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Letter to Anthony Albanese 20 Jan 2023 Defined Terms and Documents Annexure A Annexure B Liberal MP: Politicians ‘addicted’ to buying votes, take spending out of their hands - SMH - Matthew Knott March 27, 2022 Australian politicians are so addicted to using infrastructure spending to buy votes that responsibility for nation-building projects should be taken out of their hands and assigned to an independent authority, departing Liberal MP John Alexander says. The former professional tennis player and television commentator, who is retiring after 11 years in Parliament, added that both major parties had let voters down by failing to establish a federal anti-corruption commission during the current term of Parliament. Mr Alexander said politicians had treated infrastructure funding as a political plaything, neglecting to plan for the nation’s future by investing in high-speed rail and other long-term projects. “They want to do small infrastructure projects that they can start in their term, finish in their term and say ‘look what we did’ as a way of buying votes,” Mr Alexander said in an interview. “You end up with an ad-hoc, piecemeal roll-out of infrastructure ... Something that might take 15 years to deliver, where is the bang for the buck there politically?” Nations such as Japan - which planned its renowned high-speed rail system decades in advance - put Australia to shame in adopting a long-term strategic vision, he said. Mr Alexander - chair of the House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities - said he supported a proposal by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe to run major infrastructure funding like monetary policy, at arm’s length from the government. Ministers would still need to sign off on projects, he said, but non-partisan experts would be responsible for deciding which major projects deserved funding. This would give voters faith that infrastructure projects were based on advancing the national interest rather than short-term political calculations, he said. “There needs to be an independent authority that does the long-term planning so it’s not piecemeal, ad-hoc and used as a political bargaining chip,” Mr Alexander said. Mr Alexander said that Infrastructure Australia, established in 2008 to advise the federal government on infrastructure funding, has “no weight at all” and should be significantly beefed up. Just one of the 71 Coalition transport promises worth $100 million or more at the last election was based on a business case approved by Infrastructure Australia. As for Labor, just two of the party’s 61 transport funding announcements made during the 2019 campaign was based on a business case approved by Infrastructure Australia. Mr Alexander reclaimed John Howard’s former seat of Bennelong, in Sydney’s northern suburbs, for the Liberal Party in 2010 and fended off subsequent attempts by several high-profile Labor candidates to win the seat. Mr Alexander said he was deeply disappointed the Coalition and Labor had not reached bipartisan agreement on a national integrity commission despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowing to deliver one at the last election. “Both sides are letting down the people they purport to represent,” he said. “That’s a failing. I don’t think there was the essential goodwill and trust to sit down and work things through.” He said senior members from both parties should have got together in a room and locked the door until they could reach a compromise on the structure of a commission. Mr Alexander said such a commission would help address the cynicism many Australians feel about politicians and the use of public money. “The number one currency politicians should have is that they are trusted, they have integrity and that people can believe them because they can demonstrate telling the truth,” he said. “One of the attacks on our prime minister is that he’s not trusted all the time.” Mr Alexander said he hoped Labor and the Coalition outline a long-term policy agenda during the upcoming election campaign rather than just pork-barelling and political attacks. “I think it will be very close,” he said of the election. “I’d love to see a competition of ideas and vision that’s uplifting.” |
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