View the recording of this speech here.
Record of Proceedings, 13 June 2024
Appropriation (Parliament) Bill; Appropriation Bill; Revenue and Other Legislation Amendment Bill; State Financial Instructions and Metway Merger Amendment Bill
The member for Mermaid Beach is quite a hard act to follow. It was a rousing speech from him. However, I want to highlight the great deception that is continuing with this Labor government budget. Queenslanders need to know that this budget is all about trying to buy votes. It is for the next four months—nothing more, nothing less. Labor will do and say anything to stay in power, and now they are plunging Queensland into deficit and ramping up the debt even more, from $72 billion nine years ago to $172 billion now—and most of that first $72 billion was Beattie, Bligh and Fraser years debt. The $7 billion a year in interest to service that debt makes it a very expensive tool. Debt might be a tool, but it is an expensive one; it is a lazy one—it is a very lazy one— instead of having prudent fiscal management and making projects run on time and on budget. However, that is the Labor way over generations and across all levels of government.
Back in December 2020 I spoke on Treasurer Dick’s 2020 budget—the one where he deceived Queenslanders—where there was an additional debt of $28 billion, seven times greater than what was outlined during the campaign. That was all part of a great deception of Queenslanders, too, because, as we know, this disgraceful Labor government did not have the courage to hand down a budget before the 2020 election. Instead it rammed through laws giving itself money to spend without actually telling people where it was going to go. That was an abuse of parliament, an abuse of Queenslanders and an example of Labor taking everybody for mugs.
Those opposite have been in office for too long. They are too arrogant and think they can get away with anything. Representing the hardworking men and women of the Scenic Rim electorate, I am here to say that the mob have figured out the government and they are going to show Labor the door in October 2024. I could end the speech there because that pretty much sums it up, but I have a few other things to say as well.
An opposition member: Keep going.
I will keep going. The Scenic Rim electorate has so much opportunity, but it requires investment in infrastructure and services to capitalise on opportunity. We need better roads, we need improved hospital services and we need dedicated social services and lower costs for businesses. We need affordable, reliable energy above all else, yet electricity costs for farmers and other businesses are continuing to rise. There is no cushioning for small businesses and farmers. Local cafe owners, like Mark from Flavours in Boonah and Tony and Andy from VK Everydays in Beaudesert, regularly tell me about their soaring electricity bills. This drives up the cost of hospitality, drives up the cost of food, drives up the cost of everything and makes it harder for locals to compete with overseas competitors as well.
We on this side of the House know that businesses create jobs, not government. Every employee, indeed every union, needs an employer. Government cannot employ everyone. Where would the taxes come from? Of course they come from business, so government should get out of the way of business, unless there is a need for enabling growth. If this government was actually real about creating local jobs and local industries, it would create conditions where costs can actually impact, like electricity and water, so they are competitive globally. This government does exactly the opposite, making local industries uncompetitive and in need of subsidies that cost more money because of the failure to get business conditions right.
Unsurprisingly, this budget delivers precious little in the way of new investment in the Scenic Rim electorate. The potential of our region is again left to go untapped for another year. I acknowledge investment in upgrading state school facilities at Beechmont, Kalbar and Rathdowney. At Veresdale Scrub State School the community fought hard to retain a heritage building and to have government support for a refurbishment project. I want to thank former minister for education Grace Grace for the consultation Education Queensland undertook with the community on that front. It brought about a positive outcome.
For 35 years there has been a community at Biddaddaba that has lobbied for part of the Beaudesert Nerang Road to be upgraded. This gravel section and very low culvert have remained frozen in time—in the 1980s, or perhaps even earlier. While houses have popped up all around and increased traffic volumes for tourists and locals alike, they have made the case for an upgrade for many years. I thank the Biddaddaba Action Group for keeping the faith. I have seen the neat, handwritten letters of their secretary for many years, pleading with the government, pleading with Main Roads, for works to take place, to no avail. As a candidate in 2011 I met with this group and heard their case. In 2014-15 the LNP government committed to upgrading the road, but the Labor government scrapped it in 2015. I have kept up the lobbying efforts and have raised this road at almost every meeting with Main Roads since, resulting in a design being done and funding being sought, and there is now a $5.2 million allocation in QTRIP to bitumen a section of road. I welcome that, but it should not have taken 35 years. I will hold accountable the people who are responsible for delivering this project now that it is finally in QTRIP. Well done to all the locals involved who have helped me to build the case for this action in my 12 years in this place.
I also acknowledge funding for rural fire sheds at Biddaddaba and Mount Alford, the latter of which has been a very long term project for the brigade. It is shocking, however, to hear about the interference that has been run by the officialdom dealing with rural fire brigades when it comes to new sheds. Locals have informed me that they propose to erect a new fire shed for about $150,000, with fitout to be done progressively. It has been handed to QBuild to do, of course, at a far higher price.
The new Queensland Fire Department has not even commenced yet, but already local brigades are having their autonomy stripped and the costs to taxpayers are mounting. Why does QBuild need to build a rural fire shed, especially if locals do not want them to? These developments reflect the fears held by many rural fire brigades about how the new fire department will work and the costs it will create for taxpayers for no better outcome. QBuild is notoriously inefficient and having them involved in what has been, until now, proudly autonomous fire brigades is a negative outcome for all—for the brigades and especially for the taxpayers who will pay the highly inflated bills. Never before has a Queensland government taxed more, spent more and borrowed more and yet Queensland has less to show for it.
The cost blowouts on major projects are mind-blowing and they all contribute to this record debt. One of these cost blowouts is on the Mount Lindesay Highway where the South Street to Johanna Street Jimboomba project funded a couple of years ago for $53 million is now budgeted to cost $95 million—one of Bailey’s blowouts! It is at least a year behind schedule after Labor put it on the go slow when Albanese was elected as Prime Minister in 2022—
Mr BAILEY: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to a point of order. The member for Scenic Rim is a very experienced MP. He is deliberately flouting the standing orders.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Kelly): What is your point of order? I do not need a speech beforehand.
Mr BAILEY: He is using my personal name, not my title. He knows what the standing orders are.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member, I remind you to use correct titles and I ask you to withdraw if you have not done that.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I withdraw. The blowout on the Johanna Street to South Street project was one of former minister Bailey’s blowouts. The reality is that, under this Labor government, the Mount Lindesay Highway is in the slow lane and all of the major projects that have been completed in recent years are because of Scott Buchholz and the federal LNP coalition government that has pumped funds into that highway and pushed the state into actually building the Mount Lindesay Highway. They put in the highway on the national highway network and they got the funding on the ground to do those projects. Labor—state and federal—has basically put the Mount Lindesay Highway in the slow lane. The Jimboomba project is in the go-slow lane now because when you look at QTRIP this year, most of the funding for this project is in in this year, it is in 2025-26 and 2026-27. When will construction actually get underway and when will it be finished? This is what people want to know. It is already well overdue from when it should have been built.
Labor’s neglect of this road, over their 30 years out of the last 35 in office, continues. They cannot even get on with small projects to continue the process of improvement. This Queensland government cut planning funding in recent years, pushing it off into later years—funding that is essential for the new upgrades that are ready to go heading down towards Beaudesert. Labor has neglected the growing Scenic Rim economy that needs a safer and more efficient travelling route to get in and out of their region. QTRIP shows that this Labor government is holding up $1 million for planning improvements from Jimboomba to Cedar Vale. Between 2022 and 2024, nothing has been done.
Planning for the North MacLean to Jimboomba improvements, set out in QTRIP, should have been finished by now, but they have been delayed, as have planning works for the Logan Motorway to Park Ridge section. Planning for improvements to Beaudesert—a part of the 10-year plan—have not even made it into QTRIP yet, even though we are eight years into that 10-year plan. I will keep on working to get Mount Lindesay Highway moving as my federal colleague will, and as he does so well in the past when the coalition was in power in Canberra. Labor should get on with doing what needs to be done. There have been enough delays.
The amount of traffic through Canungra each day has increased by about 50 per cent in the last decade and locals are paying the price for Labor’s failure to plan for this. Development around Jimboomba, Yarrabilba and Beaudesert has caused this congestion, but this government has done nothing to ease that—this budget does nothing. Main Roads needs to get on with the job of planning a better road network around Canungra, as this growth will continue. We know that. Burying heads in the sand will not fix anything and the people of Canungra and its surrounds deserve better for their town. Talking about Canungra: water security needs to be looked at from an Seqwater perspective, as well. I know they have started thinking about it. With the population growth there, there will be a need for action in the future.
Going to the Cunningham Highway—another topic members love hearing me talk about—the Amberley interchange is a dangerous interchange that has been neglected by this Labor government over a generation. Tragically, we saw another fatality since Labor’s last budget in this House. There is no plan for fixing this interchange—no plan at all. Federal Labor has no funding for it and, again, it is the LNP federally who led the charge to do something about this road when it placed $170 million on the table in 2018, only for the then minister Bailey to take the entire project off the table where it remains. It is a disgrace that RAAF Amberley has such a poor access point. It does not bode well for national security that it is such a choke point every single morning peak hour. I have worked to have that upgrade designed, costed and funded by state and federal governments. Shamefully, there is still no long-term solution on the table. Roundabouts or traffic lights in the middle of a national highway are not the solution. They might solve some problems but they will cause others. The lack of action on this interchange is a clear example of Labor always taking Ipswich for granted. Maybe they will not do that now that we have the new member for Ipswich West, Darren Zanow, in the House working to address this longstanding problem on this boundary of our electorates. There is no funding in the budget for Ipswich Boonah Road but after lobbying Main Roads, I have been told there are plans to repair a section between Milbong and Washpool, along the flats there. This is a busy road, and many people from around Boonah and Fassifern use it daily.
On health, Labor’s record on ramping is abysmal. Ipswich Hospital is the epicentre of this and sadly there have been tragic deaths of locals because of ramping. There is funding for upgrades to Ipswich Hospital in this budget, but I understand that an upgraded Ipswich Hospital will be at capacity the day it opens. This is a failure of planning by the government. What have they been doing for the last nine years if the upgrade they are funding now will be at capacity when it opens?
Last year I was informed there would be $45 million spent to improve the Boonah and Laidley hospitals. To date, there are no details on this. Boonah Hospital does need additional services and investment, and I have called for that over many years. Is this $45 million still in the budget, or has it been cut? Population growth in the Scenic Rim Regional Council area is largely around Beaudesert and the Beaudesert Hospital—where I am proud to say the LNP recommenced maternity services back in 2014; a service which continues to this day—desperately needs more services to be offered. We need a CT scanner installed there, and we have for many years. It was on the radar back in 2014 when Lawrence Springborg was the minister, but this government has taken it completely off the agenda. They do not care enough to even fund a small item of equipment like a CT scanner that would enhance Beaudesert Hospital. It is great that my campaign for better doctor coverage there has paid off. We have eight new doctors on the ground for weekends and overnight coverage, but we also need to see the ED expanded so these doctors can safely and efficiently treat the patients who are presenting at the ED and so there is capacity for the future. I note that Beaudesert Hospital does not just serve Beaudesert; it serves Yarrabilba in the member for Logan’s electorate and other places near Jimboomba. If we take pressure off Logan Hospital by enhancing Beaudesert Hospital it is a win for the entire corridor, but the Labor government does not see fit to be able to do that.
This government has bizarrely told Queenslanders not to judge them on the record and that their past failures do not matter but Labor’s record on crime, health, housing and cost of living does matter to Queenslanders—
Mr Perrett interjected.
Fire ants as well. I take that interjection from the member for Gympie, the shadow minister for agriculture. He will be a far better minister for agriculture than the member for Ferny Grove. Queenslanders should not be fooled by this government. The $150 million spend on election hand-outs for public transport for only six months means very little if you have no public transport. Beaudesert has a bus service, Calvert and Grandchester have a bus service, but the rest of the Scenic Rim electorate? Nothing. The community of Tamborine Mountain around Boonah have tried several times but Translink says ‘no’. Throwing $150 million into pre-election subsidies is an insult to those communities that have no public transport options because ‘it costs too much’. Labor will do and say anything to stay in office, and that is what this budget is all about. It is not about the long-term future of Queensland. It certainly is not about the long-term future of the Scenic Rim electorate.