately spread and in looking at excellent and important modern examples, including overseas ones, we should not allow this to excuse the critical role of government in delivering the infrastructure that is so vital to enable Australian businesses to thrive, particularly in our major cities, and for Australians to live balanced, good lives.

One of the key questions that occur to me as I consider the recommendations contained in this report is the ongoing gap between the rhetoric of this government and the reality of its record. I think we just need to pause for a moment and consider the performance of the Labor government between 2007 and 2013 in respect of infrastructure, when we led the OECD rankings, and our sad decline since then. This was most obvious, of course, under the prime ministership of the member for Warringah when he walked away from investment in urban public transport as well as when he walked away from the High Speed Rail Authority by cutting funds which were allocated for that.

In looking at the exciting possibilities around technology and around value capture that point ways forward for high-speed rail in Australia to link our major cities and offer great opportunities to 'rebalance settlement', as the chair would say, let us not forget that we have gone backwards in terms of enabling Australians access to the benefits of high-speed rail. I join the member for Cunningham, the member for Grayndler and others in urging members opposite to at least enable this parliament to debate the private member's bill that has been before us since 2013. Let us have that conversation if we are serious about looking at the possibilities of high-speed rail in Australia. Let us also look seriously at these recommendations in this wider context.

I said I would be brief, so I will try and wrap up. I represent an outer-suburban community—a community which feels the costs of congestion more than most. It is absolutely critical, if people can access good employment opportunities and access all the amenities that make Melbourne the world's most liveable city, that we look seriously at the role of transport connectivity. This report takes us some steps further. It must be matched by action on the part of government and a deep commitment to build an institutional framework that not only looks at transport connectivity as a good in itself but also links it to related development issues such as home ownership and wider questions of sustainability and, perhaps most importantly, livability for millions of Australians who struggle to access the opportunities they should be able to access more readily.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Scullin for that contribution, particularly his brevity in advising the chair.

Debate adjourned.