Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the Finance and Public Administration References Committee's report into the Urban Congestion Fund together with accompanying documents, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This afternoon, thousands of Australians will be stuck in traffic. Even as Australia recovers from the pandemic, the traffic has started again in our major cities. Before the pandemic, Sydneysiders spent an average of 71 minutes a day commuting. Those figures are highest in outer suburbs.

Rouse Hill, for example, saw its average commute jump by 60 per cent in the five years to 2019. That is time away from family, hours of our lives spent waiting, unproductive time in economic or family or community terms. At a campaign rally before the 2019 election, dripping with mock marketing sincerity, the Prime Minister said this about the construction of commuter car parks:

Yes, it's cement and it is bitumen and it's all of these things, but what it is really about is how we are really committed to families, to ensure that people get home sooner and safer in this big city of ours, or in the big city of Melbourne or Brisbane or over in Perth or wherever it happens to be.

This report outlines a broken promise to those Australians, how the government saw that desire to spend more time with our families and exploited it for their short-term political advantage.

Commuter car parks should serve a purpose, particularly in our outer suburbs, where bus links to stations are spread too far apart, and that makes long car commutes inevitable for too many Australians. But this government wasn't interested in achieving a policy objective. Mr Morrison was only interested in using public money to sandbag vulnerable Victorian seats. It wasn't built on a coherent plan to manage growing numbers of Australian citizens. They didn't consult state and local governments, which has left the federal government exposed to the full cost of these ventures, guaranteeing inevitable cost overruns and delays. Contrast this to the Victorian level crossing removal initiative. Premier Andrews said he would remove 50 level crossings by 2022. As of last week, he had delivered all 50.

The commuter car park fund was $660 million of taxpayer money for Liberal Party campaign announcements. The money was administered through a process in which coalition MPs and candidates canvassed now former minister Tudge's office directly. Former minister Tudge's office, with the direct involvement of the Prime Minister's office, then finalised announcements for projects based on the interests and the timetables of coalition candidates and campaigns. There was no consideration of a project's merits. There was no evaluation of a project's feasibility or costs. The only metric that mattered was votes. It was a rort. It remains a giant rort from a corrupted government that has learned nothing and shows every sign of doing it again next year. No wonder they won't deliver a real national anti-corruption commission with capability and teeth. But this practice wasn't limited to car parks. The evidence before the committee demonstrates that the entire $4.8 billion Urban Congestion Fund has been used as a vehicle for the selection of projects with the same process. As the Australian National Audit Office made clear in their evidence to the committee, the canvassing process that determined which projects were funded did not distinguish between car parks and other infrastructure. There remains $890 million of unallocated funds in the Urban Congestion Fund, ripe for rorting ahead of next year's election.

Several of the report's recommendations are for immediate action. The committee recommends an urgent ANAO audit of the entire Urban Congestion Fund. The report recommends that the department of infrastructure release the investment principles and policy objectives for the Urban Congestion Fund by no later than 31 January 2022. This report recommends that the Prime Minister table to the House of Representatives a full explanation to the parliament of the role that he and his office played in the allocation of funding under the commuter car park fund. That report should be tabled no later than Friday 17 December 2021. Prime Minister, you have 15 days to explain to the Australian people the role that you played and that your office played in the commuter car park fund with Minister Tudge and the Liberal Party campaign. Don't hide behind former minister Tudge. Don't hide behind Mr Gaetjens. Don't hide behind a self-serving interpretation of cabinet confidentiality and public interest immunity.

It is time for this Prime Minister to be straight with the Australian people about how he has spent their money. The Australian people should view this deadline as another test of this Prime Minister's honesty and of his truthfulness.

Questions of transparency and accountability here are not limited to the Prime Minister. I would draw the Senate's attention to the department of infrastructure's failure to cooperate with this inquiry. It refused to respond to a number of questions on notice from the committee's inquiries, and it refused to respond to two separate orders for the production of documents, passed by this chamber on 23 August and 20 October, respectively. This reflects poorly on the ministers and public servants responsible for a department that is entrusted with billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

The administration of this fund by former Minister Tudge and this Prime Minister was corrupted. The Prime Minister deliberately perverts a critical distinction between decisions of government and the decisions of political parties seeking government in an election campaign. The government frequently raised Labor's election commitments on commuter car parks—another dishonest deflection. Those decisions were clearly those of a political party seeking government, still subject to the mandate of elections, the processes of government and engagement with delivery partners. The decisions in relation to the commuter car park were clearly decisions of government, authorised by the Prime Minister. Funding commitments were included in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, and they were referred to as government decisions in the department's own materials. The distinction between party interest and public interest is critical to our rule of law and to protections against partisan corruption. This is just one more example where this Prime Minister and this government don't understand that vital distinction. It is the basis for our Westminster system of government. It is what distinguishes our democracy from kleptocracies overseas.

Additionally, there are outstanding questions about how these decisions were consistent with the relevant legislation, particularly the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act and the National Land Transport Act. With another federal election around the corner, the abuse of caretaker conventions and protections against the misuse of public money to approve these projects is a particular concern. When this Prime Minister goes to communities and promises developments, voters should reflect on the corruption of these processes before.

Finally, the report recommends that the government establish an independent commission against corruption at the Commonwealth level. It's been vital in New South Wales to restoring public confidence, cleaning up the New South Wales Police Force and the Public Service, and rebuilding good political culture in the parliament and cabinet for Labor and Liberal governments alike. Today, it is being resisted by the same self-serving arguments that were levelled against the introduction of the New South Wales ICAC by then premier Nick Greiner. Those arguments were wrong then and are completely redundant now. As Senator Fierravanti-Wells asked this week, in her blistering and comprehensive demolition of opponents of a federal ICAC within the government, 'Are they conflicted?' The answer is: of course they are. That's why a decent, fair dinkum national anticorruption commission with teeth, with the capability to clean up government, will only be established by a fresh start with an Albanese Labor government.