Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Labor opposes these amendments. The amendments effectively make this parliament indifferent to the assets sold by states in order to access the 15 per cent Commonwealth privatisation incentive. It does so by removing the oversight of the House of Representatives and the Senate proposed in Labor's amendment. Labor believes it is appropriate and an important protection to allow the parliament to scrutinise asset sales on a case-by-case basis before taxpayers' money is spent. Many state-owned assets should not be sold. Given that this then leads to an argument about what should replace these state-owned assets, you look at what is happening in New South Wales now. You see that there was simply an announcement by the coalition that WestConnex would be built. There has been no attempt to have any transparency with respect to the cost-benefit analysis on WestConnex. The more people look at what is happening with WestConnex in New South Wales and in Sydney, the more they are concerned that this was simply a case of trying to deal with an election promise from the state government and the federal government. At the last estimates hearings, I asked a specific question of the department: had a cost-benefit analysis been undertaken in relation to WestConnex? They said no and that it was an election promise.

So if anyone in here thinks that we should just simply allow state or federal governments to deliver on election promises without a proper cost-benefit analysis and proper scrutiny by this parliament, they are not acting in the interests of the parliament, the nation or proper infrastructure builds in this country.

We are sick and tired of the pork-barrelling that went on under the Liberal coalition government when they were last in power. There was no analysis as to what should be done. Billions of dollars were spent on pork-barrelling, when Engineers Australia, AiG and the Business Council of Australia were crying out for properly analysed infrastructure deals that would have improved the productivity performance of this nation.

It is so important to ensure that these amendments go through as they stand and not as proposed by Senator Leyonhjelm. This will simply water down our overview, oversight and capacity to act in the national interest.

As you have seen in the past, many times state governments do not act in the national interest, the state interest or the constituents' interests. We want clear and unequivocal overview that gives us an opportunity to test not only the cost-benefit analysis but whether this is a pork-barrelling initiative or an initiative that is in the national interest. If you are interested in the national interest, you will oppose Senator Leyonhjelm amendments.