04-December-2008
Portfolio Media Releases, Infrastructure
Today the Senate has supported a number of measures to ensure transparency in regards to the Government’s Nation-building Funds Bill.
The Senate has also amended the Government’s legislation to make sure that all projects will take account of running costs, so that we avoid any debacle similar to what has occurred with the “Computers in Schools” program, where the multi billion dollar running costs were overlooked, and will also prohibit upfront fees being demanded of private operators as a revenue raising measure.
The amendments to improve transparency include a Joint Standing Committee on Nation-building which will examine all of the projects that are recommended to be funded by the Government. This measure was a joint proposal between the Greens and the Coalition.
“These funding proposals must be transparent so that they don’t just become a Labor Party ‘slush fund’ – without transparency we are back to Labor funding being determined on a whiteboard!,” said the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, the Hon. Andrew Robb AO MP.
“My concerns that these monies could be used as a ‘slush fund’ were further exacerbated when Mr Tanner’s original legislation to establish these funds was pulled by Mr Albanese, minutes before it was to be introduced into Parliament, because ‘it gave him insufficient ministerial discretion over how the money would be allocated’.
“I would like to acknowledge and thank the Greens for moving this amendment and to thank the Greens and Senator Xenophon for their support for a number of Coalition amendments.”
“Labor’s anti-transparency actions seem at odds with what Mr Rudd said on Monday to me in Question Time.
“The political agenda of the member for Goldstein (Andrew Robb) —if the member could be bothered to focus on the answer which is being delivered to the question he just asked—is politics first, second, third and last in every single equation and the political agenda of those opposite was as follows: they wanted simply to preserve a political agenda to blame the states on every occasion possible, a tired political script of which every family and every community group in the country has, frankly, had a gutful. They want some change, they want transparency and they want to know what is actually being delivered by virtue of the taxpayer dollars, which are being invested.”
“It is time for the Government to match their rhetoric with actions.
“It is also important that the total life-long cost of any infrastructure project is determined so that we don’t have a situation like the botched computers in schools program where no one had thought about the running costs. It reminds me of “Yes, Minister” where the most efficient hospital in the country was the one without any patients!
“The Senate has also opposed any upfront fees being demanded from private operators as a revenue raising exercise. It jeopardises projects from the outset and is exactly what has happened in NSW with the Cross City Tunnel where the State Government demanded a $100 million upfront fee which added $1 to the toll before the first sod was turned.”
Media Contact: Stuart Eaton, 0433 298 620