Mr PALLAS (Tarneit) — I refer to page  8 of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee Report on the 2012-13 Budget Estimates — Part One and  in  particular to section 2.3.1 entitled ‘Budget challenges’.  In response to the challenges of the high Australian  dollar,  the global economy  and reduced GST  revenue,  the Treasurer indicated that:

  …  the  government is  taking  decisive  action  to  strengthen  the state’s  finances, boost state-funded  infrastructure to record levels (with a focus on  productivity-enhancing infrastructure) while protecting the most vulnerable.

Further, the  Treasurer is reported at page 4 of  the transcript  of the  Public Accounts  and Estimates  hearing of  4  May  as  saying, ‘We  have been  able to allocate $5.8 billion in 12-13’.

The Treasurer should explain  the  discrepancies  between  the  so-called record infrastructure spend  in  the 2012-13 state  budget and the actual  numbers that appear in the official budget papers.

Members  of  this  government  have not been shy about announcing that they have delivered  a  record infrastructure spend  of $5.8 billion in  their most recent budget. The Treasurer told this house  on 2 May that he  had delivered ‘a record state-funded  capital works program of $5.8 billion’, and the next day  in  this house the  Premier confidently called  this  investment ‘$5.8  billion  worth of jobs’. But the  question that needs to be asked is: where does this $5.8 billion come from?

The budget papers  themselves  show that  the  general  capital spend  for  both departments and public  non-financial  corporations totals $5.6 billion for this year’s infrastructure spend — that is a $200 million discrepancy.

How much  of  that money is  really  infrastructure spend?  The  general capital program, as I have said, is $200 million shy of the claimed amount.

Let us look at particular projects. In that total there are  commonwealth-funded projects.  Twelve  road  projects  in this budget are being fully funded by  the commonwealth, accounting for $316 million of this year’s  infrastructure  spend. Trade training centres are being fully funded by the commonwealth to the tune of $105  million. In  health  infrastructure,  $600 000  of  the  funding  for  the Coleraine  hospital  redevelopment  came  out  of  the  Western  District Health Service’s  own  budget.  We see  the  same  thing with  the  Leongatha hospital. MonashLink Community Health Service  is paying $3.6 million of the $9.1  million being spent on its infrastructure. The government is taking credit  for  a  $350 000  donation from Ronald McDonald  House to expand  Monash Children’s hospital. Construction of  the  Ballarat Regional Integrated  Cancer Centre is  worth  $55 million, $42 million of which is being provided by the commonwealth.

In  total  the commonwealth will  contribute  about $145  million  to the health infrastructure spend of this budget.

Some things in the budget the government is calling  ‘infrastructure investment’ are highly spurious. The Department of Justice is spending $8.9 million on speed cameras for Peninsula Link; an amount of  $4.2 million is being spent on station upgrades for protective  services officers (PSOs); $16.7 million is being  spent on police station upgrades, which the police commissioner admitted are partially being  used  to accommodate  PSOs;  $1.2  million is  being  spent  on billboard advertising by VicTrack;  and  $30 million is  going  on ‘regional rail  network periodic maintenance’.

The Treasurer  says the government  is investing $5.8  billion in infrastructure this financial year. In fact there is a $200 million discrepancy.

We can essentially see the taking  of credit  for things that could be described only in  the  broadest terms  as  infrastructure. Maintenance  of  the  existing railway  tracks  is  not  new  infrastructure;   it  is  maintenance.  Billboard advertising  is not infrastructure, and speed cameras make a lot more money than they cost.

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I know the Treasurer has had some issues articulating definitions in this house; his  struggles  with the  domestic  abatement  are well  documented.  But it  is important  that the Treasurer be clear and honest about what  the  $5.8  billion figure actually is.  This is on top  of  the constant claiming of  credit on the part of this government for projects it inherited from  the previous government, such as  when the Minister for  Employment and Industrial Relations was reported in  the Herald Sun of  3 August as spruiking the  supposed $5.8 billion worth of infrastructure and boasting of this  ‘record state infrastructure  spend of $5.8 billion,  with  projects such as  the  regional rail  link’.  He was effectively taking credit for  the long tail of  infrastructure investment by  the  previous government.

This is nothing but  misleading, boasting about nothing  and claiming credit for Labor projects.

In  many ways it demonstrates that this government  not only  cannot add  up but takes credit for projects that  are  not its own and that do not  fit within the broad definition of infrastructure.  It is important  that the Treasurer clarify what his so-called infrastructure spend  is  and  be  honest  with the people of Victoria.  He needs to  highlight  the paltry nature  of the real infrastructure spend — the new infrastructure spend — that this government is making.

See Tim’s speech in Hansard here.