Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion and my thanks go particularly to the member for Oxley for bringing it to the chamber. In his motion he makes some very good points in that infrastructure planning provides a platform for regional economic growth and jobs. He is also right in saying that the rapid growth in many regional centres has placed significant pressure on the nation’s infrastructure. That is certainly the case in my electorate of Pearce.

I have long advocated the need for greater investment in infrastructure, particularly in the regional and rural areas, but to claim the past 12 years have been a missed opportunity to invest in the future infrastructure of Australia is just plain wrong. Firstly, AusLink was established by the former coalition government in 2004 and represents the most significant change since Federation in the way the Commonwealth tackles national transport. Thanks to AusLink, the Commonwealth and the states are now able to develop long-term strategies for key major transport corridors, rating projects according to merit and giving ample lead time to the private sector. Through COAG, the states and territories were asked to prepare an infrastructure report every five years. This makes a lot of sense, and here we are today discussing whether a further $20 million of Commonwealth money should be spent over the next four years with the introduction of Infrastructure Australia.

This leads us back to a key issue here, which is effectively an issue of governance: the objective and sensible management of Infrastructure Australia. It seems as though Infrastructure Australia may well be a duplication of the states’ efforts and responsibilities. If so, should the federal government be in a position to be bailing out the states? I don’t think so. Nor should it be allowed to use Infrastructure Australia as a slush fund. It is important to make it clear that the coalition supports infrastructure development and has done so over a long period of time. It does not, however, support the government having complete control over a body that is entrusted with handling the future of this country’s infrastructure requirements. Any entity handling infrastructure in Australia should be independent of government to provide objective and balanced views on what this nation needs going forward. Perhaps such a body could take the time to investigate the Labor government’s election promises, but I digress.

The government cannot and should not protect the states from their own incompetence. Within my own electorate of Pearce I have witnessed first hand the former state government’s inability to act. For example, the Commonwealth government committed $98.1 million to upgrade the Great Northern Highway between Muchea and Wubin more than four years ago. So far only $41.9 million has been spent on the road and it is far from finished. Angry members of the Bindoon safe roads committee are entitled to know where that money has gone and they have not to date received any answers. As the Bindoon safe roads committee chairman, Ian Watson, said, this highway is the lifeline to the state’s north-west and services many road trains, trucks, tourist caravans and wide loads under escort. I remind the chamber that we contribute something in the order of $50 billion to the national wealth out of mining alone in WA and these roads are absolutely critical to that continuing. Main Roads in WA promised everything but it is impossible for them to deliver when they do not know where the money has gone to and they do not have it available to do their job. Here we have a situation where the coalition government was investing in the future of infrastructure in the Pearce electorate but the state Labor government’s ineptitude has left many residents without services and very disillusioned. It is a very dangerous situation. That disillusion has been well and truly evident in last weekend’s poll with the disastrous election result for Labor. So I think that speaks volumes.

The concept of an independent body that assesses these issues in an unbiased fashion has merit, but the idea of the federal Labor government running such an entity, intent on protecting its state Labor colleagues, has no place at all. The regions in Pearce, long starved of funds for infrastructure development, would welcome an independent assessment by government of future growth predictions. They would also like a fair allocation of infrastructure funding from the government without political interference, particularly for new rail lines for the carting of wheat—which is absolutely essential now that we have changed the marketing arrangements for wheat—and for upgrades to major highways.(Time expired).

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