Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Could I just make my comments. I listened to yours. In the debacle that occurred in the House last night, every attempt was made by the Labor Party to ensure there was a proper process and proper passage of this legislation, including allowing the opportunity for individual parties to go through their own processes. It has long been the convention in this place that, when you introduce a bill into the parliament, debate on the bill is then adjourned and then there are processes that parties go through in their own organisations and then there are processes that follow in this parliament to have a bill dealt with appropriately.

We have placed on the record our concerns that that process has been abused and that those conventions have been thrown out. The only reason for this, it seems, is so that the government can play some political game, the politics of wedge. That is the only the reason this has been rammed through; there are no other logical reasons. This bill was not introduced with the other legislation that was introduced in the first sitting week along with other bills that the government identified as priorities. This bill was not a part of that. There was no mention of it. The earliest opportunity that money could flow from these bills is 1 July 2020. So, in that sense, the urgency around these funds flowing is not there either.

The substance of the bill is another area that Labor has raised concerns about. This is not a $5 billion fund going to farmers, as the government would like the headlines to read. This is a fund that's being established from $3.9 billion, which is held in the Building Australia Fund, which was a fund established to ensure that there were proper processes around the allocation of infrastructure funding to align with Infrastructure Australia and to ensure, in the national interest, that our infrastructure funding was aligned with those priorities. We are concerned about the abolition of the Building Australia Fund. It was an important microeconomic reform, in terms of the ability to work in the national interest, as opposed to the examples we've seen in working in the National Party's interest. Again, we would be monitoring this drought fund for evidence of that.

In terms of the urgency, what we've seen from this government—particularly in this Prime Minister's rather bullying and arrogant style, which is fast becoming the standard operating procedure of this government since the 18 May election—is that it is essentially looking at how it can prioritise legislation based on fights that they can pick with Labor. We've seen this from so many, including the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Prime Minister and other senior ministers, who are constantly out and about, going, 'This legislation is a test for Labor'. It is not: 'This legislation is seeking to support farmers, seeking to ensure we have appropriate resourcing going into drought remediation and research'. It is: 'This legislation is a test for Labor'. That's why this legislation has been rammed through over the last two days. In terms of the money that's allocated, not one cent of this fund will flow until 1 July 2020, at the earliest. And it's not a $5 billion fund; only $200 million is allocated for this parliamentary term.

We think it is juvenile and arrogant of this government to use this bill to play parliamentary games. There are only so many games they can play. Yesterday in this place, they ran out of work on the first real sitting day of the first sitting week since re-election. This third-term government, seemingly without an agenda, is dusting off legislation that they seemingly didn't prioritise in the last term. It was originally drafted and could have passed during the last parliament. The government is dusting off this legislation in an attempt to play a game and set a test for the opposition.

This government needs to start governing and it needs to start governing in the national interest. I think that's what the people of Australia want. They are sick of the conflict and the argument and the games that get played here in Canberra. It brings my home town into disrepute, I can tell you that. What they want to see is a government that's focused on the issues that matter to them, and those issues are significant and the drought is one of those significant issues. It is the worst drought in 120 years. When you travel around this country, you see the effects of it everywhere. The fact that the government would try and take a bill that, on the substance of the issue, a fund for drought remediation, should be something that has the unanimous support of this parliament and then use it in a way to try and wedge Labor is, I think, evidence of the fact that the government was not ready to be the government and is still scrambling around, looking at what its actual agenda will be over the next three years.

Labor's not going to play the game. We are prepared to stand up, move amendments, explain our position, argue for good process, argue to ensure that the national interest is being met and argue to make sure that the priorities facing this country are being dealt with. But we're not going to get suckered into the game the government is trying to play with us. We will not stand in the way of this fund, but we don't believe it's going to do the things the government is arguing it will do. We don't know why the government doesn't have a drought envoy anymore. We don't know why it doesn't have a drought strategy. We don't know why it's making this fund wait a year for any application to be considered under the arrangements. We don't think it's enough.

The Leader of the Opposition has made it clear: come and talk to us about an appropriation to actually support farmers and deal with the worst effects of the drought that is ravaging this country. Come and talk to us. At this stage, this is the best we've got to offer. We won't stand in the way of this bill, but we are going to make it clear that we don't think this is the proper way to deal with legislation. We don't think it treats the parliament respectfully and we don't think it treats the conventions of this place and the other place as they should be treated—that is, as the parliament has operated for some time now.

In the other place, Labor suggested a 24-hour delay to allow its processes to occur and to allow for proper consideration of the bills. But the government wouldn't even allow that to happen. Faced with the majority they've got in the House, and the fact that they are emboldened after the election, the thought that they could deny Labor caucus members the opportunity to discuss this bill obviously really excited them, and that's the path that they took yesterday. They wouldn't allow our caucus members to go through our own democratic processes and have that discussion. At the same time that the government was ramming this bill through in the other place, we were left with a farcical situation in this parliament—this chamber actually running out of business and having to revert back to the Governor-General's address-in-reply.

The fund isn't urgent. I mentioned the comments the Leader of the Labor Party made last week, when he made it clear that we will support drought assistance:

We'll support it not just for $100 million; we'll support it at every level you're prepared to put forward. We can bring it forward to the current financial year, not 12 months time. It could be more than $100 million, and we'd vote for it.

But the government is not telling the truth when it comes to the facts about the fund. It continues to call it the $5 billion Future Drought Fund. The $5 billion won't be available for farmers. It's $100 million a year, $200 million over the life of this parliament, and the fund doesn't reach that $5 billion level until the end of the decade.

In terms of the urgency of this bill, the government had this bill before the election but it didn't even put it before the Senate. Why wasn't it urgent then? The weather and the drought situation haven't dramatically changed in the last six months. Australia has been suffering through this drought for many years now.

In terms of support, we have played an important role in supporting government action to help farmers make their operations more resilient in the face of drought. We have supported all of the recent and immediate drought measures put forward by the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, including: an additional supplementary farm household allowance payment of up to $12,000 for eligible FHA recipients; increasing the FHA extension from three years to four years; increasing the farm asset threshold from $2.6 million to $5 million; and increasing the farm management deposit scheme to $800,000.

I don't think it's fair for those opposite—as they've been attempting to do—to play politics with this, ask Labor which side it's on and use all that poisonous divisive language that Australians are so sick of. When they look at the voting record, when they look at our position on this bill today, they cannot run any narrative about Labor not being on the side of farmers. Our voting record proves it. This is the pragmatic position we have taken on this bill today. Despite the attempts by the government to wind Labor up, we will not play that game. We are making our decisions on what's in the national interest and, in this instance, not standing in the way of this fund—despite our concerns about it—is the right thing to do.

In terms of the Building Australia Fund, the Future Drought Fund Bill not only sets up the new fund but also abolishes the Building Australia Fund and transfers the current uncommitted amount of funding, $3.95 billion, as in the 2019-20 portfolio budget statements, into the new fund. One of the arguments made by the government is that nothing has been drawn out of the BAF since 2012-13 and that it's been making small amounts of interest revenue. Let's have a look at that.

Instead of attempting to abolish the BAF on a number of occasions for asset recycling, and, most shamefully, attempting to paint Labor as being against the NDIS—those being just two of the examples—a serious government would not have let the BAF sit idle all this time. The Building Australia Fund actually assists people in regional Australia to get goods to markets, to make our roads safer and to build important infrastructure. This government has neglected that and is not talking about that side of the story at all.

Importantly, the Building Australia Fund was not a political slush fund. And that's exactly what the government's problem has been with it. It was a major economic reform. It was sensible. It was a transparent means of allocating scarce resources to achieve maximum benefit to the community. It wasn't to allow individual politicians to lobby hard and to get pet projects or special projects in their electorate that didn't necessarily align with the priorities of Infrastructure Australia, who'd go through a rigorous and detailed analysis of the benefits and costs of each project. If, in the future, we were elected and had the honour of forming government, we would re-establish a fund like the Building Australia Fund because we do think it's important that there be a funding component that's linked to the work that Infrastructure Australia does, and we do believe that the Australian people, when they have a look at it, will support independent, at-arms-length decisions made about nation-building infrastructure in this country.

To sum up: Labor supports the bill. We don't want to be painted as a party that opposes support for farmers. As I've explained in my speech, our voting record, the work that the shadow minister for agriculture has done and the comments that the Labor leader has made have made it very clear that we want more assistance for farmers; we want more effort from the government into looking at drought remediation and at things like climate change and the impact that that is having on the agricultural industry and farming in this country. We think a lot more can be done. We don't think this is the sole answer. But if this fund dishes out $200 million—hopefully, to very worthy projects that will have gone through a process that will have been improved through the efforts of the member for Indi—then that will be a good outcome.

But, as to the way that this has been handled by the government this week—without an agenda or any program, without any ideas on what they stand for, who they are and what they're going to do for the next three years—they have dusted off this bill and gone: 'You know what? This could be fun in the chamber this week. We could really try and put pressure on people if we bring this in and then ram it through the House and then put pressure on people not to support any delays in the Senate. That really could be fun.' That's the only reason we are standing here talking about this bill today—because it wasn't introduced by the government; it wasn't mentioned as a priority bill; it didn't get a mention in the first sitting week; it is not going to come into effect for another 11 to 12 months; no-one will see a cent of this—not one cent—next week, the week after nor the week after that; not for 11 or 12 months will any of this money flow.

We do object to the closing of the Building Australia Fund. We do think the reform that was put in place by the previous Labor government to separate infrastructure funding decisions from parliamentarians and to have a better process for aligning a funding source with the decisions of Infrastructure Australia is a much better way to go when you're looking at the long-term infrastructure needs of this country, not short-term pork-barrelling interests. That is the difference. That's what we are walking away from with this bill today. We object to that. I will be moving a second reading amendment. It will in fact be identical to the amendment we moved in the House to make sure that our objections are recorded and clear and that we will, in government, seek to reintroduce this style of fund with this approach in order to make sure that the process for allocating infrastructure is very clean and clear.

Don't believe the government's rhetoric for a minute. This is not a $5 billion fund; it is $100 million going out to projects yet to be determined in a years time and only $200 million over the next couple of years. We think more needs to be done. When it becomes clear that this is the government's answer to some of these major issues, I think most farmers and most farming communities who are living through this drought will be deeply disappointed. I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

“, but the Senate:

(a) condemns the Government for its failure over six years to develop and implement a comprehensive and effective policy to assist rural and regional communities facing severe drought conditions; and

(b) notes that the inferior response contained in the bill requires the abolition of the Building Australia Fund, which could be used to build road, rail, and other vital infrastructure—including water infrastructure—in these very same rural and regional communities.”