Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

You are grateful. We appreciate that you show your gratitude to them. But the Labor opposition want to ensure that this does not become a marginal seat pork-barrel operation for a mates-based approach to government spending. The focus should always be on productivity and jobs.

Labor sees the value in working with the private sector to develop nationally significant infrastructure. People watching and listening to this debate should not fall into the trap of thinking that Labor is anti privatisation. Labor's view is that decisions about assets that are earmarked for privatisation need to stand on their own merits. The question that needs to be asked is: is the privatisation of this infrastructure asset the right approach that will benefit taxpayers and the long-term interests of our country? This should not be done simply to support an ideological fanaticism to privatise assets in the mode of those flat-earth, economic puritans on the other side. Nor should it be the basis for the Commonwealth's commitment to cut funding for nation-building infrastructure. The Commonwealth currently provides grants of up to 80 per cent for infrastructure. Will the states be left to do the heavy lifting on infrastructure, as the Commonwealth steps back and offers only 15 per cent for privatising? Thanks to Labor, current legislation already seeks to encourage private sector investment through a range of measures that were established after extensive consultation with industry. The government just does not seem to be aware of this.

So let me explain it to those opposite. In the 2013 budget, Labor created incentives through uplifting the value of carry-forward losses to bring them in line with the 10-year bond rate for eligible projects up to a value of $25 billion in total. Labor also exempted the carry-forward losses and bad debt reductions from continuity of ownership and the same business tests for eligible projects. These changes encouraged private sector ownership of brownfield infrastructure projects, where expenses are heavily front ended. They came about thanks to an exhaustive consultation process with the sector. They encouraged private investment in nationally important infrastructure. Yet here we are, and the coalition does not even seem to be aware of what legislation is already in place.

On our changes to carry-forward losses, we built this into the Infrastructure Australia process. In order to receive the tax-loss incentive, the independent expert Infrastructure Australia was involved. We specifically put an independent group of experts into the process to ensure it remained fair and proper. The infrastructure being built had to be nation-building infrastructure to access this support. That is the rationale for the amendments we are putting forward to this bill. There needs to be transparency and the government's infrastructure expert needs to be involved so that any privatisation of assets is productivity enhancing.

Labor welcomes the decision the government made a fortnight ago to accept all of the Senate amendments—mainly from the opposition—to the Infrastructure Australia bill. These amendments retain Infrastructure Australia as an independent adviser to government. The challenge now is for the government to accept IA's advice; having talked the talk, it now needs to walk the walk. The advice IA provided on East West stage 2 was that it is not ready to proceed. There is a pretty good reason for that. As someone who lives in Melbourne, I know that the inept, incompetent Napthine government has not actually submitted any significant details—basically, a letter of request. There is a reason why it has not submitted any significant details. You see, when you build a tunnel you normally need two things: you need to know where you are going to start and you need to know where you are going to finish. This proposal is so half baked—no, that is being unkind to half-baked proposals! This proposal is so weak they have decided they know where they are going to start digging a billion-dollar tunnel but they have not actually decided where it is going to come up. That is true. You are trying to hide your laughing! They actually got funding for a tunnel on the basis that they know where they are starting but they do not know where it is going to come up! There is no plan. They have not even got as far as working out where the tunnel will come up in Melbourne. I know, because I live on the western side of Melbourne, that it is somewhere in the west of Melbourne that they are going to bring the tunnel up. But that's all right, let's give them a billion dollars in advance! They have actually given them a billion dollars, two years in advance, before they even know where the tunnel is going to come up. That is what we call pork-barrelling to help out a desperate state Liberal government that is facing oblivion at the polls. So they have thrown a billion dollars at this project to try and make the Napthine government look good before an election. Who would fund one end of a tunnel? Seriously Mr Acting Deputy President, would you fund one end of a tunnel? It is tragic, but it is all true.