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

In fact there is a section in our select committee report about commercial-in-confidence and why it should be jettisoned for the exact same reason that I just mentioned. I thought I would point out, Minister Canavan, that the most obvious thing to the committee when we were taking evidence—and we were looking at assets of exactly the kind that you have outlined, in places all around the country, including, as I mentioned today, Rockhampton—was that the private sector, be they investment funds or be they corporates, had a very high expected rate of return on their investment in these assets. They were interested in brownfield assets and, when we looked at greenfield assets, which are by nature higher risk, that expected rate of return climbed. When we asked, 'Why is that risk premium so high on infrastructure spending, which is supposed to be a fairly safe and boring investment?'—the reality is quite different; they have actually got a lot of risks inherent in them—we heard that the expected premium was really high because of the same issues that I mentioned: the lack of transparency and the concern around social licence for investment in these kinds of projects. They said: 'If you want to reduce our expected rates of return, if you want to reduce the risk premiums in these projects, have fully transparent, comprehensive cost-benefit analysis published. Have these things out there so that we can actually look at the detail and we can make decisions based on these projects.'

The same applies to a government-sponsored infrastructure bank or infrastructure fund that is making direct investments using taxpayers' money. We do not need a commercial-in-confidence law to hide behind. If we want to make the best decisions and get the best bang for our buck, we need to be fully transparent. I just thought I would point that out, Senator Canavan. I am sure you would appreciate the logic behind that. I am not sure why we are going down this road, when it is so obvious and we have got literally 20 or 30 pages of evidence just on these issues from some very key stakeholders around the country, including investment banks and companies that already invest in infrastructure. It is the politicisation and the unknowns that are causing the lack of certainty and the perception of high risk in infrastructure projects. All we are asking for is transparency. It does not sound that hard.