Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The former coalition government had an ambitious infrastructure investment agenda. We were delivering a $120 billion, 10-year infrastructure pipeline of projects providing certainty to help industry with workforce planning and investment. We committed to more than 1,200 major land transport infrastructure projects, we completed more than 500, and more than 300 had started construction under the coalition infrastructure investment that was part of our economic strategy, part of our plan to boost overall national productivity. We invested to build infrastructure in areas ignored by state Labor governments—our regions, our congested outer suburbs and across northern Australia.

Unfortunately, in their last budget, Labor cut infrastructure investment by $9.6 billion. This was the wrong call at a time of high inflation and high cost of living. Thirty-six infrastructure projects were cancelled and many more were delayed, with funding pushed out way beyond the forward estimates, begging the question of whether they will ever be started. Of course, many of these delayed projects were for regional infrastructure intended to enhance freight efficiency and support delivery of products to ports and markets. Often, as is the nature of rural electorates, they were in coalition seats.

Labor also cut road safety programs in the budget, with $60 million stripped from the Black Spot road safety program over the forward estimates and more than $280 million in road safety program funding originally scheduled for this year deferred by the Labor party. They talk a big game when it comes to infrastructure, transport and road safety, but the numbers don't lie. That is the fact out of their first budget in October. These road safety cuts come at a time when road fatalities are continuing to rise and the Australian Automobile Association is calling often the government to urgently act.

Last week the minister released the legislation to amend the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008, and the bill confirms Labor's intention to shrink the infrastructure priority list. Minister King has made it clear she plans to hollow out or streamline the list of infrastructure projects. I said last week we can expect a further partisan purge of planned road and rail upgrades which were funded under the previous coalition government. The minister was critical of our government's increase in nationally funded projects on the infrastructure list during her speech to the CEDA Infrastructure Conference last Friday. She wants to do less. The minister is softening up the public and industry leaders for further savage cuts to infrastructure projects and, potentially, road safety funding in the upcoming May budget.

Further, Minister King's reforms seem designated to shackle Infrastructure Australia to endorsing projects that are proposed by Labor governments around the states. It might suit them, but it's not a good sign for communities wanting to see Commonwealth driving the states to deliver more infrastructure, particularly when it's the Commonwealth taxpayer who is funding the majority of the bill, not the states. They want to see these projects delivered in a timely and cost-effective manner. The further we push these projects out, the more they're going to cost. As we're seeing with some of the regional project funding, they are having to be rescoped or councils are having to give back the money because they cannot afford the increase in costs.

Through her consultations with state governments ahead of the October budget, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government delivered significant project cancellations, cuts and delays. In Victoria she agreed with Daniel Andrews that there was $1.1 billion in projects cancelled and a further $1.6 billion in cuts and delays to projects over the forward estimates, right across Melbourne and right across regional Victoria. In New South Wales there were $300 million in projects cancelled and a further $2 billion in cuts and delays to projects across the forward estimates. In Queensland the Palaszczuk government agreed that there would be $2 billion of cuts and delays to road and rail projects, including the $200 million cut to the Sunshine Coast rail project. Here in Canberra there were almost $86 million in cancelled projects, and in Western Australia there were $539 million in cuts and delays to road projects.

One of the key critical road projects cut in Western Australia was pushing out the upgrade to the Tanami into the long grass. If you talk to the trucking industry in WA, if you talk to the Kimberley group of councils, which I had the privilege to sit down with this week when they came to Canberra, that is their No. 1 of this government for the upcoming May budget. Instead of kicking out that funding of that upgrade of that critical road, which will make it safer for truckies, require less maintenance so they make more and ensure the freight task into rural and remote areas into the NT and Western Australia is serviced, that is a critical project that needs to be brought forward. We will see if Minister King can convince the Treasurer that this is a critical project, because when they last had the chance they cut it.

Continually cutting back on infrastructure will be a handbrake on economic growth and a barrier to driving the national efficiencies that are needed for budget repair and tackling inflation. At the very time the government's budget repair strategy should be to invest in productivity-enhancing capital and to cut back on unnecessary recurrent expenditure, Labor seem determined to do the opposite, dooming our nation to a very long, slow and painful recovery.

Labor's lack of infrastructure ambition represents a plan for gridlocked city streets, unsafe regional freight routes and less family time at home for both our transport industry workers and commuters. Indeed, it seems the only infrastructure the government is interested in is the white-elephant projects of state Labor premiers, whether it's the massively underfunded suburban rail loop in Melbourne, for Daniel Andrews, or a $2.5 billion live music venue in Brisbane, for Annastacia Palaszczuk.

The coalition also made significant investments in regional airports through the Regional Airports Program and funding to support security and screening infrastructure and operations. There's every indication that these programs will also be cut in the upcoming May budget—no new money. The former coalition government saw the importance to the economy of a bold infrastructure agenda, investing in future growth and tackling decades of underinvestment by state governments on the infrastructure needed to support population growth.

We have seen this week the government lean in a forward manner towards increasing our population significantly. You cannot pour hundreds of thousands more people into our capital cities without pouring hundreds of millions of dollars—billions of dollars—into critical road projects to support that population growth. It doesn't make sense. The Productivity Commission handed down a report on infrastructure, and we know that, while the industry is stretched, inflationary pressures are placing tremendous pressures on project delivery. These pressures, combined with a lack of action from the federal government, are leading to project slippage. As I said, we have a 40 per cent rise in the cost of reinforcing steel and structural timber. If the Greens have their way, we won't have Australian timber to use in the construction industry. It will be from overseas. Industry surveys and interviews indicate that the cost of construction materials has risen 24 per cent, on average, over the last 12 months. Labour—the workforce—are seeing wage increases in excess of 17 per cent in the last 12 months. The cost of labour within public infrastructure has grown by that much over the last 12 months.

The importance of infrastructure to the Australian economy was highlighted by the Productivity Commission. Thirteen of the 71 recommendations of that report were tangentially or directly related to the infrastructure portfolio or transport. The fact that Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, dismissed that report of hand shows that the government are not really interested in investing in productivity-enhancing infrastructure. They're more interested in cuts and delays which will cost our economy over the future. The Albanese government appears bereft of ambition or vision, lacking the understanding of the contribution that infrastructure can make to our economy and to building a stronger, safer, more sustainable and more prosperous Australia.