Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor government is not supporting the amendment, although not for the same reasons as Senator Milne has outlined. Frankly, what are we doing here? Do we want some infrastructure investment in this country? I am just looking through these amendments. We have ensured that we will have an independent assessment panel for these projects. We are adding a ministerial reporting regime on projects. We are adding joint committee oversight. We are adding a competitive neutrality examination. I mean, frankly, we will make a decision to build a bridge and the river will have dried up by the time we have finished all of these examinations! I mean, let’s get a bit real here. And now we are adding the Productivity Commission! This is the most extraordinary set of processes being added to an otherwise robust independent assessment process. This is far more than we ever saw under the previous government. In fact, if this stuff ever sees the light of day it would be fascinating to do a comparative study in red tape on infrastructure investment in this country.