Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I remember the Productivity Commission saying in estimates—and I think you were in the room, Senator Canavan—'Transparency is in our genes'. I know you follow their work very closely. What we discovered in this committee was that there is actually a pool of private funds out there—investors' funds and corporate funds—looking to invest in the kinds of projects that you have outlined for this northern Australia fund. The reason that they do not want to invest in these kinds of projects off their own bat is the risk profile of the projects. When you ask them about the risk profile, they talk about the politicisation of infrastructure spending in this country, particularly the lack of transparency around how these projects are selected by Infrastructure Australia, who only advise the minister, as you know; they do not go any further than that. They said that, if cost-benefit analyses were done, were transparent and were made public—full triple-bottom-line analysis, including the environmental issues that Senator Waters has outlined here today—then that would give business confidence to overcome the market failure that is clearly obvious and is why we have got infrastructure gaps and underinvestments in places like northern Australia. You know, probably better than most people in this chamber, how important these kinds of things are, and it astounds me that you are sitting here tonight knocking back perfectly good amendments that would probably attract private investment and make these projects a lot more efficient.