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

I rise to consider the Infrastructure Australia annual report, listed on page 7 of the Notice Paper. This is the last report of Infrastructure Australia on its activities over the period of the former coalition government. The report details how the June 2022 Infrastructure Priority List update featured 168 proposals. Key themes of the 2022 Infrastructure Priority List were: boosting the productivity of our freight supply chains, promoting development in regional and northern Australia, enhancing the resilience and sustainability of community, and optimising the efficiency of our transport network.

These things reflect the priorities of the former coalition government, which supported investment in freight supply chains, including in regional Australia. What did the current minister say when she came to office? She said there were too many projects on the Infrastructure Priority List. Congestion-busting projects in urban Australia were actually labelled 'rorts and waste', and the Roads of Strategic Importance program, which was there to fix regional freight routes, was an example of 'rorts and waste'. The minister took the razor to the ROSI program in Victoria and cancelled a swathe of congestion-busting projects amidst a $9.6 billion cut to infrastructure—and that was in their first budget.

With this background, it would be expected the next annual report of Infrastructure Australia, for 2022-2023, should be a very different document. However, the government came to office with a commitment to reform Infrastructure Australia. Remember that election promise? It was a key promise that has been the slow train coming from Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister who promised to be an infrastructure Prime Minister, and it is symptomatic of a wider malaise in the federal infrastructure portfolio, where so many areas have been cancelled, delayed or siphoned off to be re-examined by external parties. Almost all aviation decisions, with the notable exception of the recent decision to block more competition on international air travel with the Qatar Airways decision, are being pushed past the aviation white paper—never, I suspect, to be implemented before the next election.

Key government board appointments have been allowed to remain vacant for months at a time. We're waiting on discussion papers, let alone discussions, on fuel emission standards and on the size of Mr Albanese's armada—the strategic fleet he was so keen to talk about pre-election. Pressingly, we're still waiting for discussions on how we're going to fund our local roads going forward, as the number of excise-free EVs grows and fuel excise on conventional vehicles declines. As a nation we're experiencing the biggest influx of immigration in our history, with 1½ million people arriving over the next five years, while, simultaneously, this Labor government is putting the brakes on our infrastructure investment. That means the infrastructure to build road and rail links, and for water and housing—the social infrastructure to support this influx of people—is absolutely missing. What country in the world would bring a city the size of Adelaide into its realm but cut back on infrastructure spending to support a second Adelaide?

The government has established the High Speed Rail Authority, but no money has been budgeted to lay a single track. The Labor government has instigated a 90-day strategic review of the infrastructure pipeline, which has put at risk more than 400 projects that local communities have been waiting on. Infrastructure Australia was not asked to undertake that review, and, at the same time, the federal Labor government is embarking on a massive gear shift, cutting funding to roads and water and redirecting that funding towards powerlines for renewables and some premiers' pet projects, including sports stadiums. The 90-day review, which is now over 100 days and counting, is still yet to disclose what projects will be cut. The government released its response to the Infrastructure Australia review last year, and we are still waiting in this Senate chamber to actually debate the bill. We're waiting on every single piece of legislation, while the government score cheap political points, as they did all day in this chamber on a disallowance motion. The government clearly wants to have business-chilling industrial relations reforms that will negatively impact our productivity. If the Prime Minister actually wants to be remembered as the infrastructure Prime Minister, it's time to get on with it and start building. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.