2015-12-08
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — As a member of this committee and also as a Green, I went to the inquiry unconvinced that the privatisation of the port of Melbourne was a good idea for a number of reasons, and the longer the committee went on I collected more and more reasons to oppose the privatisation. It is for that reason that I opposed the main recommendation of the majority report — that the port be sold. However, if the port is to be sold, we think that a large number of the other amendments to the bill that are proposed — to the regulations and even to the associated deal — should certainly be made.
It is clear that from the beginning both Labor and the coalition went to the election with a policy of selling the port. It is equally clear to me that the sell-off of the port has got nothing to do with the efficiency of port operations or of the broader supply chain itself. All the recommendations that the chairman, Mr Rich-Phillips, just took us through are about creating belts and braces, safety fences, seatbelts and airbags around the negative consequences of a privatised monopoly. Let us make it very clear: there is no-one out there with a bunch of money in their back pocket who is interested in buying this port except as a private monopoly. Private monopolies are what big superannuation funds like putting their money into. Whether it is airports, electricity utilities or any of the other analogies you look at, the story remains the same. We attempt to regulate them using a range of mechanisms; however, at best we can only ameliorate the effects of a private monopoly.
When I say it was never about efficiency, that is completely obvious from the testimony that we took. I asked Treasury and various other proponents of the sale what efficiencies they believed would occur as a result of the port shifting from public to private hands. President, you would not be at all surprised to know that the Port of Melbourne Corporation did not suggest that it was a bloated and unresponsive bureaucracy. In fact it was very hard to get anybody to pin down the exact area of efficiency which would occur under private ownership which could not occur under public ownership. It was never about that. For both the parties — coalition and Labor — it was about realising some cash from a sale to use on another thing, and they have various ideas amongst themselves about what that other thing should be.
When you read the report you will see it is only incidentally that we talk about the efficiency of the port. This was an inquiry into if we are going to lease the port, how do we do it. Most of the evidence that has been brought to bear from various submitters has addressed that question, so someone with a stake in how the port is regulated has something to contribute on that question. But in fact the majority of people who submitted to the inquiry do not get a guernsey anywhere in the report. There is a select group of submitters whose evidence went directly to that question — the question of if we sell it, how do we regulate it — whereas there is all this other evidence that came in from people who are the ultimate port users and thereby the ultimate source of wealth that creates the port itself, mostly farmers and other sorts of exporters. When I put the question to them of how they feel about the port sale, it would not surprise you to know that many of them were agnostic and some of them were outright opposed to the port privatisation.
That is where we find ourselves. Shortly before coming in here we were reading in newspapers that there has been a secret, now not so secret, meeting between a whole series of figures from the coalition with the Treasurer and others to try to nut out this port sale. This morning's newspapers tell us that the proportion of freight that is coming in and out of the port that is carried by truck is rising, while every one of those submitters to the inquiry had the aspiration that rail would take the greatest share. So we are a long, long way from where we need to be.
We have read in the newspaper about a secret meeting, leaked obviously by either Labor or the coalition, or both, which seemed to have a pretty heavyweight attendance. From the coalition side I think there was the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Guy; the Leader of The Nationals, Mr Walsh; the shadow Treasurer, Mr O'Brien; and the shadow Minister for Ports, Mr Hodgett. To this rumble they sent all their heavyweights; there is no doubt about it. But did they rumble, or did they just do a bit of a breakdance dance-off and then all decide to go home? It seems like it was the latter. It seems like this is something they would really like to deal with after Christmas, and that is exactly the point that I think needs to be made in my contribution on this report — that is, even as this is tabled and even as this is put before the Parliament for the interest of all other members, a negotiation is going on.
Mr Rich-Phillips understands that if all the recommendations put forward in the committee's majority report were to be implemented, it would be a deal breaker. It would be all over for the sale, particularly the bit he just mentioned about the port compensation regime that is the bit that makes it into a private monopoly, because organisations are not interested in buying. The big super funds and other financiers are not interested in buying things where they have to go out and strive to do better every day. They are interested in buying monopolies that are safe assets.
Even as this report hits the table with these many, many recommendations, the fact is that those recommendations are going to have to be chipped away if the coalition and the Labor Party are going to strike a deal. What I hope is that once those amendments are prepared, they will not be simply rushed in here and quickly debated during the committee stage, because even those submitters who were interested specifically in the question of port regulation ought to get to see those amendments and those regulatory measures before they are quickly voted on and passed by this chamber. That is the difficulty we face. We have actually had a very wideranging, extensive process where many people have been engaged. I have sat on many committees and I have to say that this was a very good committee. It was well chaired, it was well supported by the secretariat, all members went forward in a very cooperative manner and it was an example of parliamentary committees at their best seeking to get the information, the facts and the evidence out on the table.
But it seems now that the negotiations will go into some kind of back room over Christmas and then, on past experience in this place, once the deal is done we will suddenly find that we are debating the bill and a series of amendments will be thrown on the table — probably circulated to the micro-parties as well, if we are quick about it.
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER — 'If we're lucky', says Dr Carling-Jenkins. I am including her and the Greens in micro-parties today. The Greens will get copies of the amendments as well, if we are quick on our feet. And very quickly it will be locked into law, as Mr Rich-Phillips said, for 50 years or possibly even 70 years.
I think it is very important that we now close the loop with those people who took the time and made the effort to give genuine input into what was a genuine inquiry process. Any changes that are being contemplated beyond what are recommended in this report must also be given some public airing. This is probably our most important publicly held strategic economic asset, and we absolutely cannot afford to get this wrong in some unholy rush by a group of politicians who simply want to build up their war chest for their own political purposes.
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