Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am absolutely delighted to support this bill, the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014, and I urge all senators to agree to the passage of the bill without amendment and without further delay. It would have come into this chamber in the last sitting fortnight of the previous session of parliament had there not been a very strong indication that it was not going to pass at that time. I hope, over the last five weeks, there was the opportunity for reflection by senators on all sides and for speaking to their constituents, particularly those in rural and regional areas of Australia. They, like me, would have been lobbied very strongly by local governments around Australia to pass this bill without delay.

As has been said previously, the actual funding for the Roads to Recovery program notionally expired on 30 June 2014, so at the moment there is a cloud and some uncertainty over the continuation of that program. I will not go to discussions of the changing of the name, because it was canvassed earlier in this place. What I do want to do is affirm the commitment of our Prime Minister, Mr Abbott; he has made the very strong statement that he wants to be known as 'the infrastructure Prime Minister'. All of those strategies and policies are being put into place to give effect to that commitment. The last thing this place needs and the last thing the Australian community, and road users in particular, need is to see that frustrated and thwarted if it is being done just for cheap, political purposes. This issue is far too important to be tied up in that sort of nonsense.

Through the Infrastructure Investment Program, over the coming six-year period the government is committing some $35½ billion to road and rail projects across Australia. Others have spelt them out. I want to focus on two of them—that is, the $686 million to finish the Gateway WA project around Perth Airport and the $615 million committed to build the Swan Valley bypass on the Perth to Darwin highway.

In recent days I have travelled up to Darwin and back to Perth; out to the airport again to travel to Esperance and then back to Perth; and then again within a few hours back to the airport to travel to Canberra. On each of those occasions I have had the opportunity to see the wonderful work that is being undertaken in the development of the Gateway WA project. It also emphasises, as we all know, that Western Australia is the powerhouse of the Australian economy. We know that the use of airports and the frequency of air travel underpin and speak to the enormous activity being undertaken.

Whilst it certainly is frustrating the movement of traffic, I wish to place on the record the tremendous accord that I have with, and my congratulations to, those responsible for giving effect to these engineering projects. How they are able to coordinate continually the movement of road traffic, vehicular traffic and heavy transport traffic to those air hubs and logistics hubs around our airports whilst at the same time undertaking this massive work, I think, deserves enormous credit. Those who have been in Perth recently may have travelled on the new, upgraded Great Eastern Highway into the city. Again, whilst it inconvenienced us, the fact that they were able to get on and get that work done and still allow those roads to remain open was tremendous. So I congratulate the government on its continuing efforts. I understand from Comcare drivers—in whose currency of knowledge I have enormous faith—that it will be towards the end of 2015 that we will see that finished.

The second project to which I referred is the Swan Valley bypass on the Perth to Darwin highway. Of course, there is no longer coastal shipping activity from Fremantle or Cockburn Sound going north for a lot of general cargo. There is, naturally, for completion of the major offshore gas projects at Gorgon and Wheatstone; but, unfortunately, coastal trade is no longer available for general cargo so it all now goes on roads. We in WA and those who have visited have all been grossly inconvenienced by the movement of enormously heavy vehicles carrying the components they do that will continue to drive the economy of Australia by supporting projects to the north and up to Darwin. It speaks volumes about the need for the Swan Valley bypass and, indeed, we just cannot get that work completed too quickly.

I turn to Roads to Recovery. Nobody should underestimate the value of this project, commenced under the Howard government and continued in the years of the Rudd and Gillard governments. What we are trying to do here—this is central to this bill that is before us today—is to guarantee continued funding to local governments so they can get on with their work. My colleagues earlier—perhaps Senator Rice, also Senator MacDonald and I think Senator Bilyk—referred to the value that local governments place on the Roads to Recovery funding. More to the point, it is locked in years in advance. By committing $2.1 billion over five years, the government has doubled funding for next financial year to every council in Australia. I think that is a recognition by the government of the value of this funding.

Why is this funding arrangement so valuable? Because every council in Australia will tell you that when Commonwealth funding is assured they can then add their own locally sourced funds—and state-sourced funds, if they have them. Every dollar is driven further, is utilised better, in terms of the effectiveness and the efficiency of the projects being funded. For example, if they are undertaking roadworks they can ensure that, by mobilising and not having to demobilise and start again, they can lay more tar and improve roads and shoulders, and they can provide the quality of roads that the community expects. We know, because of geographic circumstances, weather situations and pressure of use of roads, there are different challenges in different areas of Australia. There is no better project or funding in the view of local governments around Australia, supported by the federal government of the day, than the Roads to Recovery program. But it is at risk at the moment. I absolutely implore senators who have any interest—and I know we all do—in the future of our road networks to pass this bill without delay.

Mention has been made of black spot funding, and it is my understanding that the bill introduces a new type of project that can receive funding under part 4 of the act—Transport Development and Innovation Projects. These are projects, as the Deputy Prime Minister has said, that involve research, investigations, studies or analyses of investment relating to and including black spot projects—and how successful has the black spot concept been around Australia. So it will then be the case that those sorts of projects previously funded off network, funded under the Roads to Recovery program, will be eligible for part 4 funding. This amendment will enhance the management of projects and the Infrastructure Investment Program. Again, that is what we want to see in this country—we want to see maximum value for taxpayers' money in developing projects of value to the Australian community.

I cannot emphasise enough that we in this place and the media all too often make the comment that it is the government's money. Governments of themselves have no money. The money that they accumulate is accrued from taxpayers, company profits and interest on investments. Governments do not have money. Therefore it is incumbent on us as legislators to ensure that money is spent as wisely and as prudently and as frugally as it can be for the purposes for which it is allocated. We need to honour our commitment to Australian taxpayers—whether they pay through direct income taxes, taxes through GST, company profits or however else they are sourced—that we will spend their money as effectively as we possibly can.

As an aside, those young people looking down would have no idea that one of the effects of this bill will be the repeal of the Railway Standardisation (New South Wales and Victoria) Agreement Act 1958. I suspect that you, Mr Acting Deputy President, may not have been around when that was implemented. As we all know, we had the unusual circumstance up and down the east coast of Australia that the gauge of the railways in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria were all different. I recall one of the gauges being 5' 3", the standard gauge is 4' 8½" and the narrow gauge is 3'6". How ridiculous must it have been for somebody to board the 5' 3" gauge train in Brisbane, get as far as the border, unload themselves, their goods, their family and whatever else and get onto the 4' 8½", and then travel through New South Wales on the standard gauge only to repeat the whole exercise in Albury-Wodonga. In our own state of Western Australia, we had, and still do in many instances, the narrow gauge—the 3' 6". This bill repeals that particular agreement act of 1958, because the last loan repayments to the federal government were received in June 2013. So the loan has been repaid, and there is no longer any need for that element of legislation to be in place.

I understand from Senator Bilyk's contribution and that of Senator Rice that there will be amendments moved. The first one relates to the concept of a role for Infrastructure Australia in assessment. This is not what this bill is about. The issue associated with Infrastructure Australia casting its slide rule over projects and auditing them for the purposes of ascertaining effectiveness and allocating priority et cetera is worthy but it is not the subject of this bill. There is no case for holding up passage of the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill because of an element that is totally and utterly irrelevant. So let us not to be confused about that element: it is not before the chamber, and it is not part of this exercise. It simply adds to the confusion and delays the inevitable—we hope—passage of this bill. The claim has been made that Labor and the Greens want to complicate the arrangements and inappropriately create an additional role for Infrastructure Australia in this bill when, as I have just said, the act has nothing to do with the administrative arrangements. It makes no sense. It adds to red tape. It is relevant in other legislation but not relevant in this legislation, and it therefore should be dealt with in other fora—and not dealt with in this one.

Other amendments to this particular legislation have been proposed in the other place by the honourable Anthony Albanese—amendments which, again, the government does not accept—to enshrine the name of the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program into the act. Again, these matters are dealt with in different jurisdictions and therefore it is not necessary for them to be introduced into this bill.

In my concluding comments, I say this: the central component of Roads to Recovery is critical to all Australians. For those involved in local government, it underpins their roads programs—their roads maintenance and roads development programs. And—as I am sure my two colleagues, Senator Fawcett and Senator Johnston, would agree, both coming from states with large road networks—those programs are absolutely critical to ongoing maintenance, and to the ongoing efficiency and effectiveness of the overall spend on roads in those local governments. So I urge all senators in this place to put to one side those sorts of activities that may have been amusing or distracting but may, in fact, have taken us away from the essential elements of this bill. It is simple: it requires passage. I can assure you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that every local government around this country is watching and waiting, and hoping that common sense prevails and that the bill is passed.