Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

DEPUTY PRESIDENT (): Senator McKenzie has submitted a proposal under standing order 75 today. It is shown at item 12 on today's Order of business:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

At a time when the Australian Government should be investing in productivity enhancing infrastructure to help strengthen economic growth, when roads have deteriorated and become potholed due to floods and rain events, and when the road toll is increasing, the Albanese government has cut $9.6 billion from infrastructure program in the October budget.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

The D:

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to be able to stand and support this very important motion. Last year, in the Albanese government's first budget, my very great state of Western Australia saw the first budget cuts to infrastructure, the first no doubt of many. They were certainly the first cuts in a long line of budgets because, while we were in government, we had a very proud record of continuing to invest into the infrastructure needs of Western Australia. We've seen some cuts, unfortunately, that have hit Western Australia's infrastructure spending. I think it's a great shame. I do take pride today in standing up and bringing this to the awareness of the Senate.

This government likes to talk the talk in Western Australia. They said they were going to put WA first and, to their credit, ran a very WA-centric campaign over there. They didn't have eastern states ads run over in WA, which was a very good move by the Labor Party, I have to say, and something we should take a leaf out of in the next campaign. I'll be making sure that that point is made when we're designing our campaign again. They did make a claim that they were going to put WA first, but what we're seeing is that it's all just talk. They kind of hoodwinked the Western Australian people into supporting them. The Western Australian people, sadly, did put a lot of strength behind their decision. They made a decision to elect the Albanese government, and in Western Australia we lost a lot of Liberal seats. It was on the back of the fact that they ran a campaign that said they were going to put Western Australia first. But what we're saying is that they are not doing that and haven't done that. It's across many areas, and, in particular, in relation to infrastructure they're all talk and no action.

All up, infrastructure programs in Western Australia saw cuts over the forward estimates, including $22 million from the Northern Australia Roads Program, $114 million from Roads of Strategic Importance and $1.3 million from the road Black Spot Program. Let's look at some of these cuts and what they represent to the southern suburbs of Perth, where I'm from. My office is down in the southern suburbs, and I live down in the southern suburbs of Perth. There's a $17.8 million cut and a completion delay of one year to the Kwinana and Mitchell freeway barrier upgrades. There's a $1.3 million cut and a project commencement delay of one year to the Leach Highway and Stock Road grade separation project—a very important project to take freight off that very busy intersection and to deal with the grade separation. There's a $3.5 million cut and a project completion delay of two years for the Nicholson Road and Garden Street grade separation in the electorate of Burt. There is a $101 million budget cut from the 2022-23 budget and a cut of $17.8 million in the forward estimates for the Tonkin Highway stage 3 extension in the seat of Canning. And there is a $99.7 million cut from the Pinjarra Heavy Haulage Deviation stage 1 and 2, and the project is delayed for two years.

These are significant projects that were necessary, that were committed to by the previous government—because they're needed—and we're seeing this government cutting them. These are just a couple of the projects where the Albanese government has made cuts from the last budget or put delays that directly impact Western Australians, and it is a shame. The Western Australian Labor government are not very good at delivering projects. They keep delaying them. We saw the airport rail link delayed for many, many years. It actually started under the Barnett government and now, two terms in, they've literally just completed that project. It was delayed significantly. And of course that is not to mention the cancelling of the Roe 8 and Roe 9 project. This is important. The freight link to Fremantle is a vital project that has been abandoned by this government. We kept it in the contingent liability when we were in government, and this lot over here have taken it out. It's a real shame, because more than $1.8 billion, I think it was, was earmarked to go into delivering that project, and this Labor government is turning its back on Western Australia. (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance raised today by Senator McKenzie. I will start off by correcting the record, because there has been no infrastructure cancelled in Western Australia, regardless of what you might have understood from the previous contribution by Senator O'Sullivan. One of things Senator O'Sullivan didn't talk about in his contribution was that the Liberal and National parties left us with a mess to deal with, after nine years of using infrastructure investment as a political weapon to garner votes, not for funding critical infrastructure for states and territories.

The former government spent more time thinking up announcements than addressing the deterioration of the nation's road networks. These are the facts. We now have a motion brought to the Senate by Senator McKenzie, who has the absolute front to raise concerns after nine years of inaction. The only actions they actually did take were making announcement after announcement, sometimes multiple announcements on the same piece of infrastructure—nine years of using the regional grant programs to fund inner-city swimming pools, nine years of drafting and releasing media releases with no real plans and no real evidence or outcomes for Australian communities. It left an infrastructure pipeline full of zombie projects, undercosted commitments and a challenge to manage delivery in the context of rising inflation and supply pressures. That's the real situation, and that's what Senator O'Sullivan, in his contribution, should have been honest about—that the infrastructure pipeline left by the Liberal coalition government after nine years was full of zombie projects and undercosted commitments and was a challenge to manage in the context of rising inflation and supply pressures.

There's no better example of the coalition's failures than the hopelessly mismanaged Urban Congestion Fund. Since I became an assistant minister, I have been speaking to the sector and I have lost count of how many times the sector has talked about the fact that it is so pleased that the Urban Congestion Fund has been killed off. It wasn't being used in any fair way. It was being used as the Liberal Party's slush fund.

The Urban Congestion Fund was full of imaginary car parks in marginal seats, projects that would require 200 or 300 per cent more investment to deliver, and years of delay. The former Treasurer made a commitment of $260 million to remove a level crossing in his own electorate without even telling the state government about it, and it was hundreds of millions of dollars short of the funding required to do the job. That is exactly how the former government ran infrastructure in this country. It was wholly underfunded. It was only used to get votes or as their own private slush fund.

That's the reality. After nine years of inaction, I'm pleased to say to the Senate that the work of the Albanese Labor government has already done— (Time expired)

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

The first point I wanted to make about this matter of public interest that I thought was interesting was Senator McKenzie talking about roads deteriorating and becoming potholed due to floods and rain events. Just before Christmas, I drove across Victoria and South Australia and the Nullarbor. I must admit, it was just post the very significant floods in Victoria. Yes, the roads were terrible and there were roadworks everywhere. It's also what I experienced in northern Queensland after record rains up there this year. The first point I wanted to acknowledge is that climate change has a very big impact on infrastructure and will continue to have a very big impact on infrastructure.

The second point I want to make today, in my very brief time, is about the circular economy. I've been pinging away at various estimates, in recent years, to Austroads and Infrastructure Australia asking when the government will step up and start procuring recycled content for use in roads. We spend tens of billions of dollars a year at local, state and federal government levels on roads. While probably not the highest-value use for recycled product, they certainly do provide a home for recycled products. If the government were to buy recycled products for our roads, we would create a market for the recycling industry, which is telling us it can take soft plastics—for example, in the REDCycle scheme—but the reason it hasn't been taking them and recycling them is no-one's buying them. No-one's buying the product they're creating.

I'll give you this is an example, which I put to Infrastructure Australia recently. Sustainability Victoria's website has put up one particular project as a case study. Downer Group's soft plastic asphalt road in Craigieburn, in Melbourne's north. As a metric, they talked about recycled content breakdown. Every one kilometre of road, which is two lanes, is paved with plastic and glass modified asphalt. It uses approximately—this is one kilometre—530,000 recycled plastic bags, 170,000 recycled glass bottles, 12,500 used printer cartridges and 130 tonnes of reclaimed asphalt. How's that! That's for one kilometre of road.

Now, if we're building thousands of kilometres of road every year and we can use these products, why wouldn't we create a circular economy? If the government steps in and provides a market for the recycling industry, it will give the industry the confidence it needs to invest in upgrading and we can actually take these soft plastics from our supermarkets for our recycling systems kerb side et cetera and we actually have a ready market for it. That's circular economy thinking.

Anyway, the Greens have been pinging away on this for some time. We are starting to see more interest from Infrastructure Australia. I just wanted to put it on the Senate's table today because I think it's a very exciting opportunity.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to rise and speak on this matter of public importance raised in the Senate today by my friend and colleague Senator Bridget McKenzie. I'm very pleased to be speaking here today about the neglect of critical infrastructure funding as a result of the new government's actions.

We know infrastructure investment is absolutely critical for economic development, productivity and road safety, and that is why the former coalition government placed such a high priority on investing across the country in the infrastructure that we need for the future. Certainly, in my first few years in this place, being in the government, it felt as if almost every week or every month that we were back at home in Tasmania I was going out and talking about a new roads project around the state, whether that was more funding for the Midland Highway upgrades or funding the South East Traffic Solution through to the Southern Beaches and Sorell—very exciting projects and projects that Tasmania needs to ensure that we have the infrastructure, particularly the roads infrastructure, for a growing population, for our transit corridors and for our tourism industry, to support our economy and our population into the future. It was my great pleasure to be advocating for those projects when we were in government.

In contrast, in its first budget last year the Albanese government cut more than $9.6 billion from infrastructure programs across the country, and we know that 36 infrastructure projects have been cancelled entirely and many more have been delayed. Many of the cancelled and delayed projects are dam projects, and there are also huge cuts to road and rail infrastructure programs. I think that's really disappointing, because that is the sort of infrastructure that we need to be investing in in the longer term.

It's no surprise that Labor are cutting infrastructure projects, because, as we've seen today, their political strategy is always to do deals with the Greens. They've decided that their strategy for their time in government is to side with the most anti-development, anti-jobs and anti-infrastructure party in Australia. So it's no surprise to see them reducing spending on infrastructure, and it's no wonder that they've decided that one of the ways they're going to try and plug holes in their budget is to cancel infrastructure projects and delay or reprofile infrastructure spending. This is an attitude that is going put at risk really important projects right across the country. At the very least, it is going to delay the completion of road projects which Australians are relying on to make our highways and our road networks safer and more efficient.

In my own state of Tasmania, we have seen the Labor government drop tens of millions of dollars in project funding out of the budget across a number of projects which the coalition funded and was building, some of which I referred to in the first few minutes of my speech here today. In government, the coalition made record investments in Tasmanian road and rail infrastructure. More than $4.5 million was committed by the previous government, including funding the largest infrastructure projects in Tasmanian history. The last budget we handed down included $639 million for Tasmanian infrastructure projects. In Labor's first budget, in contrast, $66 million of that has disappeared off the books. That includes funding for projects like the Tasmanian Roads Package, the Hobart to Sorell Corridor, the Freight Capacity Upgrade Program and the Tasman Bridge upgrades. These are incredibly important projects. They are projects that I was certainly very proud to be fighting for in government, and I'm incredibly disappointed to see the funding slipping away under this new government.

There is no doubt that when we get another budget in just a few months, in May this year, we are going to see the same tactic repeated. If they want to save a few million dollars to plug a hole in the budget, they'll cut projects and push funding from one year out to the next to get it off the books, and of course, when they have finished cutting infrastructure programs to save some dollars, they will come for Australian workers and slug them with more taxes.

This is a government which would prefer to be doing deals with the Greens rather than building infrastructure. Today's dirty deal between Labor and the Greens isn't the first deal they've done which is terrible news for investment in Australia, and I certainly don't think it's going to be the last. We are going to see this again and again and again—Labor and the Greens in a back room, stitching up a deal to attack job-creating investments. What we saw today was the Labor government's agenda being announced in a Greens press conference, and nothing could sum up this government better than that. (Time expired)

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

I do wish to make my contribution to this matter of public importance. Unlike some others, I've got some skin in the game here because I actually know what I'm talking about. From the sins of my previous life I've had to sit through RRAT Senate estimates day in, day out until ridiculous hours of the night, listening to all the same questions being regurgitated year in, year out, day in, day out—you get the drift, Madam Acting Deputy President Polley. But I'll have a crack without a written speech and see how far I can go, and you won't have to hear me parrot party lines because, unlike some of them over on that side, I actually ran my own business. I didn't just come through the system, work for—

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

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

I said 'some'. I ran my own business, so I know what it is like when you sit there at the end of the table after a hard run to Kununurra or Broome and you're absolutely exhausted. You get home to see the babies, get home to see the wife. It's alright for us blokes on the road because all we had to do was look at the bills because the bills came through the mail. Fiona would go and get the mail, and there'd be the tyre bill and the fuel bill. There'd also be bills for repairs and maintenance from Kenworth or for whatever truck I had at the time. There'd be something like a finger with a piece of ribbon tied on: remember, 30 days or sometimes remember, 45 days. I know what it's like to sit at the end of the table and think: 'Where are we going to get the next dollar? When is that next dollar going to come to pay off our debts—the fuel, the tyres, the repair and maintenance?' That's all the good stuff that goes with being in business, and saying that is very, very easy. Some of my colleagues over there, particularly Senator Scarr who's had a lifetime in business and employing people, understand that you can only spend what you've got. I will rephrase that: there is only so long you can go on spending what you haven't got—until you get caught out.

We're talking about roads and infrastructure, and I love roads and infrastructure. I love roads for obvious reasons like because we get to drive big trucks on them to deliver freight all around the nation. We bring it in, we take it out. We talk about our agricultural industry and how wonderful it is, and so we should. We talk about our mining industry and how wonderful that is. The majority of the stuff moving around this nation goes on the back of a truck, and we need good roads. Sadly, in in this nation we don't have good roads. But I do know that, when you start making promises you can't keep, there's going to be a problem. You hear the lines parroted by members of the other side that don't know what they're talking about, but they have to fill 15 minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes. They've got to take one for the team, so they'll ask for notes on something to talk about, and they go to the lowest common denominator.

I've been here a while and I've seen the standard of conversations in this chamber deteriorate over the years to the point while I'm embarrassed. We see kids coming through the galleries, we see people sitting here to see how this democracy works, and there's nothing wrong with this good entertaining banter. There's nothing wrong with a fierce defence of my ideas versus your ideas and the other way around. But the standard in this chamber has absolutely deteriorated over the years. You hear all the same things, like 'grubby deals' and 'your green mates', and you think, haven't you got any issues? If you can't make intelligent conversation or an intelligent point in the conversation, tell your whip you're not going to get up and make a goog of yourself. Sit down and leave it to others to put in some good information and put forward some good ideas. I have to take my good friend Senator Sullivan to task. This is the second time today I've been blowing wind up the back of your shirt although I have great respect for you, Senator O'Sullivan. I can't blame you because you're parroting the lines coming from your mate the shadow minister's office, Senator Bridget McKenzie, that Labor slashed $9.6 billion.

I had to displeasure of sitting in Senate estimates alongside a number of senators here. Senator McKenzie was asking questions, as was Senator Canavan, and talking about all the projects where Labor slashed funding. I have to tell them that the grown-ups got in. You're not going to like this, but we had Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg running around the nation announcing infrastructure project after infrastructure project after infrastructure project. I'd love to make up stuff, but you have to pay for it. Nothing was slashed. There were unfunded projects, there were projects the state governments hadn't agreed to, there were projects with no plans. Quite rightly, the grown-ups got in and went, "Whoa, hang on, we've got to get infrastructure in this nation, but we've got to have the ability to pay for it and the ability to have contractors that can provide the staff to do it.' And, whether Mr Morrison liked it or not, you've got to get agreement from the state governments and local governments. I don't blame you, Senator O'Sullivan, Senator McKenzie set you up for a fall.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this matter. One of the best investments the government can make is in the infrastructure needed to support future prosperity. However, this government has shown its contempt for regional Australia and slashed almost $10 billion from vital nation-building projects. Last week I met with representatives from the Doomadgee and Burke shire councils. These are areas that have been affected by the floods in northern Queensland. They have helicopters flying in supplies at $40,000 per trip because they've been cut off by floods for two months. They desperately need $75 million to raise crossings and bridges outside Burke, Doomadgee and Mount Isa, which will secure their communities' links with the rest of Australia.

Labor must prioritise infrastructure as a long-term investment to support regional Australian communities over useless measures like increasing the foreign aid budget by $241 million to more than $4½ billion. This must include projects like the $5.4 billion Hells Gate Dam in North Queensland, which Labor scrapped in the budget. There were substantial benefits from this project: more than 10,000 jobs during construction, contributing about $1.3 billion to the local economy; more than 3,000 ongoing jobs; up to 60,000 hectares of newly irrigated land producing a diverse range of high-value products worth at least $800 million per year; and up to $6 billion per year contributed to the local economy. It is nation-building, wealth-creating projects like these which must be prioritised by the government to give regional areas like North Queensland the chance to thrive. I will continue to keep pushing for the Bradfield Scheme, which will give water security to Australia—but that makes too much sense for the brain-dead politicians in this place.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government and their New South Wales colleagues are intent on slashing and burning funding in regional New South Wales, my home state. It's no wonder when Labor's own campaign bus can't leave Sydney without getting a flat battery. Not only can they not represent us; they won't even visit us. When the Labor government were elected last year they cut—and I thank Senator Sterle for reminding us—$9.6 billion from infrastructure projects. What does that mean for regional Australia? Across the forward estimates there was $7 billion cut from dams, including from two major dams in New South Wales at Dungowan and Wyangala. These vital water storage projects, which secure the essential water supply for our regional communities, have been gutted. The communities around them are gutted and the ability to plan for the future is destroyed.

What is more concerning is that we know that federal Labor and New South Wales Labor don't care about New South Wales regional areas either. These people are all about cost-benefit ratios, or CBRs, and, where there aren't people, they don't stack up. When we put money there, it's called a rort or a waste, but it's like the chicken and the egg. If you don't build the roads and the infrastructure, people can't go there. In COVID we saw people move to the regions. They moved for the lifestyle, they moved for a tree change or they moved for a sea change. They realised they could have a better life outside of cities. But housing supply was tight, the infrastructure wasn't there and they returned to the cities. If you spend this money in regional areas, they will come. We have regions of dreams, not fields of dreams, in our country. Build it and they will come.

But the government cut, delay and rip the hearts out of regional communities. It is important to expose the legacy of this federal government after just nine months in office because it's a foretaste of what—

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ten months.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ten months, sorry—even worse. It's a foretaste of what the people of New South Wales can expect under the new Premier, Chris Minns, and Labor. Of course, we're used to Labor saying one thing before the election and doing something else after the election, and we'll see this in New South Wales. It's not just in infrastructure. We've seen it across all things. I'm sure senators of the Greens party are aware of promises that were made in green areas that haven't come through since the election. We're seeing that in superannuation. We're seeing that in energy prices. Regional Australia doesn't vote for you, because they see through you. It's because Labor doesn't understand our communities. When it comes down to promises, the regions and the bush are expendable to Labor. Regional infrastructure is a cost of doing business. It doesn't just affect National Party seats. It affects Labor Party seats. I'm looking at Hunter, Dan Repacholi's seat. There's a great business waiting to open up in Mandalong Road. The Lake Macquarie council has a Labor mayor. It is unsure whether that funding, which would open up huge potential in that area, will go forward under this budget. So what we see is more of the same: the experience of 10 months under this. We are going to get the same in New South Wales.

What does that mean for the Great Western Highway? The Liberals and Nationals understand how critical the Great Western Highway is to upgrade the Central West. Getting that pathway through would open up freight lines, potential businesses and so many other things. It's a project that has been spoken of for decades, with its ability to transform travel for thousands of people and tens of millions of dollars worth of business. But again the Labor campaign bus never made it that far, so they've never seen what it's going to do. The last federal government and the last state government promised to commit to that Great Western Highway tunnel as an essential piece of nation-building, but the weekend's result has ended 20 years of progress on this vital upgrade. Labor has promised to scrap the tunnel and is not prepared to invest in the big infrastructure projects that keep the state going.

It's becoming clear day after day that Labor will not build the infrastructure that regional Australia, including regional New South Wales, needs. New South Wales Labor built nothing for 16 years when they were last in office, and, now they have won election, they will go back to doing what they were doing. We've seen this government already slash and burn regional programs and projects all over New South Wales, with a growing list of broken promises. At the last election, the slogan was, 'It won't be easy under Albanese,' who is now Prime Minister. We've seen that, for mortgage holders and superannuants, the statement has been proved right. To the new New South Wales government I say: do the right thing and keep regional New South Wales moving, because at the next state election I think it will be, 'Nobody wins under Chris Minns.'

David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has expired.