George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014 following on from the previous speaker, the member for Kingsford-Smith, and I have to ask: where do I start? There is plenty of disinformation to rebut. My goodness—to stand up here and, of all things, complain about the fact that the words 'nation building' are being taken out of the exercise just goes to show what the last government was all about. It was all about spin. It was all about the names. It was all about the titles. It was all about the razzamatazz but not about the delivery. 'Nation building'—for goodness sake, it is like we have just walked into Communist China and have the banners up there: 'We are building the nation'; 'Please be proud of your government, people!' This is ridiculous stuff. We are getting rid of the semantics and getting on with the job. That is what the new government is all about.

The previous member talked about stuff being delivered to the regions and how the regions got their fair share. If you come to a region like mine, which is based up in north and central Queensland, people will tell you that there was underdelivery from the last government. But there is a reason they can put their hand on their heart and say, 'We delivered for the regions.' Do you now why? I will tell you why. Because the last government considered everywhere a region. Sydney was a region! All those cockies walking about in Sydney with their akubras talking about the price of beef and all the rest of it! This was the ridiculous nature of the last government. Everywhere in Australia was a region. So the member for Kingsford Smith can actually get up here, hand on his heart, along with the member for Grayndler and all the rest of them, and say, 'We delivered for the regions.' Of course you are delivering for the regions when Sydney is a region, Perth is a region, Brisbane is a region, Melbourne is a region. But get real—rural and regional Australia is not capital city Australia.

The member for Kingsford Smith also talked about how all of these projects that are outlined in this bill and that the new government is going to deliver were projects of the last government. He actually mentioned at the start of his speech our $6.7 billion commitment to the Bruce Highway, a highway that has been underfunded and underinvested in for so, so long. What the previous member said is very much incorrect. I cannot bring myself to say the 'L' word, because I know the Speaker will pull me up, but it was. The last government had committed some funds to the Bruce Highway but it was about $2.6 billion short of what the Liberal-National coalition is actually investing in the Bruce Highway. The previous member got up and said that all of these commitments were stuff that the last government had. That is incorrect; it was not. The last government's approach was very much, like the member for Kingsford Smith, Mr Thistlethwaite, a case of 'this'll wait'. We are sick of waiting; we are going to deliver on these projects.

It is necessary to make amendments to the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Act 2009 to facilitate the ambitious agenda that the Abbott Liberal-National government actually has set for land transport infrastructure. This government has committed $35½ billion to road and rail projects, as I said before, including $6.7 billion to upgrade the Bruce Highway—an increase in funding beyond what the previous government had allocated of $2.6 billion.

Many members know, and certainly the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development knows, my passion for the Bruce Highway, as I have spoken about it on many occasions in this place. It is a critical arterial link for the Queensland economy, especially North Queensland communities. It is the logistical lifeblood of our economy. It is the worst highway in Australia but it has been listed through data obtained from the World Health Organization as one of the worst 22 roads in the world—would you believe it, in the world? Of all the Third World and developing countries, the Bruce Highway makes the list of 22 of the world's worst roads because of the deaths and the accidents that have occurred on that road. That is certainly not a record to be proud of. It is something that should spark a government into action and I am proud to say that this Liberal-National coalition government has made a strong commitment to that Bruce Highway. Again, I will repeat—$6.7 billion, $2.6 billion more than the previous government intended to invest. That is going to be matched by about $1.8 billion from the Newman Liberal-National government, bringing a total investment from the Liberal-National coalition of $8.5 billion in the Bruce Highway, the largest investment that we have seen, and hopefully we are going to see more of it. We are getting on with doing what we said we would do in terms of delivering infrastructure. The amendment bill we are talking about today is a crucial part of that so we can continue to fund vital road infrastructure projects.

Since the election the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister have reaffirmed their commitments to our infrastructure agenda, including the Bruce Highway, and the vital road infrastructure projects that need to happen on it. That means that important projects are going to be done, like replacing the dangerous Haughton River bridge in the Burdekin in my electorate. That project—a project supported not only by me but by the member for Herbert, whose constituents also traverse that bridge fairly regularly—is going to go ahead. It is a dangerous bridge and we will fix it. That was not on Labor's agenda.

It also means important flood-proofing works will go ahead at places like Yellow Gin Creek near Townsville and at Sandy Gully near Bowen. There is also some preliminary planning work to be done on the Goorganga Plains, which is a huge issue. It is very sad that not even planning work has actually been done on that yet, because it is an area which cuts off the Whitsunday Coast Airport from the Whitsundays itself. Can you imagine? It is a world-class tourist destination, you get to the airport, there is a bit of rain and the road is flooded. Actually this has happened. They have had to take people back down to Brisbane. They have had to land the plane there, cannot actually get the people to the Whitsundays, so they have flown back to Brisbane. That is a disgrace. It is a disgrace that the last government had not addressed that issue when it was put on the agenda by the state government. We are now getting on with the job of sorting out what is going to happen to fix that problem.

This bill also means getting on with the Mackay ring road, which is desperately needed to get rid of the traffic congestion in my home city, to get the heavy trucks off the local roads, to actually get rid of the logjam and the bottlenecks that are impacting on freight and movements to and from the port to our industrial area. This project will actually deliver all of that. I am very proud to say that we made a commitment at the last election, that commitment has been restated by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister and that will happen under the Abbott Liberal-National government.

The Gillard-Rudd government spent $10 million—I have to give them that—for a feasibility study of the Mackay ring road and then they did nothing. They did absolutely nothing after that. They had an opportunity in the last budget to continue funds for that project; in fact, former Prime Minister Julia Gillard came to Mackay and told people it would be in the budget. Well, the budget came and the budget went and we did not see any further money earmarked in that financial year, the current financial year, for the Mackay ring road. We needed that money to ensure that this project would happen in a timely fashion, because by 2018, the local engineers tell me, traffic volumes will be exceeded in Mackay. The fact that we have had a year with no further funding going to that project means that none of the money has been forthcoming to do all of the resumptions and the compensation that need to flow from there, the very detailed design work that needs to happen before construction and the relocation of services—even though former Prime Minister Julia Gillard flew into Mackay and told us that it was going to be in the budget.

It was not in the budget but we are going to put it back in the budget. Not only are we going to deliver all of that pre-construction work that needs to happen but we are going to get on with the job, do the construction work and, as soon as it is done, we have got a clear commitment on the table for the people of Mackay and it will be the Abbott Liberal-National government—the infrastructure Prime Minister standing alongside the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development—who see this project through. And if there is one thing that I will definitely be able to point to in my time as a local MP and as a strong advocate for infrastructure projects in my area, it will be that. I will be able to say, 'This is it, delivered, only because we pushed it. Labor did not deliver this.' You cannot say, member for Kingsford-Smith, that you had anything to do with pushing that Mackay ring road, because the only thing that Labor has had to do with it has been to delay it.

This bill also makes significant changes to the Roads to Recovery program, which was originally established by the Liberal-National coalition under then Prime Minister John Howard in 2005. That program has paid huge dividends for local communities. We had local roads that had been in a shoddy state for a long time because councils' budgets are stretched to the limit already; they cannot find the extra coin to do the necessary local infrastructure projects that are needed, and this money helps those councils tackle road problems that they would not otherwise have the coin to cover. I have got to say that, being a former local government councillor, I share the pain of those local councils who deal with the fact that there are always competing priorities and a lack of money to do the jobs. The continuation of this program is good news for local government and hopefully into the future, as the finances of the nation improve, we can look to increasing the investment that we provide to local councils for Roads to Recovery.

This bill enables that good work to continue. It removes the specification of a funding period and includes in it the Roads to Recovery list, which will effectively remove the need to amend the act every time that funding period changes. So it is an ongoing program, we can say now. The continuation of funding will avoid the situation we are now in, where vital funding for local government to support the maintenance of local road infrastructure is not guaranteed beyond 30 June this year. We are guaranteeing it and we are guaranteeing it forever and a day. This amendment bill will give local governments the certainty they need to schedule effective programs of local road maintenance. To ensure them of this certainty, the bill will also insert a power for the minister to determine a Roads to Recovery list, which will be exempt from disallowance under the Legislative Instruments Act.

The Liberal-National government is committed to getting this country back on track, and to do that we need to be more efficient with taxpayer dollars. It has been pointed out to me that the draft Productivity Commission report into infrastructure spend that came out in the last week actually showed that $1 billion had been wasted around the country on either bad priorities or bad delivery. That is a legacy of the last government. They talk about what they spent but they never talk about how they spent it. The Productivity Commission has belled the cat and said that $1 billion was wasted. That is the track record of the last government. The track record of this government will be delivering infrastructure, such as the projects that are needed on the Bruce Highway, in a timely, efficient and productive way. We will get on with the job of delivering that infrastructure. The former infrastructure minister, the member for Grayndler, likes to come in and say, 'That's ours, that's ours'—but it is not theirs because they did not deliver it. We will deliver it. We will deliver it efficiently and we will see it through. They can be all about slogans like 'nation building'; we will be all about the bitumen on the ground, not the paperwork.

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