MARITIME SERVICES (ACCESS) (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 29 April 2009. Page 2134.)

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (16:58): I rise to speak to this bill and indicate that the opposition will be supporting the second reading. The Competition Infrastructure Reform Agreement was signed by COAG on 10 February 2006, and this bill results from that. This agreement was aimed at providing a simpler and more consistent system of economic regulation of nationally significant infrastructure. That sounds a little like double Dutch but, in fact, it is providing a better and more efficient third party access regime for significant infrastructure.

The reforms within the agreement provide for the reduction of regulatory uncertainty and compliance costs for owners, users and investors in significant infrastructure and make provision to support the efficient use of national infrastructure. In signing the agreement, South Australia committed to a review of the regulation of the Port of Adelaide and to making certain amendments to the state's access regime. The bill ensures that the state's regulatory principles with regard to third party access regimes are consistent with those applied across the nation.

I attended a briefing with Mitch Williams, who was the shadow minister responsible for this area (I have taken over those responsibilities), and I was particularly interested in some arrangements involving the container berth at Outer Harbor. In fact, I asked some questions in the briefing and have been provided with some information by the minister's officers. I want to draw to the attention of members that, in the House of Assembly, Mitch Williams alluded to the fact that, in the debate in the upper house, I would be asking some questions about the container berth. I have had those questions answered for me by the minister's staff, so I will not now be asking any questions . I will perhaps ponder some other proposals shortly.

Principles of this bill include an objects clause to promote economic efficiency and effective competition. It puts six month time limits on conciliation by the commission and arbitration decisions made by the arbitrator to provide greater certainty to businesses and to reduce the time associated with settling access disputes. Pricing principles need to be taken into account by the arbitrator. A three year regulatory period for access regime and price regulation has been extended to five years, with the aim of reducing regulatory costs and uncertainty for port operators. That is an important step forward. I have been a member of parliament now for seven years, but it seems like only yesterday that I was elected. In a business, infrastructure and access sense, and the time it takes to get a commodity across a port, five years seems a sensible period of time.

The bill also improves the negotiation and arbitration process by clarifying and increasing the efficiency of these processes and reducing the regulatory impacts on businesses. It restricts who can conduct arbitration, and they must be independent of third parties and government and must have no interest in the matter. The commission will no longer be able to act as an arbiter. That is an important step. If you are to have somebody acting as an arbiter, you need a certain level of independence from the issue you are dealing with.

It is important that we remove the impediments that discourage competition. The increase in the review period for price regulation in this bill, along with the reduction in regulatory costs and uncertainty for port operators, is a positive step in that direction. Any bill that reduces red tape—and this certainly does in the arbitration and negotiation processes—is a positive step in that respect.

This is an important piece of legislation when we look at some of the issues facing South Australia over the next 20 years, particularly the development of our mining industry. We saw BHP lodge its environmental impact statement last week, and it will be building significant new infrastructure: potentially a new rail line, the desalination plant, electricity transmission lines, a sulphur facility at Outer Harbor potentially, and an exporting concentrate facility in the Port of Darwin. We can see significant investment infrastructure.

We also need to look at the potential for third party access to all those facilities, and we need a regime that allows people the opportunity to use those facilities. It has been encouraging to note that BHP has facilitated the taking of electricity from the site at Roxby Downs across to the mine site at Prominent Hill. We need also to look at the proposal that has been on the table for a port at Port Bonython. The government has called for expressions of interest, and a group headed up by Flinders Ports was a successful consortia given the approval to put together a feasibility study into developing the port there.

Sadly, we have not seen that released by the government at this point. We know it has been completed and we think it is sitting on the minister's desk and has not been released. We are a little uncertain of the way forward for that development. One of the big problems is that, for all the junior miners on Eyre Peninsula, particularly with the big deposits of iron ore, to have a bankable feasibility study we need a port built and operating so that they can go to their bankers and say, 'We are going to dig up a million tonnes of ore a year, and this is how we are going to get it to market because we have a port at Port Bonython', or some other site on Eyre Peninsula, so they can deliver it to a boat and get it to market. Without that port they cannot bank their feasibility studies.

We also have the problem with, I suspect—which is why the minister has not released the feasibility study by the ports consortia—the cost to build a bulk commodities port at Port Bonython. They do not have anybody who is prepared to put any product across that port: it is a chicken and egg situation. The port cannot be built because there is no product to go across it, and there is no product to go across it because the port has not been built for the miners to develop their bankable feasibility studies.

The third party access regime is particularly important in this case and the government needs to show leadership, whether at state or federal level, to underwrite the development. It may be not with state or federal government funding but perhaps an overseas customer who is wanting product across that port. They might be able to facilitate some underwriting of that development so it can get off the ground and our junior miners can come on board and bank their feasibility studies and get funding to develop those mines.

Flexible access in general to facilities like Port Bonython, which I suspect will be built by a consortia of people and be accessed by a range of small miners, with the state government as a stakeholder, is required so that people can get on board and develop their mines or whatever product they want to export. The Richards Bay port in South Africa is a good example of how an open access port has been built by a number of investors, with the government having a share, and over time the government has been able to underwrite it and then sell off a share of its investment as further miners and commodities have come on board to go across the port.

This relates to Port Adelaide, but there are significant implications going forward for South Australia. It is a step in the right direction and we need to encourage fair and open access to all our infrastructure so the state economy continues to grow and prosper. With those few words, I indicate that the opposition supports the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. B.V. Finnigan.