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representatives vote 2023-05-24#2
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2023-08-11 09:04:43
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Title
Bills — Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023; Consideration in Detail- Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023 - Consideration in Detail - Regional Australia
Description
<p class="speaker">Elizabeth Watson-Brown</p><p>I move:</p>-
- The majority voted in favour of *disagreeing* with an [amendment](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2023-05-24.11.1) introduced by Gippsland MP [Darren Chester](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/gippsland/darren_chester) (Nationals), which means it failed.
- ### What does this amendment do?
- Mr Chester [explained that](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2023-05-24.11.1):
- > *This amendment is an important, practical and fair measure that will ensure that regional Australia has a strong voice on the board of Infrastructure Australia. In appointing the commissioners on the board of Infrastructure Australia, our amendment requires that the minister must ensure that at least one of the commissioners has a substantial connection or substantial experience in a regional area through business, industry or community involvement. The federal coalition urges the House to support this amendment.*
- ### Amendment text
- > *(1) Schedule 1, item 22, page 12 (after line 25), after subsection 8(2), insert:*
- >
- >> *(2A) In appointing the Commissioners, the Minister must ensure that at least one of the Commissioners has a substantial connection to, or substantial experience in, a regional area through business, industry or community involvement.*
<p class="italic">(1) Schedule 1, item 22, page 13 (line 1), at the end of subsection 8(3), add:</p><p class="italic">; and (c) the person is not an existing or former member of the governing body of:</p><p class="italic">(i) a company engaged in coal, oil or gas extraction; or</p><p class="italic">(ii) an energy company based on the burning of coal, oil or gas.</p> <p class="speaker">Catherine King</p><p>I thank the member for the constructive way in which she has engaged on this bill. The thing that I've really have learnt throughout all of this process is just how passionate people are, not only about infrastructure and investment but also about getting much more transparency around how that investment is made. That being said, the government won't be supporting the member's amendment, because individuals with appropriate skills and qualifications in infrastructure investment are really hard to come by. There's a really limited pool of people, and we don't think they should be excluded from contributing to the work of Infrastructure Australia solely because of who they may have been employed by in the past. There are lots of people who work in construction and infrastructure investment who have worked on projects that the Greens political party may or may not like, but I can't make decisions about who commissioners are on that basis.</p> <p class="speaker">Milton Dick</p><p>The question is that the amendment be disagreed to.</p><p>Question agreed to.</p> <p class="speaker">Darren Chester</p><p>At the request of the member for Maranoa, I move opposition amendment on the sheet revised 10 May 2023:</p><p class="italic">That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:</p><p class="italic">"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:</p><p class="italic">(1) notes this Government's record of cancellations, cuts and delays to infrastructure projects across Australia;</p><p class="italic">(2) criticises the Government's failure to adhere to processes of assessing infrastructure investment projects they set themselves before the 2022 election by agreeing to invest $2.2 billion in the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop and $2.5 billion in the Brisbane Arena without first obtaining advice from Infrastructure Australia; and</p><p class="italic">(3) notes the nation-building and economy strengthening $120 billion 10-year pipeline of infrastructure investments inherited by the Government upon its election in May 2022".</p><p>This amendment is an important, practical and fair measure that will ensure that regional Australia has a strong voice on the board of Infrastructure Australia. In appointing the commissioners on the board of Infrastructure Australia, our amendment requires that the minister must ensure that at least one of the commissioners has a substantial connection or substantial experience in a regional area through business, industry or community involvement. The federal coalition urges the House to support this amendment.</p><p>While I have the opportunity, I want to turn to the minister's summing up speech last night in the Federation Chamber. She is becoming increasingly desperate in trying to justify the infrastructure review process associated with the Infrastructure Australia bill before the House. For the record, I want to make it very clear that I have made every attempt since the election to help the minister with her job in Victoria, to deliver infrastructure that Victorians want and Gippslanders want. Unfortunately, my attempts have been largely ignored.</p><p>This minister can't help but play politics and turn to talking points rather than constructively engaging with a member who is trying to represent his region to deliver important safety improvements when it comes, particularly in this case, to the Princes Highway as it travels through Gippsland. So I'm glad the minister has a new assistant minister to help her do her job and, hopefully, get a more constructive working relationship with local members.</p><p>This may seem harsh, but I've written to the minister on seven occasions and I've met with her staff face to face as well as on the phone to try to engage with them in a very constructive manner. If you would like, Mr Speaker, I will release those letters publicly. They describe how I want to find some room to allocate priorities in the community to save lives associated with the Princes Highway works.</p><p>The minister talks a lot about trying to find some headroom in the program to deliver projects. What the minister doesn't tell you is that the Princes Highway east program has $60 million in it, and my requests to her are all about finding out how many of the unallocated funds were still available, because there is money available—</p> <p class="speaker">Milton Dick</p><p>Order! I'm sorry to interrupt the member, but this process has been long established. This is not an opportunity to go through various clauses and parts of the bill. Technically, under the standing orders, there is one motion before the House, which is about appointing commissioners. I have allowed some latitude but this is not a free-for-all debate, just so all members know. We've had this issue before. I will allow the shadow minister to have some broad context, but I will draw him back to the specifics.</p> <p class="speaker">Darren Chester</p><p>Thank you, Mr Speaker. The context is in relation to Infrastructure Australia being able to consider nationally significant infrastructure initiatives in our amendment to have a reasonable voice. The point I am trying to make is that regional voices that provide an input into the minister's office in a constructive way need to be heard. The minister, in her comments last night in the Federation Chamber, made it very clear that she believes Infrastructure Australia and the federal government should only be involved in projects that they regard as being nationally significant infrastructure investments and have productivity or enhance our freight routes. There projects are nationally significant in regional communities because they save lives.</p><p>The minister, last night, in a summing-up speech made a broad range of comments in relation to the previous government. She was very critical about what she called 'unallocated buckets of money to announce small projects such as traffic lights'. The point I'm making with my amendment is that having reasonable voices on Infrastructure Australia's board would allow Infrastructure Australia to understand that those investments in projects like traffic lights are nationally significant if they're part of a corridor that saves lives.</p><p>There is a complete misapprehension from those opposite that things like the Princes Highway upgrade through my electorate are not nationally significant. I have gone to the minister repeatedly to try and describe how to work constructively to deliver these projects with state government not prepared to work with you. There was a hostile state government when we were in government, and now she has a hostile state government, which is basically broke. They're not going to help you very much. If you have willing partners in your communities—and, in this case, it may well be local government—I call on the minister to engage with local government as part of the infrastructure review process. Will local government get a chance to make any submissions whatsoever? Local government needs to be heard, just as local voices need to be heard, and the amendment put forward by the coalition is all about local voices. I encourage the minister to listen to local people, particularly in regional communities, who have different perspectives on some of these issues. The amendment that the coalition has moved deserves the support of the House.</p> <p class="speaker">Catherine King</p><p>I am a regional MP. Sometimes people seem to forget that. I live in regional Victoria. I have been a regional MP and represented a regional seat for 22 years; I understand the reasons pretty deeply. I've been a regional development minister previously in a past government and have travelled extensively throughout the country. So I understand; I understand the issues. But we won't be supporting this amendment, not because I don't think it's important that we have commissioners or regional voices on the advisory panel—it's very important that that occurs—but because when you have a very clear mandate to increase transparency around the appointments process, you have to have a merits based appointments process. By starting to build particular parts into that then creates a problem in terms of the merits based process.</p><p>In accordance with the bill, the commissioners are to be selected through a merits based process. It's publicly advertised so that qualified regional people who fit the skills required to be a commissioner are absolutely welcome, and should be encouraged, to apply. When advertised, I'm very happy to let the shadow minister know. If he thinks there are suitably qualified regional people that he's aware of, he should encourage them to apply. In addition to having the appropriate qualifications, knowledge, skills and expertise, the minister's appointment decision has to take into account representation from states and territories and local government areas. That is part of what I will do when I look at this.</p><p>I say to the member: the very problem you have been writing to me about—and I've been pretty tardy in replying to you, and I apologise for that—is exactly the problem that I am dealing with. Because projects were announced without co-funding partners and they were reliant on the state, I have millions of dollars, in some cases, billions, sitting in the infrastructure investment pipeline that I simply cannot deliver. I have to make a decision. Do I basically say that we cannot deliver this project? I will work with states to try and do that, particularly along corridors like Princes Highway, which is a nationally significant road. I get that. It is incredibly important for the freight of our country. We saw that when we had those terrible fires through there. I visited your community, and having that road cut off for such a long time had a significant impact, not just on your community but on the whole country, in the way freight moved. So I am acutely aware of that. But the very problem you have highlighted is the problem that I've got. If I can't deliver a project, do I just leave that money sitting inactive in the pipeline forever? I can continue to say that I've promised this money. Or do I actually get on with delivering projects where I can employ people to improve infrastructure? That's what we're trying to focus on in terms of the review. And you did a lot of it, and that's the problem that we're facing. Again, I'll say that we won't be supporting this amendment.</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Pasin</p><p>I commend the amendment to the House. It is important that those in rural, regional and remote Australia have a strong voice in terms of Infrastructure Australia. The Australian road network spans some 800,000 kilometres; 600,000 kilometres is under the management of local government, a disproportionately high proportion of which deals with rural, regional and remote communities. Before I go to my contribution, I want to highlight the fact that we've had from the minister perhaps a nomination for understatement of the year when she said to the shadow minister, 'I was a little tardy in my response to you.' My understanding is that that response came 10 months or so after the shadow minister wrote to her. If that's 'a little tardy', that is a meritorious nomination in the category of understatement of the year.</p><p>Of course, questions around efficacy and tardiness—these are things that, I expect, are looming large in the minister's mind because the minister has held the exalted position of minister for infrastructure for 12 months or so, yet only in recent weeks have we received advice, and has the nation been told, 'We're going to undertake a root-and-branch review.' I can understand a newly minted minister in a newly elected government in the early days of that government coming into this place, sitting down and saying, 'You know what; I think we need to undertake a review of the infrastructure pipeline.' That would be fair enough. But I'll tell you what is 'a little tardy'—waiting almost 12 months to do that. All the time we're seeing costs of projects blowing out. Why? Because inflation in and around construction projects is running at six, seven or eight per cent.</p><p>Of course projects are more expensive in May 2023 than they were in May 2022; that's the reality. But, in the time I have, I want to point out something that has emanated from this building like a shockwave that's hit road authorities right around the country, whether they're state based road authorities or local government based road authorities. The review I speak of was one that we anticipated would relate only to projects. We had a fair expectation of that because the minister herself indicated that this would relate to projects. In my own home state—</p> <p class="speaker">Milton Dick</p><p>Order! The member will resume his seat. I'm just going to remind him, like I did with the shadow minister, that there are four lines connected to this amendment regarding the schedule. He's had a pretty good go. I'm going to draw him back to the amendment.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
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