Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Acting Deputy President. As I was saying, some of those deaths of cyclists who have been killed on our roads could have been prevented. Some of those lives could have been saved through better planning and infrastructure. Again, if you're making recommendations as to what infrastructure we should be investing in and you have an evidence base, and you have transparent and accountable decisions, then investments in transport infrastructure—investments that make walking and cycling safer and more accessible for more people—stack up every time as being better for people, better for our environment and better for our economy. It matters. Where we invest our money, and what our governance arrangements are for our infrastructure planning, matters. It's much more important than just a set of glossy announcements for MPs and others to make, taking pictures while wearing hard hats and then re-announcing the same project multiple times whenever they need a social media hit or a reason for a travel claim. That's why we need to get it right.

I want to speak particularly about the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop in that regard. The Greens amendments I will be moving today create a requirement for reviews of projects that might otherwise not have been captured. I've spent far too long at estimates grilling officials over the Liberal Party's election commitments to think that the Labor Party should get a free pass on this issue. There's really concerning reporting that the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop was cooked up by a team of PwC consultants behind closed doors. That's not appropriate infrastructure planning, and it's important that projects like that are scrutinised. If you're going to be spending tens of billions of dollars on an infrastructure project, that should be captured by our governance and arrangements, which Infrastructure Australia are meant to deliver.

With regard to the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop, let's be clear. As Greens, we welcome investment in infrastructure, particularly public transport infrastructure, but it needs to be the right investment. A good way to ensure that is to make sure that Infrastructure Australia have to run the ruler over it. So the amendments that I'm going to be moving would ensure Infrastructure Australia undertakes a review of the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop and that we get clear, independent analysis. Voters deserve nothing less. This should be about good transport policy, not about who has the slickest videos on Facebook. These amendments that I will be moving are consistent with the changes being proposed by the government: redefining Infrastructure Australia's principal purpose, establishing Infrastructure Australia as the Australian government's independent adviser on nationally significant infrastructure, and redefining Infrastructure Australia's functions as: conducting audits or assessments of nationally significant infrastructure to determine adequacy and needs; conducting or endorsing evaluations of infrastructure projects; developing targeted infrastructure lists and plans; and providing advice on nationally significant infrastructure matters.

The first of our amendments will require Infrastructure Australia to evaluate infrastructure projects receiving Commonwealth funding of more than $200 million that would not have already been subject to their evaluation. This would capture the Brisbane arena and the Tasmanian stadium commitments as well as the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop, among many others. This would mean that we would get some transparency on the government's election commitments. We're in the middle of our cost-of-living crisis. As I said, we haven't got billions of dollars to throw around. Already this morning I have given a speech about the government's choices to not invest to lift people out of poverty. So where the money gets spent is important, and people need and deserve to have greater scrutiny over government spending, particularly big, splashy infrastructure projects. It's only fair that Labor's pre-election announcements such as the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop are reviewed by Infrastructure Australia.

The other amendment I'm going to be moving would prevent those who are current and past directors of fossil fuel companies from taking up roles as commissioners of Infrastructure Australia. As my colleague Ms Watson-Brown noted in the House of Representatives, we have seen far too many of those people who have spent years worsening the climate crisis taking up roles in Infrastructure Australia. As I said, if you think about what the criteria should be for where our billions of dollars are going on infrastructure projects, there are a range of criteria that they should meet, and doing things that are going to help us tackle the climate crisis and certainly aren't going to make it worse is a really important criterion to be up there as one of the things that Infrastructure Australia should be doing. So it's important we have people at the helm who have that commitment to reduce our carbon pollution and actually tackle the climate crisis, not people who have spent, in some cases, decades of their lives leading projects that are making the climate crisis worse. Infrastructure Australia is too important a body, and our response to the climate crisis is too important, to let fossil fuel company executives determine the response from inside this building.

Over the past decade, we've witnessed multiple key people on the board of Infrastructure Australia who have had or currently have senior roles in big fossil fuel corporations. One example of this that Ms Watson-Brown brought to the House of Representatives' attention is Samantha Hogg, who was a member of the Infrastructure Australia board between March 2019 and November 2021 and had previously held several director positions with BHP Billiton. Another example is John Ellice-Flint, who was on the board of IA from 2014 to 2019. He's had approximately 20 former roles in fossil fuel companies, including Bonaparte Gas & Oil and Santos, and he held some of those roles while being on the boards. He currently is a director and the secretary of Smart Gas Pty Ltd. There are countless other examples of board members of Infrastructure Australia who have former or current involvement in a huge coal, gas and oil corporations. These people have brought enormous bias and potentially an enormous conflict of interest when advising on Australia's infrastructure projects if you believe, as we as Greens certainly do, that our infrastructure projects should be tackling the climate crisis, not making it worse.

No-one advising the government should stand to benefit from particular infrastructure being built, especially not fossil fuel companies. We need sustainable infrastructure that benefits everyday people, and to have this we need people advising the government who put the interests of the Australian community first, not those of dirty coal and gas corporations. So the Greens' amendments to the bill seek to keep fossil fuel companies out of infrastructure, to increase transparency and to put infrastructure that benefits our communities at its centre.