Mr JENKINS (6:33 PM) —This debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2004-2005 and related bills gives us an opportunity to look at the vision that the Howard government brings for the next term of parliament. Despite the protestations of those opposite, the opposition can be quite assured in the case it puts that, during the election campaign, a lot of things that were promised by the government were about the short term. They were very much promised with an eye to the result of the election rather than the longer vision. Whatever way we cobble it together, the items that are listed in these appropriation bills really do illustrate that case. As I have discussed before, my concern is that Australia will suffer unless we, as a legislative body, together look at the longer term and the way in which we can invest in infrastructure that is for the long term. Over the past short while, we have seen a lot of commentary—reaching a crescendo with the Reserve Bank’s decision to increase interest rates—about the shortcomings of previous decisions of the government and about the way in which the government has dropped its eye from the main game and looked at these decisions that have a very short horizon.

If we are building on the work that was done over a decade ago during the Hawke and Keating years to bring forward an economy that has great strengths, what is required is to ensure that, whilst we might be going through a period of economic sunshine, we are investing what we are achieving at the moment for the longer term, ensuring that, in an intergenerational sense, what we leave now benefits the community and the nation going forward.

Earlier this year, I placed on the Notice Paper a question regarding a promise that was made in the federal electorate of Gippsland. I stumbled upon this proposal whilst visiting Metung down on the Gippsland lakes. I had just walked into the village. I had walked along the road. There was no footpath and there was very little space on the verge to walk safely. When I got into the shop I was visiting, I saw on the community noticeboard—under the heading of the minister and local member, Peter McGauran, and the Leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister—an announcement that the government was to fund a boardwalk along the Metung Road, to the tune of half a million dollars. As I have said when mentioning this project before, I have no problems with this being a project with some merit. But I am very interested in the process. That is why I put on the Notice Paper a question about this proposal for a boardwalk along the Metung Road, Bancroft Bay, north of the Metung Yacht Club. I asked what sum was approved, when the funding was announced and what the expected completion date of the project was.

The answer to the first question I asked—what date was the funding approved?—is that the funding for the boardwalk was announced on 28 September 2004 as an election commitment. The answer to my second question—what sum was approved?—is that final funding will be settled through the additional estimates process, which is what we have just gone through. My third question was: when was it announced? I was referred back to the 28 September date. The answer to the question on the expected completion date of the project is that the completion date has not been identified.

Alongside this press release, the local community body said that it was a month after the election at that stage and they had not heard anything more about it. We are now three or four months down the track and I am sure they still have not heard anything. The intriguing thing with this proposal is that, no matter what its merit—and as we have discovered with a lot of these proposals—you did not have to apply. You just put up your hand and said: ‘Walking along the Metung Road along Bancroft Bay I have had a brainwave. I was nearly skittled by the tourists. It is dangerous. Perhaps extending the boardwalk would be a sensible idea.’ That is okay, but, as I indicated, the funding came out of the pot of money for the Roads to Recovery strategic fund. It is not stated in the aforementioned answer that that was where it was coming from. I note in appropriation bills which we are discussing tonight that there is $30 million for the Department of Transport and Regional Services to fulfil promises like this—for the expansion of the Roads to Recovery program.

There is a whole host of other things listed in these bills that are of a similar ilk. I was really interested—when you have a proposal like that or like the dredging of Tumbi Creek on the Central Coast of New South Wales, which was awarded $1.5 million—in what that might have meant to the electorate of Scullin. When I put this question to people with the skill to give me the answers they suggested that if we were envisaging doing the heavy-rail extension, which I will get back to later, $500,000 provides one level crossing. One and a half million dollars is half a bridge, and there are three or four of those required for the extension. For Plenty Gorge and Linear Park the $500,000 would provide 10 kilometres of trail, signage and crossings—of course, it would provide that over 30 kilometres if you were to get the $1.5 million.

If we look at some of the other proposals, the interesting thing is that some of the suggestions that were put to me were to start in the electorate of Scullin and move through to the electorate of McEwen—things like the Epping to Whittlesea rail trail, which is 20 kilometres long at $40 a metre. You get the partial construction for $500,000; for $1 million you get construction of shared paths, signage, access points and safe road-crossing treatments. Perhaps I made the mistake of not referring the people that live in Scullin to the member for McEwen, who could have got her hands on these magic pots of funding, because there was no advertisement to say that these funds were available. There is no process. You do not put in a submission that has to have some substance and rigour to it and there is no process that would look at them with substance and rigour. What happens is that if you can get a friendly minister to issue a press release that gets displayed on the noticeboard in the village, then that is a commitment. Then, when we get to this stage of considering amendments to the legislation, one of the guidelines will be that these projects can get funding if they have been previous election commitments. If they have not been previous election commitments then, unfortunately, your project will have to get over a whole host of hurdles.

I do not mind a process that has some rigour. I do not mind a process in which it is said to everybody, ‘This is how we are going to assess those that get funding.’ If that were the process, in the electorate of Scullin we could come up with projects for everything and anything you can imagine that would have some credibility and would establish that there is a need. We will take our chances on a proper, open process. We have had nine years of neglect when we could not get anything out of the Howard government. Again I remind the House that my Liberal opponent on the day after the election said, ‘Yes, I have to admit the Howard government has neglected the seat of Scullin.’

Let us look at the $500,000 for this boardwalk comparatively. For instance, one of the great needs we have is for emergency housing. For a little over $500,000, we could get five emergency houses with private amenities, a common room and shared kitchen. There are other things, such as day respite and overnight disability accommodation—a very modest proposal which is of great importance, especially to families with young disabled members whose parents seek a night of respite here or there or, perhaps, a couple of weeks through the year to go off on holiday. If we could get access to the $1.5 million in the same way as those who got the minister to issue the press release about Tumbi Creek we could get some change, because the estimate that I have for a respite care home is $1,426,000.

One suggestion that was made to me, if this money were available, was a proposal for the Plenty River at Greensborough where, when we used to provide facilities like that, the old swimming pool was on the banks of the river. They talked about the upgrade of the Plenty River shared path—the Partingtons Flat to Greensborough bypass would cost only $90,000. Do you know what they were prepared to do? If it had been required to get the funding, they would have been happy to change the name of the Plenty River to Tumbi Creek. If that were all it took, they would have been happy to do that.

The point I want to make is that when the federal government is deciding what proposals it is going to be involved in there should be rigour and the guidelines should be very tight. I hope that the proposals would also be underscored by the fact that they provided not only a long-term benefit to the local community but a contribution to the way we develop as a nation. That is why there are pressures at the moment with the type of economy that we are running. We have a run-down of infrastructure. To use the economists’ jargon, it is now about ‘capacity’—you always learn new things in this game. For quite some time in this place I have railed at the lack of vision to be able to make proper investments in infrastructure. There are two things that we have to be cognisant of about infrastructure. Our present infrastructure has a shelf life and will run down. It has to be renewed and it has to be updated. With the growth in Australia there also has to be an eye towards the way we extend our infrastructure.

One of the problems that we see in an electorate like Scullin, on the outer urban fringe of a city like Melbourne, is that that is where the new housing is going. While it is easy to get land and greenfield sites subdivided and developed and find people willing to go in and convert those subdivisions into homes and communities, the greatest difficulty is in ensuring that infrastructure, both physical and social, is put in place to ensure that people are able to get on with their lives without much fuss.

In Scullin and the southern end of the adjoining seat of McEwen there is going to be huge growth on top of the already impressive growth that we have seen over the last couple of decades. One of the greatest shortfalls that we have seen in the provision of infrastructure in that area has been public transport. The only rail extension—in this case, light rail extension—that we have seen to the area in the last 15 years was under the Building Better Cities program when the Bundoora light rail was extended from the McLeans Road terminus to McKimmes Road, alongside the RMIT Bundoora campus. It was funded by the federal government. It has been the only extension and is a bit short of the developing suburb of Mill Park. It is a very important piece of infrastructure. At the time, whilst this was a modest proposal that really was in the order of two or three kilometres, it was seen as very important. It was also seen as proof of the way governments should be matching the needs of their communities, especially the needs in public transport.

There has been a proposal on the books for quite some time to extend the hard rail—in the old terminology: the train—from Epping station along to the old South Morang station. This again is a fairly modest extension of a couple of kilometres. At one stage it was promised. That promise was not renewed at the last state election, so the whole project is in abeyance. The beauty of this project is that it follows the rail reserve that goes for nearly 20 kilometres to the Whittlesea township in the seat of McEwen. The rail reserve was first used in 1889, when the rail went up to Whittlesea. That is very interesting, because at that stage that particular railway—which was steam, of course—started at Spencer Street. It used the inner circle—that is, it went through Royal Park, Carlton, Fitzroy North and then along the Epping line. Regrettably, the inner circle line was stopped. You now see that parcel of land being put to good community use, including some very solid rail station buildings that are used by community groups. But in the late 19th century there was great vision. There was a different balance between the use of private and public transport, and that was obvious in the way in which public transport—rail in this case—made a contribution to the way Melbourne and its surrounding centres were developed. Regrettably, the Whittlesea line was closed down in 1959 or 1960, so the train then only went through to Epping. Fortunately, that reserve has remained.

A further extension along the High Street-Epping Road corridor is a development called Epping North. In this development, which is at the subdivision stage, another rail reserve has been put in place to cater for the demand that will be there in the new Epping North—the Epping bulge. That is a great piece of planning. But it is no use having the great piece of planning if you are not going to deliver. The dilemma for the local community is that, if we cannot get the two or three kilometres to South Morang along a reserve that has been there for 120 years, how are we going to get it along another reserve that has just been invented? Tonight I want to suggest that the proper authorities have a look at a different way of delivering what could be a very important project for the local area, one that would provide public transport that would cater for the developments that will go into Plenty Valley: take the rail reserve that exists along the Whittlesea line from Mernda/Doreen through to the proposed rail reserve in Epping North, a loop of 15 kilometres.

I call on the appropriate state authorities to use this reserve. If they cannot use the reserve for heavy rail—that is, for trains—look at different ways. If they think buses are the solution, go down the track of O-Bahn in South Australia, or they could do what is being done in Queensland in the constituency represented by the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. Use those examples, because they have been very successful. Public transport is separated from the private and they do not mix.

As I said, I am not wedded to what they use. However, I ask them to consider light rail as I think that is the solution. It can be done in stages. The first stage could be from Epping railway station to South Morang. It would cater for the Plenty Valley shopping centre, the Epping Plaza shopping centre, the Northern Hospital, the industry parks that will be created along Cooper Street, and it would go past the TAFE and civic offices. It would cater for the future development of nearly 45,000 people in Mernda/Doreen and 60,000 people in Epping North. The first bit would cater for 20,000 people in South Morang. We need this vision. It would give a public transport spine to this developing area that would be very important. Governments should be involved, because we can demonstrate what is proper and appropriate to do in a situation like this. I seek leave to present the map that shows my proposal.

Leave granted.