Senator GREEN (Queensland) (16:54): I rise to speak on the urgent need for Commonwealth infrastructure investment, particularly in regional Queensland. The economy is slowing and it desperately needs infrastructure investment. The government are refusing to bring forward projects already budgeted for and have created a skills crisis which they want to fix by bringing overseas workers into regional Queensland instead of training local people. They have no plan to fix the economy, just a long list of broken promises. We are currently experiencing the slowest economic growth since the global financial crisis. Wages are growing at just one-sixth of profits, and there are global economic challenges heading our way. Last month, Reserve Bank Governor Dr Philip Lowe urged this Liberal-National government to stimulate our weakening economy by bringing forward major infrastructure projects. It is not the first time he has done this. You don't need to be a senior economist or the head of a business peak body to know that the Australian economy is weakening and needs to be stimulated. The telltale signs are there for all to see, yet the Liberal-National MPs in Queensland have their heads in the sand. Consumer confidence is low and consumption growth is weak under this government. Wages are stagnant and underemployment is rife. Business investment is down 20 per cent and at its lowest since the 1990s. Gross debt has risen to over half a trillion dollars under this government. Minutes released by the Reserve Bank of Australia board today confirmed wages remain stagnant and consumption is weak. In its September decision, the Reserve Bank noted that 'wages growth appeared to have stalled' and 'there were few indications that wage pressures were building'. The economic alarm bells are ringing because this is a government without an economic plan and one that refuses to invest in infrastructure, against the wishes of the country's business leaders and senior economists. Given the current economic climate, there could not be a better time to invest in regional Queensland. And it is not just the Labor party calling for regional investment; this is exactly what Governor Lowe recently suggested to the House economics committee. He urged the Morrison government to look beyond the major capital cities and invest in smaller projects in regional Australia and in some of the lesser populated states. He said: I encourage governments to look at the possibility of a series of smaller projects—they're not as big as building a metro in Sydney—but they can be more widely dispersed across the country and that can help us all. There may not be for the big megaprojects in Sydney and Melbourne but right across the country there is the capacity to do more infrastructure spending that would make people's lives better. It is against this growing chorus of central bankers, state governments, economists and business leaders calling for infrastructure investment that Prime Minister Morrison refuses to back infrastructure in regional Queensland. Nowhere is the government's infrastructure investment paralysis more apparent than in my home state of Queensland, and there's not a single project that shines a light on this government's failure more than the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. Since its inception four years ago, the $5 billion Northern Australia infrastructure fund has spent only $15 million on projects. At the same time, it has cost taxpayers more than $15 million to administer. Adding insult to injury, the NAIF is actually based where I live, in Cairns, but has not funded a single project in Far North Queensland. In Cairns there are a number of projects that could easily be actioned which would provide a much-needed boost to the local economy, and the Prime Minister knows what these vital projects are because, when he came to Cairns for COAG, we put them on a billboard for him. These desperately needed projects include the Captain Cook Highway, stage 3 of the Cairns Southern Access Corridor upgrade and stage 5 of the Townsville Ring Road. You could be forgiven for thinking that, by the way that these projects were spoken about by the member for Leichhardt and the member for Dawson during the election, these projects had already been funded and they were ready to be built. But the reality is that this funding is more than four years away. Stage 3 of the Cairns Southern Access Corridor and stage 5 of the Townsville Ring Road will not be made available until the 2021-22 and 2022-23 budgets. We need shovels in the ground now, not after the next election. These projects have already been budgeted, but, when you get down to the details, when you open up the budget papers and look at that paper, you realise that that funding is so very far away. These are exactly the types of regional projects that Dr Lowe was talking about, yet they are sitting idle when this government is floundering. This Liberal-National government doesn't care about regional Queenslanders. They continue to break promises, and this is leaving regional Queensland behind on infrastructure investment. The government must start investing or regional Queenslanders will pay the price. This government appears to be in denial, and it is hurting jobs growth, it is hurting the economy and, most importantly, it is hurting regional Queensland households.