Fireside chat: The things we agree on panel discussion

L–R: Paul Fletcher, Brendan Lyon and Anthony Albanese

Fireside chat: The things we agree on

Key points:

• Western Sydney Airport is succeeding because of bipartisan support from Paul Fletcher and Anthony

Albanese. • Road pricing reform will need even greater bipartisan support to succeed. • ‘Smart cities’ are about using information to understand infrastructure and urban planning problems – and testing solutions.

Panellists:

► The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional

Development, and Shadow Minister for Tourism ► The Hon Paul Fletcher MP, Minister for Urban

Infrastructure

Moderator:

► Brendon Lyon, Chief Executive Offi cer, Infrastructure

Partnerships Australia

Brendan Lyon (BL): This is a tremendous opportunity to bring together two people who are both good friends of mine, and good friends of the sector, to have a chat about what’s what in infrastructure, and how we can agree on things that we need to do. This is the brainchild of several telephone calls, not actually with Paul and Anthony, but with their respective chiefs of staff. We worked out that there is actually a fairly high degree of similarity between Paul Fletcher and ‘Albo’ right from the outset – remember that this is the work of your staff and not me.

The list we came up with is: ► they both like to claim credit for each other’s work ► they both speak with a higher-than-average nasal tone ► they both cut their teeth in student politics at the University of Sydney.

Your nearest and dearest staff were the ones who came up with that list.

Nonetheless, you were both avid university activists at the same university, at the same time. Paul, you were a worldchampion debater. I think that you left that off your resume Anthony, but it was similar at the time.

The Hon Anothy Albanese (AA): No. I was a brawler.

BL: World-champion though.

The Hon Paul Fletcher MP (PF): It’s the dominant wing of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Camp.

BL: Nonetheless, today is a little bit different because we’re going to talk about the things that you agree on.

We’ve got a little menu of what those things might be – but remember, this is a non-partisan debate; it’s designed to discover areas where you agree.

While this could have very easily been the infrastructure version of the Mayweather and McGregor fight – undoubtedly with the mixed martial artist over here (Anthony), and the Marquess of Queensberry rules on this side (Paul) – in this ring, we want to know where there is agreement, rather than where there is not.

The rules of the game are relatively simple. I’ve got a series of questions to ask you. You will respond, and for every partisan comment that’s made, you will have to say something nice about each other.

AA: The draft had something else.

BL: It did. I was originally going to make them cuddle, but we thought it was a little bit too edgy.

AA: I’m in favour of it, but it’s not compulsory.

PF: They just want their democratic right to have their say.

BL: We are so used to partisan debate at state and federal levels, so the opening question for both of you is: should we take some level of optimism in the fact that you both instantly accepted our invitation to come along and talk to the sector? Should we take that as a sign of some optimism that, at least in infrastructure, we’re starting to move to an area where there are key agreements?

PF: There are agreements in areas of infrastructure and there are also healthy disagreements, but that’s the same across a number of areas.

AA: In opposition, you’ll take any opportunity to talk to anybody.

BL: Let’s turn now to Western Sydney Airport, and this is one area where there has been a fairly notable degree of agreement, at least in concept. What are the edges of that area of agreement? What do you actually agree on? What is Western Sydney Airport?

PF: Western Sydney Airport is a 3,700-metre runway, with a total capacity of 10 million passengers, commencing operation in 2026. Of course, there has been a lot of bipartisan work to get to this point, and I certainly acknowledge Albo and the work that he’s done. I’d also acknowledge Joe Hockey, who did a lot of work on Western Sydney Airport, including with Albo and Scott Morrison, among others. There’s been a lot of good work done.

AA: There is pretty broad agreement. There might be differences over where the rail line will be. I think the big difference that’s emerging is rail from day one. Hopefully this dissolves, but Labor sees this as an essential component – and hopefully it will happen.

The other thing we agree on is that the Government had a difficult position, not of it’s own making, but of a pretty dumb

decision to grant a right of first refusal into the contract. The objective there, of course, was to undermine the chance of the second airport ever happening. I think the Government found a creative way of coming through that and they deserve credit for it. We backed it in – otherwise it wouldn’t have happened.

Western Sydney Airport is the best example of an infrastructure project that needed government and opposition to make it happen. I doubt whether there’s anyone in this room who didn’t think that it should happen, but it happened.

PF: Max Moore-Wilton was here earlier.

AA: Was he here? He read the itinerary and saw I was speaking. It’s good that he was here. That’s longer than what I said in a previous media release.

We were ready to go into government. We’d done a lot of the planning; we’d looked at other options. To Joe Hockey’s credit, in particular, we sat down and worked through things in a constructive way. We had various cabinet processes in place, and we did a lot of research. The truth was that there was someone – one person – who happened to be the Leader of the Opposition at the time, and Joe and other supporters couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t just come out and oppose it. Then it would have been opposed by people in my party, as well, and we would have been back at square one.

Joe spoke about this in his Valedictory from Parliament. We essentially had an agreement that whoever won the 2013 Federal Election would, for goodness’ sake, get on and do it. Joe always honoured arrangements – he had that reputation, and we got it done.

PF: There was one other important piece of work. Having come into it relatively recently, my observation would be that the 2012 study about the aviation needs of Sydney laid out a very credible set of findings about the capacity of the existing airport at Kingsford Smith.

AA: When you’re looking at bipartisanship, it’s no accident that this report was commissioned by me in our first term.

The chances of New South Wales Labor being re-elected at the 2011 State Election were pretty minimal, and the study was designed with that in mind. It was due to report in March 2011, straight after the election, because I thought it was what you needed at that time.

I say that without upsetting the person who, at the time, was the Deputy Premier, who happened to be my wife. We were genuinely looking at other options, but with a Federal Labor Government and a State Liberal Government, I thought that’s what was needed to get this done. And of course, Barry O’Farrell had a different position from Mike Baird and others. He didn’t immediately receive the report, but that was also an example of trying to get those ducks in a row, and of how to stop partisan politics. People in the state bureaucracy were conscious of it; Sam Haddad was the joint chair with Mike Mrdak – in the end, they didn’t stop it, and we got there through the process.

BL: Tell us about curfews, because there’s a bit of local pressure, which will be commercially difficult for the airport if it gets out of control.

AA: It’s not a consensus view on my side; I’m not going to pretend it is. I don’t support a curfew, and Labor got through an election campaign without having a curfew. I’d also emphasise that there’s a curfew at Sydney Airport, but there were still 4,000 or more take-offs and landings between 11:00 pm and 6:00 am at Kingsford Smith Airport last year. There is a whole range of low-capacity flights that are able to go out through Kurnell, and it’s not an issue. We don’t go out there and advertise that.

The benefit of the planning that was put in place by the Hawke Government, and maintained throughout, with pressure on the previous Howard Government and certainly on me to maintain the land at Badgerys Creek. When you first become a Minister, you get a brief – of course, it always recommends immediate finance cuts. They get all the stuff out of the bottom drawers. Item one was to sell Badgerys Creek land, advocated by the Sydney Morning Herald, who said, ‘Why aren’t you just getting on with it?’ I always thought, ‘No, no, no. We might actually need that’.

In terms of the processes of the Western Sydney Airport, those protections have meant that you can have take-offs and landings to the south-west, which impact almost nobody. Around Kingsford Smith Airport, houses were demolished.

The whole suburb of Sydenham was demolished in my electorate for the third runway at Kingsford Smith. There are about 18,000 homes that needed to be insulated. I don’t want anyone to suffer from aircraft noise unnecessarily, and you can protect people. You can’t have an airport that’s silent; but you can, because of the planning controls at Western Sydney Airport, have an airport with less impact than any other airport in any capital city in Australia.

PF: I’d agree with that. I’d add that I’ve visited a number of airports around the world, and it’s reinforced the message to me that every successful airport has a strong community consultation strategy. That’s why we set up the forum for Western Sydney Airport, under the chairmanship of Peter Shergold, who’s obviously a former secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, a very eminent Australian, and Chancellor of Western Sydney University. We’ve got 22 other people on the forum, drawn from all of the different regions of Western Sydney.

We’ve got Labor politicians, Liberal politicians, Mayors; we’ve got council General Managers; we’ve got businesspeople (quite a diverse range of people), and the intention is that this group will be a very important element of community consultation, especially as flight paths are developed. It certainly will not be the only means of community consultation, I hasten to add,

L–R: Paul Fletcher, Brendan Lyon and Anthony Albanese

but it’s a really important part of it. Just last week, for example, when they had their second meeting, they had a site visit to Sydney Airport to visit the tower, and just get a sense of some of the issues involved. Part of the thinking there is to build up some expertise in that group of people. Without making any assumptions about their views, these are very technical issues, and the more we can get people with a knowledge base, then the more they can apply their perspective as members of the community, understanding all the considerations of voters.

BL: I recently saw a poll saying that 70 per cent of people are now supportive of Western Sydney Airport. Paul, are you seeing that in terms of the meetings and discussions?

PF: I’d say that there is extensive support across the local council leadership, for example. Not every council, but a significant number of them. They have a strong desire to be seizing the jobs and economic opportunities that this will bring for their residents. There is a strong interest across Western Sydney. Of course, that’s not something you can take for granted. You’ve got to keep working at it. You’ve got to keep demonstrating progress. I think it’s fair to say that on both sides of politics, there was a degree of nervousness about how a decision to proceed with such a major infrastructure project would be received, but my observation would be that it’s been well received, because getting on a plane is so commonplace in the lives of Australians today – that’s true whether you live in Western Sydney, or anywhere else.

People are saying, ‘Great, this is going to be really convenient the next time I have to go interstate to go to the football, or go to a wedding, or to do the other things that people are routinely getting on planes to do’. It’s clearly linked to the fact that the real price of airfares is now roughly half of what they were in 1990. There are now four times as many trips per year as 25 years ago. In other words, there’s a virtuous cycle between competition and improved availability of air travel and airports. I certainly saw that on a visit to London last year, looking at airports like Luton and Gatwick. There is a real synergy between competition between airports, and competition between airlines. I think that’s one of the policy outcomes that we’re going to get.

AA: I flew in from the Gold Coast this morning. I think the Gold Coast is the model for the sort of numbers that you’ll have through Western Sydney Airport, and some of the types of airlines that you’ll have when Western Sydney Airport starts. Western Sydney will evolve into an absolutely full airport, as big as any of the major ones around Australia over time. One of the mistakes, I think, that some commentators make is that they say, ‘Well, but what about the CBD? It’s a long way from the CBD’. That’s because so many opinion makers – and I say this as someone who lives in Marrickville in Sydney’s inner west – think that Western Sydney is Parramatta.

BL: Or Pyrmont.

AA: Or Pyrmont. It’s 2.2 million people. This is Western Sydney’s first airport, not the second Sydney Airport, and it’s a really important distinction in terms of public mindset.

The key issue around there is how to get people from Campbelltown and people from St Marys, and people from the north-west, to work at not just the airport, but the science

park, the logistics businesses, and the advanced manufacturing plants, everything along that corridor.

That’s the key to getting more and more support for Western Sydney Airport, and I think that the key element will be bulldozers on the ground. I’ve been advocating to Paul privately, but he wouldn’t mind me saying it here: for goodness’ sake, get the earthmoving stuff happening now. Then people will realise it’s really happening.

You know, you had Bob Collins out there with the spade in the ‘90s, and you’ve had lots of people out there, a long, long time ago. People even ask Paul, ‘Well, will it really happen?’ As people realise that yes, it will really happen, the support is growing. Although, there was a bit of a hiccup (not Paul’s fault).

BL: You don’t have to say anything about that.

AA: I’m about to sledge someone else, so it’s bipartisan on this platform.

When I saw the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the maps had every single plane going over my friend Senator Doug Cameron’s house – literally. There was a line on the map as if every plane at an airport goes in a straight line. That was the draft EIS that was circulated, and I said to Warren Truss, after I woke him up, ‘For goodness’ sake’. That was a product of a lack of political oversight.

PF: Can I just explain what happened there, as well?

AA: I was being nice to you.

PF: We consulted with the right wing of the New South Wales Labor party.

AA: It’s not a joke, by the way. It is actually unbelievable that on the website you could type in your address. Literally every plane was going over his house. Why they did this is beyond me, because you can’t tell now where a plane will be in 2026 – that’s not the way it works.

PF: Just to be clear, we have made the commitment that there will be no single merge point over that location, or others.

BL: Doug has moved house.

PF: It is obviously an important point about taking the community with you, and understanding where the hotspots

L–R: Paul Fletcher, Brendan Lyon and Anthony Albanese

are, and having formal consultation mechanisms so that those issues can be surfaced and worked through.

BL: Just before we move on from the airport, is there anything that you would want from Labor, in Opposition, to help with? You’ve got a difficult job to get a very complex project up and running.

PF: Other than staying in Opposition?

AA: That’s going well for you.

BL: Alright, you’re going to have to say something nice now.

PF: It wasn’t about him.

BL: Come on, say something nice, just be friends.

AA: He’s not the problem. He’s an Australian citizen.

PF: The engagement’s been pretty good so far.

BL: Anthony, is there anything that you need from the Government, from Paul, to make it easier for you to control?

AA: Paul has been constructive in terms of appointments to things. It’s good that there are some Labor people on the consultative body. Peter Shergold was a very good appointment as the chair of that, so with respect, that needs to continue in terms of the board. Some of our people in government complained that under Rudd and Gillard, we appointed more conservatives than Labor-aligned people. I don’t think that’s quite fair, but we were bipartisan in our appointments.

I appointed people like Bruce Baird and Mark Birrell, both former Liberal MPs, and a range of others. There’s not a very big list from this Government, and they need to understand that Western Sydney is Labor heartland, so there needs to be some people who identify with our side, to be frank about it. But Paul has been very constructive by sitting down and letting us know in advance when things are happening.

BL: That’s good. Well, we might move from the airport onto road pricing, which was a fairly big theme of discussion this morning.

When we originally put these questions together five or six weeks ago, we were going to note that an area of agreement between you both was the wonder of Italian culture, that your wife, Paul, and your father, Albo, were both of Italian stock. Of course, Section 44 means that we no longer admit or even acknowledge cultural ties.

AA: There’s one time in my life to be glad of my immaculate conception. I mean, having no father on my birth certificate.

BL: If we did acknowledge those cultural ties, however, one thing we could observe is that traffic congestion in Rome is now roughly similar to what it is in Melbourne and Sydney – we’ve got problems getting funding into the transport projects that we need. We’ve got trouble maintaining what we’ve got. I guess the first question on road pricing is to ask you again, what does it mean to you? Road pricing can be anything to anyone, depending on the time.

PF: The point I’d start with is that people pay to use the roads today. People are paying 41 cents per litre in fuel excise to use the roads today. Of course, if you’re driving a 10-yearold Holden Commodore, that translates to about 4.5 cents per kilometre. If you’re driving a Prius, that’s about 1.5 cents per kilometre. If you’re driving a Tesla, that’s 0 cents per kilometre. Apart from the relatively small number of people who drive a Tesla, you are paying to use the road today.

One way that road pricing works is the way we have it today, but there are obviously other approaches. For example, I was recently in Oregon and California, where both states have trials underway. They both have a per-mile gas tax, and they’re looking at whether it makes sense to move to a different system. One of the reasons they’re looking at it is that vehicles are getting more fuel efficient, and electric vehicles are starting to increase as a proportion of the fleet, so the revenue stream that has been a very significant contributor towards the capital and operational cost of roads is declining. We spend $23 billion a year on roads around this country, yet one of the key revenue streams that we’ve relied on is under pressure. That’s one of the reasons different countries around the world are looking at different models, and there are a range of different possibilities.

BL: What would you say when people are talking to you about road pricing? What are you thinking in your head: it’s not a cordon charge – it’s something wider?

AA: Beyond what Paul said, people pay through their direct taxes to build roads and maintain them. People pay their rates to local government to build roads. The big issue is if you were starting again, the ideal theoretical model is a distance charge. There are a couple of issues though, that you’ve got to overlay over the top of the theory. From my perspective, it’s very much equity.

BL: Fairness equity.

AA: Yes. Those people who have to drive the furthest in Western Sydney, for example, are those people who have less access to public transport. By and large, that’s the case. They need a car to get around. People who live in Western Sydney don’t just go to the CBD. We haven’t done north–south corridors. How do you get from Campbelltown to St Marys by public transport? We were going to do a Parramatta to Epping rail line when we were in government, and part of that was about getting people from Western Sydney up to the high-value jobs in Macquarie Park and around that area. At the moment, to travel by rail, you have to go into the CBD and then out again; it’s crazy.

Before you talk about charges, you’ve got to have modal transfer options, as well. This city will not function as a city of eight million people if it’s just about the private motor car. It’s got to be about both roads and public transport. The issue of toll roads will increasingly be an issue because tolls are imposed

on some people depending upon where they live, rather than falling on everyone, so that’s not fair either. We need to have a debate about equity, as well as about how we fund roads, and fund the system infrastructure.

BL: For a very long time, the favourite saying of senior transport bureaucrats was: ‘The Minister told me road pricing is the answer, then he asked me what the question was, and said that his or her successor would do the implementation’. Paul, you’ve been quite different, because you have come in and already publicly committed to beginning a public process of inquiry.

From what you’ve said publicly, it seems to start with establishing the problem, and looking at the options that might be available. How worried are you about what happens when that’s formally announced? How worried are you about it being viewed as a great big new tax on every kilometre you drive… those sorts of potential wedge-type issues?

PF: When Infrastructure Australia’s 15-year plan came out, which recommended that there should be a study into this issue, the Prime Minister and I said, when we agreed that we would take up that recommendation, that it would be a 10 to 15year journey if we made a decision to go down this path. That’s a very big if, because it would require both the Commonwealth Government, and the state and territory governments to be satisfied. You couldn’t do it unless there was that agreement, and you’d need to be satisfied that it delivers a better system, and addresses the fairness issues.

The fairness issues are really critical. There’s a lot of community scepticism – you find that out if you do talkback radio on this issue, as I have.

We will appoint an eminent Australian to carry out a study. A key focus of the study is going to be describing the present system, and getting into the equity implications of the present system. Who bears the costs, and the different categories of outer suburban, rural and regional road users? As you’d imagine, the Coalition has a very keen interest in that issue. When we get this study underway, there will be a very thorough examination of how things work, and explaining to people how things work.

BL: What will Labor do when Paul announces his study?

AA: I’m not allowed to sledge Paul, but am I allowed to sledge the audience?

BL: Yes.

AA: I think that part of the problem with the debate is that the advocates in the sector haven’t sold the issue. Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel is fantastic – it saves a lot of time, costs $5 or so, and it’s worth it, unless 20 minutes of your time isn’t worth $5. But everyone is so bloody shy about going out there and advocating it. So, in terms of toll roads, people have got to be prepared to have the argument out there in the business sector.

BL: People can conflate tolls and wider network pricing?

AA: That’s right. Exactly.

That’s part of the problem. My side has been constructive since Paul came out and announced his study. I didn’t quite do a joint media release, but I didn’t bag it, which is frankly sometimes the best you can do from Opposition. Is it uniform? Are there some people in Parliament from all political parties who don’t let a chance go by; if there’s a ball they swing at each one? Yeah, there are. That’s part of the dynamic that we need to address as a nation.

The major parties need to wake up to the fact that some of the behaviour from senior people in mainstream politics is what is pushing people to the Greens, One Nation and to the fringes. People are reacting against the yelling and the negativity of things. I don’t think that’s widely recognised yet, but I certainly see it, and I know that there are people in the Government who see it, too.

PF: Can I say one thing on the specific issue? The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) made a decision to accelerate the heavy-vehicle user charging process. That’s three per cent of vehicles that weigh more than 4.5 tonnes. We’ve got a couple of technical measures that we’re working on at the moment, and we’re appointing an independent regulator, as well as coming up with an affordable cost base consistent with what’s used in energy and telecommunications, and other utility sectors. We put out a discussion paper on that, and it will be on the agenda at the next Transport and Infrastructure Council (TIC), the meeting of state and federal transport and infrastructure ministers.

There is a process underway there, which has been endorsed by COAG. In some ways, because people in the trucking sector are running a business, the notion of paying for an input is understood. I won’t say people love to pay it, but paying for an input is understood, and you’ve seen that obviously in the response of the trucking sector on some specific tollways. People are prepared to pay for tolls because of the time savings it gives them.

AA: Can I give you an anecdote that shows how difficult this is going to be?

When I went to chair my first ministerial council meeting in early 2008, one of the issues on the agenda was a heavyvehicle user charge, which is supposed to increase every year. That’s not a foreshadowed thing, it’s just recouping money that’s already been spent. I asked when the last increase was, and the answer was eight years prior to that. I asked why that happens. What had happened is that every year, theoretically, a state had an election coming up. In 2002, South Australia had an election coming up, so the South Australian Government said, ‘We’ll stand up for truckies, and we won’t support the increase,’ and the next year, New South Wales said, ‘We’ll stand up for truckies,’ so it wouldn’t happen because one government would say no, and they’d all fall over. We had an increase every year while I was Minister. We had very forthright discussions about what the consequences would be at the dinners held before the formal meetings. ‘Do you want any funding at all next year?’ Just stop playing politics with them, but that’s what you’re up against.

There is a temptation there in some ways; it’s always easy to say no. The hard thing is to say yes to a government, or to a federal issue, when you’re a state government. Our election cycles are too short – there’s always an election somewhere.

PF: That’s true. Can I make one other point about heavy-vehicle user charging? Apart from the fact that a number of people in the sector have sidled up to me at various points and said, ‘Oh, so you’re the Minister who’s now got responsibility for heavy-vehicle user charging. Well, good luck,’ it’s gone off the rails spectacularly on a couple of occasions. One of the reasons for that is because it was all framed in terms of econocrat jargon, which sounds great in Canberra, but the trucking industry didn’t see an advantage for them in it. To make any significant progress, the industry is going to have to see that there’s something in it for them.

I was in New Zealand earlier this year, getting a briefing on their system, and while I was there, I talked to the peak body of the trucking association, who were positive about where their system’s ended up – despite some terrible politics along the way.

BL: Paul, if I can just ask you before you move off road pricing, when can we expect you to fire the starter gun on the process?

PF: In the coming months, I think we’ll be in the position to announce our eminent Australian and begin.

AA: Pending High Court decisions.

BL: Indeed. You can re-use the Max Moore-Wilton press release when that happens.

Another area where both of you have been in vigorous agreement is around smart cities, but trying to understand what smart cities are is difficult. I’ve never heard anyone calling out, saying they wanted a dumb or stupid city. What is a smart city?

PF: To me, smart cities are the opportunity to use technology to get better utilisation out of existing infrastructure. Whether it’s managed motorway technology – which has a

huge benefi t-cost ratio, allowing you to better utilise the asset base of motorways – or whether it’s embedded sensors that pick up maintenance issues, one of the things that struck me (having worked in the telecommunications sector) is that there are more opportunities than we presently take advantage of in terms of integrating telecommunications and roads. I would like to see a situation where, when we put out a contract for a road, part of the contract should be laying optical fi bre and building a tower every 20 kilometres. There may be more effi cient ways to do it, but I think shared utilities, including embedded technology, makes good economic sense and offers new possibilities.

AA: The key is thinking in advance, so not just, ‘We’re going to build a road’. How do we make it maximise sustainability and linkages with active transport? How do we maximise productivity through use of managed motorways technology? How do we maximise output from that asset? We need to think in advance. We’re towards the end of the panel, so we can afford a little sledge.

BL: Go on.

AA: Smart cities aren’t built on a copper National Broadband Network (NBN); they’re built on fi bre and 21st-century technology. To pay my fi ne, he knows that’s true.

BL: You can have a sledge now.

PF: I’m going to make the point that in four years, we’ve got six million people who can connect to the NBN, up from 50,000 that were connected when we came into government. That means for everybody on the fi xed network, you can have internet speeds of up to 70 or 80 megabytes per second.

AA: Really? How many people are on the new M4 and M5 now? None. This is where infrastructure happens. They’re experts. Of course, it accelerates when there are more people in there now.

PF: When we came to offi ce, $6 billion had been spent and only 50,000 people managed to get connected. Sorry, we’re back in the old way.

BL: I feel like I’m driving you both home and saying, ‘Come on kids, you’ve had such a good day’.

I would like to thank Anthony and Paul. They’re people I’ve known for a long time. We are well served by these two in Canberra. When they’re sparring on infrastructure in Canberra, they are fi ghting for things that we all agree on: like markets, good interventions, good approaches and good relationships with the states.

Despite the deeply divided and partisan nature of the political debate, one of the things we should be happy about as a sector is that we have two really strong champions in Paul and Anthony.

Anthony Albanese MP – Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development and the Shadow Minister for Tourism

Anthony Albanese was re-elected as Member for Grayndler at the July 2016 election, and is currently the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development and the Shadow Minister for Tourism.

Mr Albanese has been a Member of Parliament since 1996 and believes strongly in the need for government to invest in local communities.

Following the election of the Federal Labor Government in November 2007, Mr Albanese became the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, and Leader of the House of Representatives.

Mr Albanese was named Infrastructure Minister of the Year for 2012 by London-based publication Infrastructure Investor, and in 2010 was named Aviation Minister of the Year for producing Australia’s fi rst ever Aviation White Paper.

In June 2013, he became Deputy Prime Minister, and also took on additional responsibility as Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Mr Albanese is committed to growing our communities in regional and metropolitan areas, and believes infrastructure and transport have a crucial role to play in achieving this.

Paul Fletcher MP – Minister for Urban Infrastructure

Paul Fletcher is the Minister for Urban Infrastructure in the Turnbull Government.

He entered Parliament in December 2009 as the Member for Bradfi eld, was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications in September 2013, Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government in September 2015, and was appointed to his present role in July 2016.

Before entering Parliament, Mr Fletcher was Director, Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, at Optus; established a consulting fi rm serving the communications sector; and in 2009 his book about broadband, Wired Brown Land, was published by UNSW Press.

He has dual fi rst-class honours degrees in law and economics from The University of Sydney and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University in New York, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.