Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (5) on sheet 7482.

(5) Schedule 1, item 8, page 5 (line 28), after "productivity", insert ", liveability and sustainability".

This is a reasonably simple amendment that proposes to insert after 'productivity' the words 'liveability' and 'sustainability'. This is similar in intent to amendments that we moved before that were not supported by the government, but I am pleased to say they were supported by the opposition. If we imagine that infrastructure provision is best decided as though people live inside spreadsheets, that everything can be quantified and that really economic productivity is the only factor that you should pay attention to, then we will end up making very bad decisions. We have a history of doing exactly that. Yes, productivity is extremely important, although I wish the government would pay as much attention to energy and water productivity as they do to labour productivity. If they did that, it would lead to something of a revolution in the way infrastructure is designed and delivered. But, nonetheless, it is still an important factor that needs to be borne in mind. The Australian Greens would argue that so is liveability for host communities and the people who actually have to live with some of these decisions and sustainability, in the broadest sense of the word, whether we are building obsolete infrastructure or infrastructure that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. That is the intent of this amendment.