I rise to second the member for Wentworth's National Land Transport Act Amendment (Better Value for Taxpayers) Bill 2025, and I commend her, once again, on her constructive contribution to the 47th Parliament. Like many on the crossbench today, she is offering up rational policy that takes a long-term approach.

This bill would put in place a range of things that I had assumed already happened. Coming from the private sector, I assumed that taxpayer money would be spent carefully on the things that make the most sense. But the reality is actually a bit depressing. No business case is needed, no blowouts have to be explained and we never check whether projects actually delivered what they were meant to deliver. As we enter pork-barrelling season, before an election, it's more important than ever for taxpayers to see that their money is being spent well.

So, when governments want to spend our money on big projects, this bill will require them to do a few things. Firstly, they'll have to have a long-term infrastructure plan. Secondly, they'll need to publish a business case showing each project is actually worth doing. They'll need to explain the reasons if there's a cost or time blowout and also learn from each project for next time so we can get better at delivering infrastructure. These are sensible and reasonable measures and, apparently, they're also pretty radical, because neither party wants to be scrutinised when they're in government.

Big infrastructure projects are an opportunity to create the future we want. They can also be a useful economic management tool if they're done at the right time of the economic cycle. But, if they're done at the wrong part of the cycle, they can drive costs up. For example, at the moment, we desperately need more housing supply, but the housing sector is competing for construction workers with the $120 billion worth of large-scale infrastructure projects in the pipeline. Some of these projects should wait, but how would we prioritise the best ones? It's really hard to do without a business case. I was absolutely floored when I found out that big infrastructure projects don't have to have a business case. Governments can commit to spending hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars without proving that the project is needed, that it will deliver benefits or that it's worth doing. It's such a reasonable request to ask governments to publish a business case and, when there's a cost blowout, to explain it. And, after projects have been delivered, they should have to be evaluated. Can you believe they don't have to be? We never find out if a project achieved its goals or if we can change our assumptions in the future so that we can better estimate the costs of future projects.

The changes proposed in this bill would rebuild public trust in government decision-making and allow us to learn from our failures and also from our successes. I commend this bill to the House, and I urge the government to bring this bill on for debate. This is something that all Australians will benefit from. Both sides of the House should be held accountable for their spending decisions.