Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak in this debate on the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014. Can I add to Senator Rhiannon's comments that I do not think she will get an answer from the minister—but it is worth holding out for that, in any event. This government does not want to engage in debate. Quite clearly, in this instance, they have been cruel and particularly unfair. They said that they would be an infrastructure government, but they did not tell the Australian people that it would be done on the back of the lowest and middle-income earners, with savage cuts and higher taxes. They did not say that they would do it by re-announcing all of Labor's infrastructure projects.

To be fair to the Treasurer—something he is not used to—he does not think this is an unfair budget. In his mind, poor people do not drive cars anyway. He could take the ice bucket challenge, but I think this challenge would be better. I would like him to stand on the M1, with a billboard that has his photo on it—he could also maybe do this on the M5 in peak hour traffic in Sydney or on the Gateway Motorway or the M1 in Brisbane—and tell those hardworking people that they do not need to worry because they do not drive cars anyway. I would ask him to try that challenge and see how he fares. It might be easier to do the bucket of cold water, and that could wake him up to the fact that he is so wrong about these issues.

The bill amends Labor's Nation Building Program legislation. Labor's Nation Building Program saved the country from the worst of the GFC but, in particular, it did this: it modernised Australia's land transport infrastructure. The government is now determined to tear it up and in its place put only pain and incompetence. This government is really two halves: on one side, they are cruel, mean and heartless, determined to inflict pain on the lowest income earners in the community; on the other side, they are simply incompetent, bumbling around like clowns, a three-ring circus, falling over their own words and tripping themselves up on a budget of broken promises. When you put them together, they make a whole of incompetence and cruel cuts.

Let us look at the incompetence in the budget strategy. First it was a 'budget crisis'. Senator Williams—in this debate—changed the words again; he did not use the words 'budget crisis'. So the government are not clear about what it is. Then it was an emergency. Then it was a problem. But, when 97 per cent of the budget had already passed, they said, 'No problem at all; nothing to see here.' Then, all of a sudden, Mr Barnaby Joyce shot out of the gate and said hospitals and schools would close down if the budget were not passed. Everybody on that side forgot to tell him; again, they forgot to give him the script so that he would get it right! They belatedly wheeled consultants and party hacks into the cabinet room to tell them to tone it down: 'Tone it down. Don't get people excited about your budget crisis,' or your budget emergency or your budget problem, whichever it might be. I am not sure if they got around to discussing it in the party room yesterday. It would have been hard to get a word in, with Senator Macdonald's tirade against Mr Tony Abbott. But I digress, and this is a serious issue. But I wanted to make sure we understood the frame of this debate, where the coalition are at with this debate and, more importantly, how incompetent they are when it comes to reform or following through on reform.

Much of the debate on this bill has centred on the fact that everyone here, I think, believes that we need to continue to improve our roads to have good infrastructure and that that should continue. I think the coalition started out with that premise but lost their way, through being either mean or incompetent—take your pick. The bill relates to roads, rail and intermodal funding by the Commonwealth, and the minister's second reading speech mentioned a dozen major projects that were announced and funded by the previous, federal Labor government. They included the $6.7 billion to upgrade the Bruce Highway—I will say that again: $6.7 billion to upgrade the Bruce Highway—one of the important links across Queensland; $5.6 billion to finish the duplication of the Pacific Highway, which is absolutely necessary; and $1 billion to continue the Gateway Motorway North upgrade in Brisbane. All those projects are about supporting Queensland, Queensland jobs and Queensland infrastructure. In one sense, it is pleasing to see that the coalition did not rip the heart out of that when they got into government; they just re-announced our programs.

What worries me most of all is whether the government will pick up the cost of changing the name of this funding program from the Nation Building Program. The opposition have sought an assurance from Mr Truss that additional Commonwealth expenditure will not be incurred as a result of the name change.

But one of the most difficult issues, and I think Senator Rhiannon picked up on this earlier, is whether, if the government continue with all those funding commitments—including finishing the Gateway WA project in Perth, which I know you, Acting Deputy President Sterle, would be interested in finalising, as well as the $615 million to build the Swan Valley bypass on the Perth to Darwin highway—it is going to be a case of, 'We'll continue this funding but we're going to have to drag money away from somewhere else,' such as the Federal Assistance Grants to local councils and other areas. So is it true that they are going to provide this funding, ultimately?

The government deem it necessary to extend Roads to Recovery. This is, as we know, a very popular program when you go out and talk to local councils; they find it fits their bill. This is a program that Labor funded out to 2018—a total of $1.75 billion fully funded in Labor's budget. The coalition say they support the program. However, if you look at their savage cuts to Financial Assistance Grants in the 2014 budget, the total cut being nearly $1 billion over four years, they appear to have taken with one hand and allowed the remainder to be there. So it is of no comfort to local councils in Queensland. In six years, the indexation freeze on these grants will overwhelm the $350 million allocation made under Roads to Recovery, making support for local government roads a complete mockery. That is where we have ended up with this coalition. 'Tricky and mean' is all you can say about them when it comes to the way they have structured their budget for roads.

On the other hand, if you look at Labor's record—Senator Williams tried to decry what we have done—we doubled the budget to $46.5 billion, upgraded 7,500 kilometres of roads and lifted local government roads grants by 20 per cent. So we have put our bona fides on the table. The local councils out there recognise the hard work that Mr Albanese, from the other place, did as roads minister. They still talk about him reasonably fondly for the work that he did in those regions. He remains committed to assisting local councils to improve their roads and infrastructure.

Let us compare that with the coalition's position. The coalition has committed to the Melbourne East West Link and Sydney's WestConnex projects without cost-benefit analyses in defiance of its own election promises; has shamelessly, as I have said, re-announced Labor's projects, such as the Gateway North in Brisbane and the Bruce and Pacific highway upgrades, claiming they are coalition projects; and has tried to welsh on $500 million on roads spending in WA for the Great Northern Highway and the North West Coastal Highway. They backflipped, and I suspect it was a backflip with half pike. We could give some of the credit for that spending to Senator Sterle, but I think Mr Albanese can take the credit for pushing very hard to secure that backflip with half pike from the coalition. All of this points to the coalition being very tricky and mean when it comes to roads and infrastructure funding.

There are two amendments that we want to make to this bill. I know Senator Sterle has a very deep interest in one, which is the heavy vehicle program. The first amendment seeks to formalise an initiative taken under the former Labor government, a program targeting infrastructure around heavy vehicle driver fatigue and productivity. This program is about ensuring that there are properly funded rest stops along highways to provide more options for drivers to take their break. This highly popular program has funded many initiatives across rural and regional Australia. I ask Senator Williams to support this amendment. If he has an ounce of rural or regional blood in his veins, he will support a program that supports regional truck drivers. I doubt he will, but I will make the bold assertion that he should.

Infrastructure Australia also needs transparency. This government shrouds itself in secrecy. It loves the dark. That is about all you can say about it. It does not want any light on or transparency about what it does. I did not think that I would find a lack of transparency here in road infrastructure. I knew I could find it in the Attorney-General's portfolio and in border command and border protection. They are up-front about it, at least—they simply said, 'I am not going to tell you at all. We will keep it to ourselves. You can go and figure it out yourself.' At least they were up-front about it. At least they told us. I do not agree with their secrecy, I believe that they should have transparency and openness, but in this case who would have thought that you would have secrecy surrounding road infrastructure? But secrecy has found its way in.

Labor wants to ensure that there is full and transparent scrutiny of major project spending. It happened under Labor; why can it not happen under the coalition? They do not want it to. It makes you suspicious instantly, quite frankly. Many stakeholders in the infrastructure debate have called for greater transparency and accountability in how the Commonwealth spends its funds in infrastructure. It makes sense, because people want to have confidence that these billions of dollars being spent on roads are being spent wisely on the areas that require them and in the order that they should be.

Transparency and accountability are anathema to this coalition government. I think they do not like the words. If you were playing word games with them, they would never make those two words no matter how many letters they had to support them. In this instance, this government should take on board this recommendation. This will ensure proper scrutiny before projects are approved. It is about ensuring that we ask the minister to seek the views of the government's expert adviser on infrastructure, Infrastructure Australia. It makes sense. If you are going to spend in this area, why would you not get the expert's evaluation? I think the coalition will not support this amendment, because they love the black. They do not want to have transparency and accountability.

The Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill enables the continuation of the Roads to Recovery program after 30 June 2014. It seeks to unify the scheme for funding national land transport network projects. It also seeks to enlarge the scope of the power to fund research, investigation, studies and analysis. Ultimately, the policy area by the coalition is not new—and I think that is the main point we should note in this debate. They have not come up with any new policy position in this debate. They have done what I said they did when I started—they have simply renamed it and exaggerated the impression of a major shift for the media's consumption. They bang the tambourine drum, as you say, but ultimately it is the same tune. Nothing has changed—except the areas I highlighted where I think they are being tricky and mean, and are seeking to rip funding out from this area. Why they hate local councils so much, I am not sure. In opposition, the coalition would praise local councils. They would talk to them continuously. But now when you travel around rural and regional Australia, local councils are feeling like they have been short-changed by the coalition—I think Senator Williams, particularly, has an affinity with rural Australia. I think the coalition have done themselves a huge disservice in this debate, particularly around roads. When you understand that councils rely significantly on this funding stream to ensure that local communities can be well supported with roads, it really makes you reconsider the coalition's position on this—and appeal to local councils to reconsider their position, which has been to support this program under the now coalition government.

One of the areas I would like to go to briefly is that, whilst Labor was rebuilding the road infrastructure network, we also, through Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, rebuilt many roads and other infrastructure out in the community. Like Senator Rhiannon, I would also like some assurances from the coalition that, as part of the way forward, they will not also—as they have done with Roads to Recovery and with the federal grants to local councils—short-change local councils on NDRRA spending. We are a country which suffers from floods. We are a country which has cyclones. These events decimate local areas, particularly roads and infrastructure. and they need to be rebuilt; rebuilt quickly and rebuilt well. When Labor was in government, we did just that. I worked with the Attorney-General and I worked with Mr Albanese, to do just that. What I worry about—and the government could put this beyond doubt—is whether the coalition will continue that hard work to make sure that they do not push the cost onto councils like they have done under FAGs. (Time expired)