Hansard debates

  Mr CARLI (Coburg)  -- I rise with pride  to reply to the Governor's  speech at
the opening of the second session of the 52nd Parliament.

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Firstly, I  shall reply in part to  some of the comments made  by the honourable
member for Tullamarine. As a representative of the ALP  in  the northern suburbs
and  the honourable member for Coburg, I take offence at  the claims made by the
honourable member for Tullamarine  that the Labor Party  in the northern suburbs
does not represent  and  abuses  the  people  of those suburbs. Those areas have
great pride in electing Labor members.
Essentially all  electorates in those  suburbs are represented  by Labor members
bar  the  electorate of  the  honourable  member for  Tullamarine.  At the  next
election the electors  will return Tullamarine to  Labor because of  the organic
links between the Labor Party and the populous of those areas.
The Labor Party recognises their needs, and for that reason I speak on behalf of
the people of Coburg with great pride.

I  shall  make  some comments  about  the honourable  member  for  Tullamarine's
diatribe  about  the republic and  his attacks against  the  Prime Minister. The
reason we  are arguing  for a  republic  is to  recognise the  maturity of  this
nation, a nation that can argue for itself, create its own laws and plan its own
direction.
  Mr Finn -- We have been doing that for 100 years.

  Mr  CARLI --  And  to  iron  out the  anachronisms of  the colonial  past, the
anachronisms that allow government, in the name  of state rights, to infringe on
the human rights of people in this country. Human rights have  been offended  in
Tasmania. Environmental  rights have also  been  offended in  Tasmania,  and the
rights of our  indigenous  people are under  attack  by the  Western  Australian
government.  All  the reactionary states  attempt to infringe the  rights of all
Australian people.

The push for a  republic is a push for  a decent constitution that recognises we
are a mature nation, a nation that can stand up in the context of the world, not
a group of  former  colonial  states,  each  of  which  fights  and argues about
fundamental issues, such  as  homosexual rights in  Tasmania. The nation  should
have  a bill  of rights to  recognise such  rights. It  is unfortunate  that the
federal government  has to use the external affairs clauses  of the constitution
to  bring about that recognition.  In  the end it is  about  the maturity of the
nation, and any attempt to reduce the argument by saying, for example, that Paul
Keating wants to become  president  is  a  flawed and misleading argument. It is
fundamentally an argument about Australia confronting the 21st century.
His Excellency, in the opening of Parliament, said  that Victoria has to look in
terms  of  longer  time  frames  if it is to  develop  into  an  internationally
competitive economy and a humane society.

It is precisely in the area of longer time frames that the government program of
cutbacks, privatisation of essential services and sheer neglect is damaging  the
economic, social and cultural capacity of the  state.  The  truth  is  that  the
market in itself  does not  provide the  vision or  the long-term  plan. A  pure
market approach does not allow for a decent planned economy or society.
The market  is not good at long-term infrastructure investments, in part because
the returns are not  adequate and the time frames  are too long. If the  private
sector had owned Melbourne Water in the past  I doubt whether we would  have had
the Werribee sewerage farm,  such a well-sewered city, or that investments would
have been made for the long-term benefit of the state, because  in sheer  market
return they would not have been financially worthwhile.

My argument is  not  against competition: I  favour  competition and reforms  of
essential services,  utilities and state-owned enterprises with the intention of
increasing competition. But I am against, under the illusion of competition, the
government attempting to take natural  monopolies from the public to the private
sector and calling  it  competition.  I  am  also  against  the  break-up of the
agencies that built the infrastructure that has allowed the state to develop.
The  honourable  member  for  Morwell  described it  not  as  privatisation  but
pulverisation. The notion  of pulverisation is  a powerful one. Pulverisation in
the  coal industry means breaking down the coal into such  fine  particles  that
there is a risk  of  combustion. We can use  the  idea of pulverisation to  talk
about how the government  is undermining  the ability  of the  state to plan and
invest  in  long-term structural needs. We are now undergoing a period  of  this
government undermining the  ability  of  the  state  to  plan and invest for its
long-term infrastructural needs.

The  government is currently dismantling the very mechanisms  of government that
have built up the infrastructure of this state -- ports, railways,  fresh  water
authorities, waste water authorities and educational institutions. They have all
been  integral  in  supporting the development of this state and its capacity to
grow.  All these  areas  are  being attacked  by  the  combination of  cutbacks,
privatisation and sheer  neglect.  That  attack  is  threatening  the  long-term
viability of the state and its ability to compete internationally -- all for the
dogma of neo-liberalism. The interconnected parts of a country's infrastructure;
roads, railways, education and so on, are especially easy to starve of resources
because the cost of neglect mounts slowly and is not easily seen in this or next
year's budget -- it is seen 10 or 20 years hence. But in the end the net cost of
the neglect can be great. Tackling the problem has not simply meant depending on
the state or on the market. It involves  creative intervention and collaboration
between market and state.

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That neglect was evident in the United States under the Reagan administration, a
neglect  brought  about by a  belief in the fundamentalist  dogma of neo-liberal
economic policies. It was that dogma  that ultimately led to the election of the
Clinton  government.  Clinton  ran  essentially  on  the  need  to  rebuild  the
infrastructure, to begin the process of  repairing the neglect. He promised more
for  education,  transport  and services and to tackle the urban decay that  has
gripped numerous American cities. He will ensure that the citizens of the United
States of America will  have  access  to  education.  He promised an $80 billion
infrastructure program to start the process of repairing the neglect.
Governments  need  to take the lead because markets are  poor  in  investing  in
long-term projects. I have used the example of the Werribee sewerage farm, but I
could use other examples of basic sewerage and water systems in Melbourne.

They are there because state enterprises were developed in the last century with
the intention of allowing for the long-term creation and development of the City
of  Melbourne.  The   city  itself  has   been   built  along   the   government
infrastructure; from the railway lines we have  the basis  of a  linear form  of
Melbourne.  Melbourne  in the past and currently still leads the  world  in  the
provision of water and waste water  systems. It  is the envy of other Australian
cities and other cities in the world. There are few cities in the world that can
say they  have a  fully serviced city for fresh, good quality water and sewerage
systems. That infrastructure  has been based  on  good laws, regulations  and an
investment program that is currently under threat. The breaking up of  Melbourne
Water  will  result in a loss  of  expertise -- it will  lose  engineers and the
collective memory and skills that have allowed Melbourne Water to lead the world
not in the short term but over 100 years.

That long-term vision has meant that Melbourne enjoys better infrastructure than
most large cities of  the world, certainly most large cities in Australia -- and
it is always worth going to Perth and to Sydney just to see the contrast.