Nova Peris (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Asset Recycling Fund Bill 2014 and cognate bill which essentially provide for the Commonwealth to provide an incentive to privatise state and territory assets and to recycle the proceeds into new infrastructure. The Commonwealth contribution is to provide state and territory governments with an additional 15 per cent for the reinvested sale proceeds to the cost of the project. Firstly, I support the position from Labor that projects funded under the scheme should be subject to the advice from Infrastructure Australia but, in particular, I support the position that a disallowable instrument should be provided for each potential sale so that the parliament can block any potential asset sale as ineligible for this scheme. This is because I have some very serious concerns about how this scheme will be applied in the Northern Territory, as do many Territorians who have contacted me with their concerns on what the Northern Territory Country Liberal government will do under the scheme.

Territorians do not want the scheme to be used by the CLP government to justify selling off our valuable public assets. They do not want the CLP government to sell off Power and Water, TIO and the Port of Darwin. This is why the Labor amendment supporting the disallowance instrument is so important. I will come back to the concerns that I and many other Territorians and community members have in relation to the selling off of our efforts.

As we all know, the Northern Territory suffers from a major infrastructure deficit. This is not a political statement; it is a fact. It is why we have a parliamentary committee looking into developing the North. We are also currently suffering from a major lack of infrastructure funding. The budget had no new infrastructure funding for the Northern Territory. All they have done is to attempt to re-announce projects from previous budgets. In fact, the Abbott budget outlined that over the next seven years the Northern Territory will get less than one per cent of the nation's infrastructure budget. You simply cannot develop the North by spending 99 per cent of the funding down south. Our lack of infrastructure funding has been met with a great deal of dismay in the Northern Territory. Even Chief Minister Adam Giles has been pushed to attack his own party for the pathetic amount of funding coming to the Northern Territory. Recently Treasurer Joe Hockey came to Darwin. He was asked by journalists at a press conference about the lack of funding. He said we should not be jealous. Can you believe that? This is exactly what he said, 'Don’t be jealous, because the rest of the country is jealous of your unemployment rate and the fact you have a very strong economy here. In other parts of the country we would need to lift the economy because ultimately it is not about getting a greater share of the pie. It is about lifting the total economy so that everyone can benefit.' Remarkably, member for Solomon Natasha Griggs supported his claims and said that the money should go down south because we did not have the workforce in the Northern Territory to carry out the work. Naturally, the Darwin media, as you can imagine, gave a lot of coverage about her outrageous, her outrageous remarkable claims, which no-one simply agreed with. She tried to claim that she was taken out of context so the Northern Territory News printed the entire claim. They hung her out to dry with her own words. There was nothing out of context. She simply outlined that she thought infrastructure funding should not come to the Northern Territory.

We have also seen in the Northern Territory News Joe Hockey refusing to rule out that they will not use the revenue they get from their planned fuel tax to pay for roads they have already committed to. Regardless of the views of Natasha Griggs and Joe Hockey, everyone else in the Northern Territory is concerned about the lack of funding, including Northern Territory government.

As I mentioned, the other major issue is the Northern Territory is under threat of privatisation. The Northern Territory government is clearly looking at selling off several of our assets. The big three currently under threat are Power and Water, Territory Insurance Office and the Port of Darwin. The Northern Territory government is clearly looking at selling these assets and I am concerned that they will use the asset recycling scheme as a justification to sell them. I am also extremely concerned that the Commonwealth would use the scheme as a gun to be held to the Northern Territory's head: 'Sell your assets or forget about infrastructure funding!' We should not have to sell our assets to get infrastructure funding. Projects should be funded based on needs not on whether you are willing to sell your assets.

Prior to the last election in the Northern Territory, the Country Liberal Party signed written contracts with several remote communities and regions which they have since effectively torn up. None of the infrastructure spending promise has been delivered. This is one of the main reasons three of the regional members walked out on them. For example, they promised an all-year accessible road to Wadeye. They promised this in a signed, written agreement with the community. In the tropics, such a road would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. We are coming up to nearly two years since the promise was made and two budgets have come and gone. There has been no funding or even a suggestion of funding. There has been no sign of any attempt to deliver on this promise. This was just one example that made up billions of dollars of underfunded election promises in the bush that are simply not happening. As former Chief Minister Paul Henderson, said, 'They are just spreading fairy dust in the bush.' He was right. They made underfunded promises they never intended to keep and it is coming back to bite them. As I have mentioned, they have already lost three of their own bush members.

I am concerned that in the CLP's desperation to pretend to be delivering on the billions of dollars they require that they would definitely sell off our assets under this scheme. I will briefly go through each of them and our concerns. Power and Water is the first one. After the CLP promised to cut the cost of power, they even ran election ads complaining about how much people dreaded their power bills. They immediately put up power bills annually by $2, 000 a household. Most people at the time were very much of the view that the CLP were fattening Power and Water up for sale. It now looks as though they were right. The Northern Territory government, without any analysis, modelling or consultation, has recently split up Power and Water into three separate entities. The only reason to do this would be to sell it, breaking it up into nice little saleable entities. In fact, the Chief Minister has already suggested that the sale of Power and Water under the asset recycling scheme will be considered. He said he had the view that the scheme is a means to get extra taxpayer value for public assets and he would not rule it out.

We have no gas pipe to the households in the Northern Territory and we are very reliant on Power and Water for air conditioning. We had the highest power bills in this country. We also get some pretty big storms and reliability is a big issue. Just last month we had the town of Nhulunbuy without power for 24 hours. We have seen the same in Darwin. Could you imagine if Melbourne or Sydney was without power for 24 hours—and this happens regularly in Darwin?

People in the Northern Territory know that selling Power and Water would guarantee two things: higher prices and longer, more frequent blackouts. I am therefore very concerned that Power and Water will be sold off under the scheme that this bill creates. I am also very concerned that the people of the Northern Territory will get no say.