Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, three—for you, Senator Scarr. The commissioners will be the accountable authority and will be appointed by the relevant minister based on their expertise, skills, experience, knowledge, gender and geographical representation. The bill will ensure that IA is empowered to carry out its role as an independent and expert advisor to the Australian government on nationally significant infrastructure needs and priorities including investment in transport, water, communications and energy. It will refocus IA to provide important and strategic advice to the Australian government. The new governance model will ensure IA has the eminence, authority and standing to be a national leader and coordinator among infrastructure advisory bodies.

Now let's go back a government or two. Previous minister Mr Barnaby Joyce stacked the board of Infrastructure Australia. The chair at the time described himself as 'a fairly solid Barnaby supporter'. Another board member was a former Brisbane City councillor and a vice president of the Queensland LNP.

An opposition senator: Outstanding individual!

Am I touching a nerve over there? A third appointment was an LNP candidate at the 2011 and 2015 Queensland state elections—don't hear much—and a fourth appointment was a former Liberal branch president.

When Infrastructure Australia was established by the now Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, it was created—and I remember because I was here—as an apolitical, expert board. Infrastructure Australia was created to take the politics out of major projects and create a clear guide to what government and industry need to invest in and when those investments should be made. The former Labor government listened to Infrastructure Australia and invested in every one of its priority projects. All of this changed under the Liberal and National parties. They destroyed Infrastructure Australia as a major economic body and, instead, used it as a vehicle to give jobs to their mates, the red wine club. They ignored Infrastructure Australia's priority list and, instead, invested in imaginary car parks rather than major projects that would lay the foundation for our nation's future economic growth.

One has only to look at the Inland Rail project to see how bad the Liberals and Nationals were at managing the infrastructure portfolio. The Liberals and Nationals left Inland Rail in a mess. After a decade in office—10 years—they let the cost blow out—are you ready for this? I know because I was chairing the committee looking into this mess. They let the cost blow out from $4.7 billion to over $31 billion. They left it behind schedule and had no plan for where it would start or finish.

Let me share this with those that are listening too. It was at one of the inquiries I was having into it, and I was ably backed up by Senator Susan McDonald over there, from the Nats in Queensland. It was an absolute shock when we asked the simple question. I asked the ARTC: 'You're talking about 1.2-kilometre-long trains coming into Brisbane every hour or so with hundreds and hundreds of containers, one after another, to unload in Brisbane. Where in Brisbane?' I'm from Perth; I'm not from Brisbane, but I trucked from Perth to Brisbane on a number of occasions. The ARTC said Acacia Ridge. My backside nearly fell out. To those who aren't Brisbanites or Queenslanders: Acacia Ridge is right in the heart of suburban Brisbane. My depot when I was with Ansett, where I used to run into, was in Acacia Ridge. It was hard enough getting a single semitrailer through Acacia Ridge in the eighties, let alone the thousands of containers that are going to be coming in over a 24-hour period. I still remember the fear of getting caught at Coopers Plains with the railway light on and off all the time, pulling up the traffic and the trucks. This was the stupidity of it.

There was another shock to us from this mob over here, who were running around the nation, espousing the Inland Rail. Don't get me wrong. We need Inland Rail. We need to build an inland rail to move freight efficiently through this nation and we need to move people through this nation efficiently. We can't continue to do it on trucks. We're getting too much transport task. I said to the Australian Rail Track Corporation, 'Where in Melbourne is this train going to leave from?' They had no idea. They thought it might be somewhere in the trucking and rail area in Truganina—I'm talking Suburban Melbourne—or it might be another one I can't think of the name of. It was about an hour's drive out of Melbourne. I said, 'How does this other place out of Melbourne sound?' They said, 'Well, currently we'd probably have to double the amount of trucks on the roads to run the freight out to wherever else they think it's going to go.' What a complete and utter shambles.

The Liberals and the Nationals even ignored a request from the chair of the ARTC to ensure its board directors had appropriate skills and experience. How dare we want to have people with skills and experience! Why would we want to do that? Infrastructure Australia didn't have it, so why would the ARTC get it? They left it to the Albanese government to rescue the project.

The Albanese Labor government commissioned an independent review of the delivery of the project to gain a clear understanding of all its problems and a way forward. The government has accepted all of Dr Schott's review recommendations in full or in principle. We are staging the remainder of Inland Rail, firstly prioritising delivery of the section from Beveridge, down in Melbourne, to Parkes, in New South Wales. Beveridge is the other place I was thinking of. The government also supported Dr Schott's recommendation to establish a subsidiary company of ARTC to deliver the Inland Rail.

When it comes to mismanagement, I've touched on and could keep going all day on infrastructure spending, but let's look a little bit closer at the Urban Congestion Fund, as it was called, including the infamous Commuter Car Park Fund, up there with the worst of the worst. This was the $4.8 billion program that allocated 83 per cent of its funding to—you ready for it—Liberal-held seats. It was meant to target 'pinch points' and congestion in cities across this great country, but 136 of the announced projects were in Liberal-held areas. Only 26 projects went to seats held by Labor. If we look at these figures, it would seem that Australia's most congested roads were located almost entirely in Liberal-held seats!

Where Australians live or who Australians vote for does not matter: they deserve their fair share of infrastructure investment and they all deserve the jobs, productivity and liveability improvements that come with it. The Urban Congestion Fund was nothing more than a mammoth slush fund, ready to be pulled out at election time to buttress the campaigns of Liberal MPs. That isn't what infrastructure is meant for; infrastructure is meant to deliver a better life to all Australians. That's why our government has been working so hard to strip the waste and rorts out of the Infrastructure Investment Program. The previous government rorted the infrastructure investment pipeline, and Australians won't forget it.

I'll also say this: it was easy to run around in the 10th year of the decaying, toxic Morrison government, which was the environment we had here in Australia, and to think, 'Let's just go out and announce in every electorate in Australia—every seat in Australia—that we're going to spend billions of dollars on all of these fantasy projects if you just vote for us.' But do you know what? I think most Australians got this: you actually have to have a budget. Yes, you have to have a bit of dough in the bank and you actually have to have some good business cases. Every time my very dear friend and colleague Senator Scarr speaks he reminds me of economics 101. I do listen to that, and this is basic economics 101: you can't spend more than what you've got. Or, at least, you have to have a damn good plan or PPPs to start paying it off.

I just had to say that! I was brought up in working-class Langford in Perth's eastern suburbs. I learned very early in my life that you can only spend what you've got, boy, and if you want to spend more then put your boots on, get out there and work harder. Work more hours, work on weekends and don't whinge to your mother! Let's just say it as it is! And I'm so glad that I was brought up that way.

The Australian government has committed to a $120 billion land transport infrastructure pipeline. That's no mean feat: $120 billion. This 10-year investment pipeline is delivering nationally significant nation-shaping projects. Our investment is building projects that will have a lasting benefit for Australia, will enhance our economic and social productivity, and will support our prosperity. We have prioritised projects which will benefit all Australians generally. They're economically sustainable and are resilient to climate change. And the Australian government is working in genuine partnership with state and territory governments to plan, fund and deliver the highest-priority infrastructure projects across the nation. For communities, these investments mean shorter and safer travel, and more liveable cities, suburbs and regions.

As a government, we're committed to ensuring that freight keeps moving, that people can get home from work safely and that the connections between our cities and our regions are strong. Our investment is delivering critical nation-shaping projects all across the country. This includes projects that are building regional Australia by supporting regional communities and businesses. In the 2023-24 budget, the government committed more than $25 billion to 425 major transport infrastructure projects in regional Australia, with a further 49 that will benefit both regional and urban communities. Working with every state and territory, the focus of the Infrastructure Investment Program is to improve road safety, to better connect our regions, to bust congestion and to meet our national freight challenge. And, may I say, we're told that the freight challenge is going to double every 15 years—and it does.

The government is continuing to partner with state and territory governments to roll out life-saving road safety treatments under the Road Safety Program—something dear to my heart—with the delivery of total nationwide funding of $2.96 billion continuing through to mid-2025. We're also delivering $4.4 billion over 10 years for the Roads of Strategic Importance initiative, supporting more efficient supply chains and helping connect regional businesses to local and international markets. The government is spending $1.5 billion on the National Freight Highway Upgrade Program to seal the Tanami Road in that magnificent state of Western Australia through to the Northern Territory, as well as upgrading our nationally significant freight routes, including the Dukes, Stewart and Augusta highways in South Australia, and the Central Arnhem Road in the Northern Territory. The Tanami and Central Arnhem roads' share of this $1.5 billion investment is $740 million.

I could continue with announcement after announcement of great initiatives, but time is against me, so I commend this bill to the Senate. (Time expired)