Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

While an election hasn't yet been called, already the Prime Minister and the opposition leader are out on the campaign trail promising billions of dollars on infrastructure and other projects around the country.

They want you to be grateful for their generosity—but they keep on forgetting that this is our money they're spending, and we just aren't getting value for money.

That is what worries my electorate of Wentworth. We are still battling to overcome inflationary pressures in our economy. Building costs have seen some of the worst areas of inflation—with costs up 30 per cent since the pandemic. Infrastructure Australia warned back in 2019 that public sector infrastructure needed to slow down to avoid inflationary pressures both in public and private construction.

But instead, they both kept spending, to the point that our infrastructure pipeline has $32 billion worth of cost pressures off a $120 billion base—that is costs that weren't anticipated in the initial project memorandums but have blown out.

You might forgive them if these were truly the most important projects for the country—the ones that were truly nation-building, the ones that would transform the lives of ordinary Australians.

But we don't have that guarantee—as the sports rorts and the continually-blowing-out Suburban Rail Loop show, too often these projects just don't stack up.

The decisions are political, not for the country. The business cases are too often hidden. The budgets are too often blown.

This is not value for money. This is not accountable spending. This is not integrity. This needs to stop.

And that is where this bill comes in. And it should just be the start.

This is a very simple bill.

This bill will ensure better value for taxpayers on large and expensive infrastructure projects and ensure that these projects are selected for the national interest, not political gain.

It does this through four simple ways.

Firstly, it requires government to put in place a long-term land transport infrastructure strategy, over a 10-year period. We may have elections every three years but the infrastructure decisions that are critical to this country must not blow with every political wind.

Secondly, it requires the government to make public at the time of announcement all business cases above a threshold, to allow the public to scrutinise every investment decision.

Thirdly, it requires the minister to come back to parliament when there are material changes to the costs of a project—and, sadly, the numbers only ever go up, never down—and outline any mitigation strategies, so the ministers are accountable for these blowouts.

And finally, the bill requires the government to complete and publish an independent post-completion review of all projects above a threshold. This will ensure we actually learn from past cost blowouts, and don't consistently under-budget projects.

These measures sound simple—and that is because they are. I spent most of my life before politics in business, and the sort of discipline I'm outlining is par for the course. It's pretty much the basics, in the real world and the business world out there.

But not in the world in here.

Most people would ask me, 'Surely this already happens?' But the truth is it doesn't.

The Halton review—a 2023 review that this government recommended—found significant issues with how projects were determined, and determined that there were serious doubts on the federal government's capability to be an informed investor in national transport infrastructure.

The review of the infrastructure investment pipeline identified 80 projects that shouldn't go ahead—but the government hasn't told us what those 80 are, so we don't know what's been cancelled and if those are the projects that should be cancelled based on that analysis. That's not transparent, that's not accountable, and it's not good value for taxpayer money.

Our country's finances are in a structural deficit. Inflation is still higher than it should be and is hurting Australian families. We in this House need to be pulling back on spending wherever we can to relieve inflationary pressures and to deliver value for money to this country and ensure that we don't just build up more debt.

That should be the job of this parliament.

I am writing to the government and opposition leaders to commit to this bill and these changes, and I challenge them to explain to the Australian people why they aren't in the interests of this country. Certainly, from the government side, it shouldn't be so hard because some of these measures are actually based on what the Prime Minister was seeking himself when he was the shadow minister for infrastructure.

But this needs to be the start of a broader approach. We need to systematically look at spending across the board to work out where we can redirect. Where do we have to reduce it to get better value for money elsewhere? The crossbench has consistently argued for integrity in government spending to end the rorts, and this is part of that push.

Too often politicians show that they care about an issue by committing hundreds of millions of dollars in some big announcement. We need an approach in this parliament that shows that we care, by committing to achieve outcomes at the lowest possible cost, not with the highest possible fanfare, which is our current approach.

This needs to be just the start on how we get better value for taxpayers' money across this parliament.

Finally, I would like to thank a couple of people in particular for this work. Stephen Burgess and Stephen Alchin have both made an incredible contribution to this bill, and I'm very grateful for their support in this.

I would like now to give my remaining time to the member for Curtin to say a few words.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to second the member for Wentworth's National Land Transport Act Amendment (Better Value for Taxpayers) Bill 2025, and I commend her, once again, on her constructive contribution to the 47th Parliament. Like many on the crossbench today, she is offering up rational policy that takes a long-term approach.

This bill would put in place a range of things that I had assumed already happened. Coming from the private sector, I assumed that taxpayer money would be spent carefully on the things that make the most sense. But the reality is actually a bit depressing. No business case is needed, no blowouts have to be explained and we never check whether projects actually delivered what they were meant to deliver. As we enter pork-barrelling season, before an election, it's more important than ever for taxpayers to see that their money is being spent well.

So, when governments want to spend our money on big projects, this bill will require them to do a few things. Firstly, they'll have to have a long-term infrastructure plan. Secondly, they'll need to publish a business case showing each project is actually worth doing. They'll need to explain the reasons if there's a cost or time blowout and also learn from each project for next time so we can get better at delivering infrastructure. These are sensible and reasonable measures and, apparently, they're also pretty radical, because neither party wants to be scrutinised when they're in government.

Big infrastructure projects are an opportunity to create the future we want. They can also be a useful economic management tool if they're done at the right time of the economic cycle. But, if they're done at the wrong part of the cycle, they can drive costs up. For example, at the moment, we desperately need more housing supply, but the housing sector is competing for construction workers with the $120 billion worth of large-scale infrastructure projects in the pipeline. Some of these projects should wait, but how would we prioritise the best ones? It's really hard to do without a business case. I was absolutely floored when I found out that big infrastructure projects don't have to have a business case. Governments can commit to spending hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars without proving that the project is needed, that it will deliver benefits or that it's worth doing. It's such a reasonable request to ask governments to publish a business case and, when there's a cost blowout, to explain it. And, after projects have been delivered, they should have to be evaluated. Can you believe they don't have to be? We never find out if a project achieved its goals or if we can change our assumptions in the future so that we can better estimate the costs of future projects.

The changes proposed in this bill would rebuild public trust in government decision-making and allow us to learn from our failures and also from our successes. I commend this bill to the House, and I urge the government to bring this bill on for debate. This is something that all Australians will benefit from. Both sides of the House should be held accountable for their spending decisions.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.