21 August 2025
I am a member of His Majesty’s loyal opposition, and it’s my job to put an alternative view on the table to what you’ve heard from the government, but hopefully with the release of the strategy we can all start to get on with it.
I would like one day for it not to be a freight versus passenger conversation in a country as sparsely populated as ours and potentially productive as ours, but that’s for another day.
Hermione, lovely to see you. Margaret, thanks again for having me.
The Coalition deeply values the work that is done by the Logistic Council – through consultation with your members – you literally bring the industry to the room and inform people like me, the department, the government and the minister.
Like me we are not left wanting to know what you need to make sure your industry can move things safer, faster, more productively and efficiently.
So thank you for the work that your members do in informing all of us who are tasked with the role of assisting, particularly infrastructure transport needs about our great nation.
You and your board can be very proud of the high calibre of advice that you provide, enhancing our national freight and supply chains, making them more resilient, sustainable, and enhancing interoperability between modes and jurisdictions and the 1000s of private sector businesses is, as the minister said this morning, complex but necessary. Its inherent complexity shouldn’t absolve those of us in leadership roles from dealing with that complexity, simplifying it, working with it, within its constraints to actually maximize the efficiencies within the supply chain more broadly.
As Shadow Minister, your advice and research is certainly valued and if I’m ever privileged to hold the actual portfolio in a government, getting industry views, advice and urgency into the department will be something that I will be working very, very hard to do.
So this morning, I know you’ve already discussed global power shifts, workforce shortages, infrastructure gaps and the need for sustainability, they’re all very important things. You’ve heard from Minister Catherine King. You’ve also probably, in the off times, been scrolling your phone. You’ve heard about the talk fest, which is couched as a productivity roundtable.
My fear is that the important issues that have been raised by industry today through the submissions to that roundtable will not see the light of day. We know there’s been 900 submissions which has taken the government’s economic reform roundtable exercise at face value. You’ve engaged honestly and earnestly with the treasurer’s stated desire, if not the Prime Minister’s, that he wants to do something about 60 year low productivity level, and you put some really good ideas on the table to strengthen our economy, create jobs and improve the standard of living, which is actually the end goal of Australian families.
I recognize the theme of your summit today is Australia’s supply chains under pressure and my concern is that the urgency to drive the solutions is not currently evident from the Labor Government. They’ve been gifted with a once in two-decade majority.
The government does not seem prepared to use that majority and that mandate that the Australian people gave them only three short months ago. I have served at the cabinet table, in senior Cabinet positions, I’ve been in the leadership team of two prime ministers and I would have killed for a majority like this one to get things done. One of the great tragedies of government is that you get there, and it’s quite hard to achieve outcomes, so they have got something that hasn’t been achieved in two decades. They really need to make meaningful reforms.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen the big three, as I like to call them, tax reform, industrial relations and energy have already been ruled out of the conversation, which is sort of hampering the discussions.
My job today is to ask a question; Is the government keeping pace with the scale of the challenge facing Australia’s supply chain?
15 months ago, the government released the report into the review of international freight and supply chain strategy. Industry turned up, you put your submissions in, you gathered data, had your ideas. You also had many round tables and the Australian logistics Council brought sectors together, worked with the Department. Two years ago, September 2023 you delivered your comprehensive, 60-page submission to government. The review was meant to deliver a refreshed five-year strategy that could drive action from state, territory governments and industry, commencing last year.
Yet, here we are today, some 15 months after you handed that comprehensive report to government to find that the strategy has finally released today. So, a five-year strategy to only get four years to develop it. That’s quite a chunky, 20% reduction right there. But anyway, we won’t complain. It’s arrived, but there were no reasons for the delay, because industry provided your advice almost two years ago. It goes to the sluggish wheels of government, and I would argue, a minister who is prepared to just let things slide right across the supply chain. While I welcome the release of the strategy and appreciate the minister’s gesture of announcing it for release.
It is somewhat disturbing to hear her this morning announce yet another study is needed to inform the investment decisions of our $120 billion Commonwealth investment infrastructure pipeline. This is the third review of this pipeline in three years. That’s one a year, that is not very productive. I don’t mean to tell you the only thing to stop action is to say we’re going to have a look at this. But unlike Labor’s 200-day, 90-day review that we had to go through, I’m sure the minister clearly has heard that it does take a little longer, and so she’s put a decent timeline that I’m sure she’ll meet. It’s a long time, to inform Commonwealth infrastructure project investments and unfortunately, the delay in national freight supply chain strategy is not the first time this minister saw feedback from the sector, only to have progress halted for a year.
The transport and infrastructure Net Zero roadmap released a consultation with industry in May last year. That process began even longer ago, in December 2023 when you were invited to have your say on the roadmap, you again engaged, but so far, nothing to show for it.
Although I understand, the minister announced this morning, the sector plans would soon be released. Let’s await the date. Last June, the government released a consultation paper on low carbon liquid fuels, industry had one month to provide your submissions. More than a year later, no action from the government.
If I went out into the suburbs and asked if the Labor government is serious about climate change and action on emissions reduction? Everyone would say yes, but as a former minister, their actions tell another story, because you gave them the advice and we are still waiting. There’s been no action from the government on the low carbon nuclear fuels. There’s a real opportunity here, I think, to progress the Low Carbon liquid fuel industry right here in Australia, to service both the land, transport and aviation sector.
I’m excited about this. I live in rural and regional Australia. Rather than the Prime Minister standing up and telling everyone we’re going to be a global superpower in solar panels, we could literally be a global superpower in low carbon and fuel revolution in regions we benefit.
In 2023, the government established Australian Jet Zero Council, and two years later, there is a deep frustration amongst participation at the glacial rate of progress. According to the department’s website, the deliverable of the Jet Zero Council has been the development of a work plan, which was arranged back in December 23 updated in 24 then refreshed in March this year. However, getting refreshed work plans isn’t delivering on outcomes. Having provided government with their very best business insights, they want the Minister to make a decision.
I plead with Catherine King, make a decision. The great privilege of being a minister of this wonderful country is you get to make the decision and you get to drive change. She’s got a huge opportunity, so if you get the chance to encourage her, more power to you, because it’s a great privilege, and it doesn’t last long. Making the change of this magnitude takes time, so the quicker you make the decision, the faster you can get on with achieving the outcome.
Let’s have a quick chat about sustainable aviation fuels, four major reviews, countless work from you, guys and girls, and still no outcome. This is a government that asks for your say, but never seems to deliver its own say. At the election, only four months ago, there was an opportunity for the government to outline its policies on these issues, but there was nothing. Silence.
There’s been a real sense of lethargy from this government since the election, we’ve only have sat for two weeks in five months and there are only six more weeks of parliament this whole year, that means only four days of parliament on average per month from August to January. There is a sense of drift, and the cost of this drift has real world consequences.
Productivity growth, as I said, is at a 60-year low. Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock has also warned that without stronger productivity, inflation will remain entrenched. The cost of living hasn’t gone down just because Anthony Albanese won the election, households are still struggling. Your businesses are still struggling. Nothing’s gone down in price, and when the reserve bank governor gives you that kind of advice, she’s doing it for a reason. They’ve done the hard and gruesome work of raising interest rates to tame inflation because, let’s face it, the government wasn’t doing their share by reining in spending.
Inflation will remain entrenched, and living standards will erode. The government’s own hand-picked productivity Commissioner chair, Danielle wood, has reminded us that supply side constraints, bottlenecks in infrastructure, workforce shortages, planning delays, are dragging directly on our competitiveness and when projects blow out, when costs escalate, when bottlenecks aren’t fixed, Australians pay for it three times over, first through our taxes, when projects are actually funded, then at the checkout, when all the inefficiencies and delays have driven up prices, and finally, in the future, when borrowed dollars mean the next generation has to be the ones to foot the bill.
We’ve all seen what happens when discipline disappears, a bit like my diet. Over the course of two budget updates, last term, the government handed the states and territories $16 billion dollars of funding to pay for cost blowouts on infrastructure policies. That’s not one extra track of rail. It’s not one extra Stadium at 16 lazy taxpayer billion dollars for cost blowouts and delays. 50% Set blowout on the north-south road in Adelaide. $5 billion extra is attributable to delays by the state Labor government deliberately delaying the project. In my own home state of Victoria, you’ll see what’s happening there when discipline is absent.
The taxpayers are the ones that the Commonwealth must stop being a passive investor with state governments. We need to put in the contracts that expenditure is capped, it’s transparent, and that the unions that are driving up rorts pay the costs unless they’re baked into agreements. We won’t be signing the checks. That is exactly the type of discipline that the federal government, as the majority funder in so many of these projects, needs to do elsewhere.
We pledged a 10-year halt on the National Construction Code. We know that drives up the price of a house up to $50,000. 10 years we’re going to pause that it’s now at seven stars. We might leave it at seven stars. Now we see this week that the Labor Government Minister Clare O’Neil has also promised to cap the National Construction Code, but I hope it’s for 10 years. But we already have a cost out saying that the standard of housing is going to be atrocious, and it’s not atrocious, seven stars is quite good enough, if what we need to do is be getting more Australians into homes.
I’m also buoyed by the treasurer’s commitment to examine a road user charge. Put up your hands if you drive an EV. Put up your hands if you drive a petrol or a diesel car. Put up your hand if you drive a hybrid. EV drivers, no more free ride for you.
So the majority of the room pays a fuel excise that contributes to our road upgrade and maintenance. EV drivers currently do not despite the vehicle, being heavier and doing some damage. We’re not asking for EV drivers to be punished, but there is an inequity, and after a high court decision against the state, a Victoria government who tried to attach a payment to EV drivers, the High Court said it’s Jim Chalmers’ job to solve. He’s committed to solve, and I’m really buoyed with treating all drivers equitably.
We also, I also want to raise one more concern, since the election, the government has shifted key planning functions out of the Department of Infrastructure and into Treasury. Why? To speed up housing approvals is the correct answer. Now, don’t get me wrong, of course, we need more housing. It’s a reason our population is stalling. It’s a reason young Australians are putting off having children or putting off having the number of children they would like to have. But if the infrastructure minister had handed over expertise and crucial prioritization of long-term freight and logistics planning just to plug a housing gap, then that’s incredibly short sighted, because it isn’t just about freight.
It’s about improved quality of life, competitiveness, productivity, resilience and efficiency. It’s about whether families can get to and from home quickly, whether Australians can move goods efficiently, increase our exports in an increasingly competitive and complex trading environment, increase our exports and get affordable products to our supermarkets, shops and into people’s homes. That is what an efficient and effective freight supply chain delivers, but we never seem to talk about it and connect it to the broader population in that way.
I just want to turn quickly to fuel. If overseas supplies were cut tomorrow, Australia would have 28 days of petrol, 22 days of diesel and just 17 days of jet fuel. We need to remember those numbers that was barely three weeks of diesel to keep freight moving nowhere near the 90 day benchmark set by the International Energy Agency. That’s not resilience. That is sovereign vulnerability, and it’s why low emissions fuels must be part of our freight future, not just for our climate target funds, but as a sovereign capability, look at Brazil great beef as well without Brazil, but I talk about that, decades of investment in bioethanol have created a resilient domestic transport fuel industry. Nearly 80% of new cars there can run on ethanol or petrol. Brazil is not immune to global oil shocks, but it is far less vulnerable than we are. That’s the kind of foresight we need.
Industry is not always able to be candid, let alone forthright with government, and I understand that, but the only thing necessary for bad things to happen is for good people to do nothing. But I do get that you can’t always be as open, honest, frank and fearless as you would like. I get that this government in particular has never seen a non-disclosure agreement. My commitment to you and your industry and all the businesses and families that rely on you to be successful and prosperous need me not to be passive in opposition and at the last election, we put forward a number of policies to help invest in and deliver improved supply chains. We insist on discipline and accountability.
We need to balance the needs of our freight supply chains alongside population and housing development. When it comes to infrastructure planning, we need to get serious about aviation competition, investing in road resilience. I will work with you, industry investors, operators, to build supply chains that are resilient, sustainable and sovereign. That is a vision Australia needs. That is the leadership we in the Coalition offer. We will be collaborative where we can be, and we will hold them to account when we must. Thank you.
ENDS