Thursday, 7 April 2022

Transport Legislation Amendment (Port Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms HORNE:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (10:10): I rise to lead the opposition’s contribution to debate on the Transport Legislation Amendment (Port Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill provides for the continuation of Ports Victoria, a sector transport agency and transport corporation, under the Transport Integration Act 2010. It revises Ports Victoria’s objects and functions and makes a number of other port-related and miscellaneous amendments to the act. It also makes amendments to the Marine Safety Act 2010. The bill also amends the Rail Management Act 1996, the Tourist and Heritage Railways Act 2010 and other acts.

This is a largely administrative bill, the main provisions of which are to amend the Transport Integration Act 2010 to provide for the establishment of Ports Victoria and therefore abolish the Victorian Ports Corporation (Melbourne) and the Victorian Regional Channels Authority—a merge of the two that becomes Ports Victoria; to confer functions and powers and impose duties on Ports Victoria under transport legislation that were previous functions for and powers and duties of the Victorian Ports Corporation (Melbourne) and the Victorian Regional Channels Authority; and to make further provisions in relation to transport restructuring. It also amends the Port Management Act 1995 to make amendments that relate or are consequential to the establishment of Ports Victoria, including the conferral on Ports Victoria of functions and powers under that act that were previously functions and powers of the Victorian Ports Corporation (Melbourne) and the Victorian Regional Channels Authority.

It also provides for the licensing of the provision of towage services and pilotage services and makes further provisions in relation to the powers of the port manager. The amendment to the act makes changes to the Marine Safety Act 2010, and these amendments relate to the harbourmasters that are consequential to the establishment of Ports Victoria and its new functions and powers. It makes amendments relating to the pilotage service providers that are consequential to the licensing of the provision of pilotage services under the Port Management Act 1995 and amends the Rail Management Act 1996 to make miscellaneous amendments to improve the operation of that act. It also amends the Tourist and Heritage Railways Act 2010 to enable fees to be prescribed for the processing of applications by the tourist and heritage railway operators to be included in the tourist and heritage railway group register. It also makes amendments to other acts that relate to or are consequential to the establishment of Ports Victoria.

Now, before I get into the specifics of the bill, I need to highlight the conduct of the minister’s office during the bill briefing process. It is usual practice that you have a bill briefing in a time that is considered reasonable. Unfortunately I was only given one day, and one time was offered, for the briefing, with no apparent willingness to negotiate. So I ended up actually only having this briefing on Friday last week, which was the only day it could be done because apparently the minister has such a busy schedule. This is not our problem, but it is very disappointing that accepted practice was not given due respect and due consideration.

Prior to the briefing my office flagged several questions that we were expecting detailed answers on and gave that respective time to have that information received so it could be investigated and we could get decent answers that would help us understand the intent behind the different clauses. The minister’s adviser admitted to me on the call that it was their call on who was briefing us, but there was not really a department official that was able to give us any detailed answers on the questions we had. At best this is extremely poor management from the minister, at worst this is a deliberate attempt to limit scrutiny, which I would have to say is a hallmark of the Andrews Labor government. We see this on so many occasions, whether it be a bill that gets brought into the Parliament and the usual respected time lines are not respected, or the consultation that you should do with the people who will be affected by the changes in the bill cannot be done in a way that gives busy people running businesses affected by changes—such as, in this bill, the port operators, stevedores, towage services and pilots—the ability to actually scrutinise the changes that affect them and give feedback so that we can do our role as an opposition and put forward why sometimes these changes might result in unintended consequences. Because that is what we are here to do: to actually improve our state through the legislative changes that are made here in this chamber.

During the briefing the Department of Transport cited a short turnaround. Let me explain that. Ports Victoria was announced in February 2021. It started in the form of Ports Victoria—the two bodies merged to make the more efficient, hopefully, and less clunky organisation; that was the driver to be one in July last year, so four months after the announcement of the change. The government did not introduce the legislation then; we are talking about it today, in April 2022.It says that four months was too short to draft the bill, but I question that. Given most of this bill is name changes in acts where ‘Ports Victoria’ has to be inserted into acts where that name change will affect them, there is really not a lot of rationale for using the clunky transport restructuring order which was the tool used to start the organisation last July and have the legislation come through today or to have a very short turnaround for discussion on the bill with the constituents that I needed to talk to. But, again, this is a theme of this government when it comes to legislation. Instead of putting proper processes in place to ensure it gets things right, it rushes things through in a poorly constructed way, and what we often see are the consequences of that being inconsistencies and not really rationales that people can get their head around. Mistakes get made or unintended consequences result from that, and that is not what we want to see.

Anyway, this bill makes changes to the Transport Integration Act 2010 and provides for Ports Victoria’s main objectives and functions. For the new organisation it outlines the objectives and functions—that is, promoting and facilitating trade through the commercial trading ports and local ports. We are talking Portland, we are talking Geelong, we are talking Melbourne, we are talking Hastings. It is also to promote the sustainable growth of trade carried out through the Victorian port system. We know there is no evidence that the Andrews Labor government has any desire to achieve these directives, so you have to wonder why they are in the legislation. The port of Melbourne is now one of the most expensive ports to do business with in the world, which has led to it being actively bypassed. It has a voluntary pricing model for landside infrastructure access that is failing, leading to the cost of doing business and the cost therefore to consumers for goods increasing.

In the time post pandemic where the cost of living is a huge impost on the community you would think that the government would use this opportunity to have an integration—which is the word, transport integration—plan that would make sure we have got synergies. We have changed so much in the last 30 years in how we do business and how we see goods transported around the state. An opportunity to have an integrated transport plan—which the government is under obligation to have but has not produced; the Auditor-General has been extremely critical of this—has been missed when the cost of goods is increasing so much because of the costs at the port. Most of the products that we use in our everyday lives are imported—our whitegoods, our medications, many things—but also many of our goods are exported. Given the opportunity that existed, I am very disappointed that those objectives of promoting and facilitating trade and promoting sustainable growth of trade have been missed in this bill.

But the title of this bill is port reform. The most obvious and glaring reform required is to address the Essential Services Commission report. This report was handed down very recently, and it is the first inquiry into the port and its compliance since the port was leased out in 2016 until 2021. The findings of this report were so scathing, and yet there is nothing in this bill to address the recommendations of the Essential Services Commission. Now, that report has been stated as one of the most damning reports to have come out of the Essential Services Commission, so why the government are silent and why they have not implemented any of the recommendations or made comment that they will be implementing these recommendations is very disappointing for the community of Victoria, whose cost of living is rising and the government are missing opportunities to address it.

The ESC report found that the port of Melbourne overstated its operational revenue requirements by between $300 million and $650 million. This means Victorian consumers will be impacted by higher prices for goods in the future. It found that the port’s approach to managing its operating expenses is not consistent with that of a prudent or efficient service provider. Tariffs, cost allocation and content of its tariff compliance statements were found to be non-compliant by the Essential Services Commission—non-compliant. According to the ESC the cumulative nature of the port of Melbourne’s non-compliance is significant and is not in the long-term interests of Victorian consumers. So in the Essential Services Commission’s view the non-compliance is (1) significant because it does not meet the objectives of the Port Management Act 1995 in Victoria and (2) sustained because the impact on these objectives is not fleeting or transitory. The ESC also found the current regulatory framework does not have adequate incentives for compliance, which allows for significant and sustained non-compliance with the pricing order.

This is all pretty damning stuff. The Assistant Treasurer had this ESC report at the end of last year—four months ago—and there has not been a single word or response. This is shameful. It is shameful, and it shows an arrogance from a government who is responsible for governing. I think sometimes we forget that, or it appears to me where I sit in opposition that governing is not what is the intent. It is about trying to look good rather than actually putting things in place that will address these issues. Cost of living is a huge impost on our community at the moment. People are really struggling when they go to the petrol browser. Yes, that has come down in the last couple of weeks, but when you go to the supermarket it is not just a little bit; it is hugely noticeable. We need our port, the gateway to our state, to be as efficient as possible. Having a report like this, where the government has been told that the lease agreement has some issues with it because the levers that the government has available to it are not being used, and with these outcomes that the Essential Services Commission has highlighted, is quite concerning. It is concerning for mums when they go to the supermarket. It is concerning for dads when they are trying to manage the cost of living. Families are just struggling at the moment.

Whilst on the port of Melbourne, I am just recalling that when the lease was passed through this Parliament we pushed, as Liberal-Nationals, very hard and were able to put into the bill the need for the government to return at least 10 per cent of the proceeds to infrastructure projects in regional and rural Victoria. It is worth stating that that has been not really properly delivered on. I do not think you could ask any Victorian where they can see evidence of that 10 per cent. Have they seen it invested in their roads that are now great quality to take our transports to market on so that our families are not competing for safe space on the roads? I was absolutely shocked when the member for Eltham quoted her mother, who took a journey from Gippsland to Healesville and said that we on this side are bellyaching about the state of our roads. I absolutely cannot believe that there are members of the government who are saying that we are exaggerating in any way, shape or form that our roads are really bad. If you do not believe us, look at the Auditor-General’s report of 2017 and then two years later his review that said nothing had been done, because the way the roads are being managed is very poor—and this is his word, ‘poor’. Please, I urge you: get out into the regions and start governing from border to border. Come to Portland, come to Nelson, come to Warrnambool, go to Heywood and have a look at the state of roads. That 10 per cent from the proceeds going into infrastructure—the roads are poor.

In Warrnambool you look at the rail service and we have not even had a locomotive ordered, which was promised four years ago by the government. And then we will go to the Murray Basin rail project—$400 million spent from the sale of Rural Finance and wasted because the rail system cannot go faster than before they started the project. In fact journeys take longer. How can that be a well-managed project or a good result for Victorians? The government has short-changed us in the country as usual. That was back in 2016, but what have we seen since? They are hardly investing in critical infrastructure.

Moving on, there is a lack of clarity in relation to the proposed conditions that could be placed on licences for harbourmasters, and that is clause 60. New section 91AA(1) in the bill enables Ports Victoria to at any time request the director of transport safety to impose a condition on the licences of the harbourmasters engaged for the port waters for which Ports Victoria, the new organisation, is now responsible. That relates to one or more of a number of specified matters, which are marine safety incidents within the meaning of the Marine Safety Act 2010, operational safety performance, participation in training and safety development programs, and any prescribed matter. Increased control of local ports was one of the hottest topics among stakeholders when we did do the consultation, and I would like to say thank you to all the stakeholders that we worked with to get their feedback. It was a very tight time line, as I said at the beginning of this debate, so it was a terrific effort to see our harbourmasters, our sea pilots, our towage operators and the stevedores all coming back and helping me with understanding the bill from their perspective.

We asked for specific examples on the conditions from the minister’s office during the briefing, these conditions of marine incidents or operational safety performances, but the response I got was just a cut and paste from the explanatory memorandum for the bill and totally ignored the stakeholders’ concerns and questions that they had put to me and that on their behalf I asked for clarity from the minister on. This is another example of a government that is not interested in transparency or accountability.

We go on to clause 86 of the bill, which inserts a paragraph (f) into section 11(1) of the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987 to clarify that the minister administering the Fisheries Act 1995 may delegate various functions and powers to the Victorian Fisheries Authority, the VFA, or the chief executive officer of that authority. This is a curious inclusion. Section 11(1) delegates any of the minister’s powers, functions or duties to several authorities, being a catchment management authority, Parks Victoria, the Victorian Plantations Corporation and VicForests, but it is unclear why the VFA is being specifically named, and the Department of Transport has been unable to give any answers despite this specific question being raised with them at the start of the week. We let them know specifically that we would be seeking these answers. We asked what exactly was at risk of happening if the delegation to the VFA was not made clear. If the change is not made, what is at risk of occurring practically or on paper? We were given nothing. So you have got to ask yourself, if the government were trying to improve legislation and make sure this is a better organisation, a more efficient organisation which leads to the port being more efficient, why is it they could not even answer that question of what were the risks? What were they trying to achieve in that clause?

What it does not do is provide any rationale or clarity on why the name change is needed, aside from trying to reflect its current and likely future role. Now, that is around the port of Hastings. In the bill the port of Hastings is changing its name from the Port of Hastings Development Authority to the Port of Hastings Corporation. But why? What is the rationale? Clearly they are cementing the fact that the port of Hastings, under this government, will never be a container port. Really, you could not give me any other reason than the fact that a name change makes good sense. It has got to cost a few hundred K—surely just even changing the name would result in a letterhead change. How is that, in a time post COVID when we have got to find efficiencies, a good idea considering the significant costs involved?

The bill amends the Transport Integration Act, as I have said. What an opportunity was missed by this government. The government is under obligation to produce an integration plan but says that because it has got 40-odd plans that is the job done. I am afraid that is not the job done. When you look at the government’s botched Murray Basin rail project and its entire freight transport strategy, it is an absolute mess. It should have been a game changer, a game-changing infrastructure project to allow producers to get their goods to market more efficiently and cost effectively. It would have been an enormous benefit, especially for many rural and regional Victorians in the west and north-east. But given the understanding on the other side of this chamber of the state of our roads and rail, given the quotes on Tuesday about the bellyaching we do when ‘everything is actually fine’ on our roads in the region, I am not surprised that the government lacks understanding of how beneficial the Murray Basin project would have been. But what do we have now? We have a project that is almost a decade behind schedule and so far over budget it is not funny—another hallmark of this government when it comes to infrastructure spending, or should I say, infrastructure blowouts. I think that is a $24 million blowout to this day, but it is growing every day, and the time lines get longer and—

Mr McCurdy interjected.

Ms BRITNELL: Billion. Did I say million? Thank you, member for Ovens Valley, for correcting me. You are right. It is probably worth restating: there is $24 billion in blowouts from this government to date and growing. Rather than ensuring the project is delivered in full, what does the government do with the Murray Basin rail project? It rescopes it, because it knows it is not up to the task of getting the project completed. The Andrews Labor government refused to match the commonwealth government’s $5 million for planning work to get the project back on track. Instead of delivering the project in full, the Andrews Labor government refused to standardise the Sea Lake and Manangatang lines, which robbed the north-west Victorian producers and transport stakeholders of the benefits that would come with better access to domestic and international markets.

It also robbed the port of Portland of the opportunity to be a competitive port. Probably six or seven years ago we were talking about $5 a tonne in difference for grain to go through the port of Portland—it was more expensive—than the ports of Geelong and Melbourne. The government’s own report of 2016 cited how important it was to have competitiveness between ports so that we could make getting product to market internationally competitive rather than it costing us domestically before it leaves the country and hamstringing producers and not being able to be internationally competitive—again a hallmark of a government that just does not care about regional and rural Victoria.

The commonwealth contributed an additional $200 million for the Murray Basin rail project 12 months ago to help fix the Andrews Labor government’s botched job. We are left in a situation where producers have no option but to freight their goods by road, and anyone who has travelled on regional and rural roads in this state will know how inefficient and detrimental that is. Well, not anyone, because if you listen again to the words of the member for Eltham, in her words she thinks we are ‘carrying on far too much’. I will again implore the members of the Labor Party on the other side of this chamber to go for a drive; go for a drive to Nelson, go for a drive to Portland. It is Easter next week. Get out into the regions, go up to the borders, from east to west to north, and see how bad our roads are if you think that a drive from Gippsland to Healesville tells you all you need to know and that the roads are fine. Tell that to the many families who are struggling because of the damage done to their cars by our roads.

To finish I return to the integrated transport plan. The Transport Integration Act 2010 requires the Department of Transport to prepare and periodically revise transport plans for Victoria. The act seeks integration planning and management of many transport modes, networks and services that make up the state’s transport system—so that is our buses, that is our trains, that is our roads. The Victorian Auditor-General (VAGO) in 2021 concluded the department—

… and its predecessors have not, over the past decade, demonstrably integrated transport planning and are yet to meet the Act’s requirements for the transport plan.

That is what we see from this government all the time. They do not care about what they are supposed to do. They think, ‘We’ll just get away with it’. Look what happened when we saw the VAGO report just yesterday about the overspend—the wrong spend, the spending of taxpayers money—on the Big Build advertising, which was clearly self-promotion rather than reasonably non-political. So the government does not care. They have not got a fine, they are not going to pay it back. They just want to self-promote and keep telling people how good they are doing.

Yet to have an integrated transport plan—when they are doing the biggest builds we have seen in a long time. We do not even know whether the tunnels are going to flow onto the freeways and result in more efficient transport, because there is not any evidence of that, because the planning has not been done. The Department of Transport’s assertion that its 40 separate plans and strategies presently meet the act’s integrated transport plan requirements does not withstand scrutiny. I mean, what an opportunity, with the technologies we have today, the just-on-time systems that buses could use. We could have people actually getting from appointments to home. But no, we are still using very old-fashioned ways of doing business because there is no integration planning. The absence of a transport plan, required by the act during the decade of unprecedented investment in transport infrastructure, just creates missed opportunities to sequence and optimise the benefits of these investments and best meet Victorians’ transport needs. Again, this is so damning at a time when the cost of living is blowing out—and the cost of consumers getting their goods. If we could actually make sure goods got to market or goods got to the port efficiently, we would really help our recovery economically.

When you have got transport operators, for example, having to apply for permits, there is another example of the inefficiency. So if you are an operator of an A-double, which is a new larger transport truck, and you buy a new truck and that has got a 4-millimetre difference in length or width, you have to submit another permit to the government. And the government then says, ‘Well, it might cost me up to $50 000 to do a bridge assessment’. So these transport companies are paying up to $50 000 to get a bridge assessment done to get the truck that they have purchased, which is only literally 4 millimetres different to the last one that they got the same permit for. What is the government doing with that $50 000? You would expect it would go to bridge upgrades, but it is not. The same bridges are the choke points on the system. Instead of having high-performance vehicle routes permitted so that the goods can get to market efficiently, what we have got is a government that does not care.

When we were in government and we had our country roads and bridges program, that helped with these sorts of challenges. But the government is not interested in an integration plan. It is not interested in efficiency. It is aware that the cost of living is rising and has no interest. It would rather self-promote than actually govern for the state of Victoria and considerately care for the opportunities that it has to make sure the cost of living comes down and we as a state are competitive and as a state are able to export our goods competitively and internationally compete so that we stay a viable and export-led state.

But I am afraid I am not seeing that from this government, and the changes we have got here on the transport reform bill for the port have let a massive opportunity go without any attention. So what a shame that the Minister for Ports and Freight has missed this opportunity and that we have got the port of Melbourne now being bypassed and inefficient when the whole aim was to make sure the port was competitive. Well, you missed that opportunity, and it is time to fix it, just like the Essential Services Commission has reported.

Mr PAKULA (Keysborough—Minister for Industry Support and Recovery, Minister for Trade, Minister for Business Precincts, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, Minister for Racing) (10:40): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.