Shadow transport and infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese says constant Government infighting has left transport policies “gathering dust”.
Albanese, speaking from Darwin on Wednesday, said policies to protect crucial road and rail corridors were stagnating while government ministers bickered over leadership.
“The cutting down of the fourth consecutive prime minister to have led a political party to victory in a general election has shaken public confidence in our political system,” Albo told the Ports Australia conference.
“It has also caused real frustration to those of us who are concerned with the national interest.”
Albanese, who was deputy PM during Kevin Rudd’s second stint as PM, said the result of constant changes at the top of the totem pole was “policy inertia,” and crucial freight policies were key victims of this.
“The efficiency of ports, as well as the efficiency of the transport corridors that lead to them, should be a top priority for our nation,” Albanese said. “Yet in recent years, there’s been very little progress in terms of policy development or government investment.
“We’ve seen increasing encroachment on road and rail corridors, even though the former Labor Government, in 2010, produced a National Ports Strategy that provided a blueprint for the sensible advancement of the sector.”
He said the Strategy was, along with the National Freight Strategy and Infrastructure Australia’s landmark 2017 infrastructure audit, “on a shelf somewhere collecting dust” while the nation’s leaders were arguing about who should be in charge.
“These policies were a response to serious challenges for our nation,” the shadow minister said.
“In recent years these challenges have been the subject of too much talk and too little action. We can only hope that this changes under the Morrison Government.”