Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last December the federal Labor member for Oxley, Mr Ripoll, called for a bridge to be constructed across the Brisbane River between his electorate and my electorate of Ryan. I again absolutely reject this idea and repudiate the suggestion that the member for Oxley put forward. There is no place in the infrastructure capacity of the Ryan electorate to accommodate the thousands and thousands of vehicles that would flow into Ryan as a consequence of a bridge being constructed between Oxley and Ryan. The bridge that the member for Oxley proposes to have built would result in the Moggill ferry ceasing activity. This is a ferry that has traditionally served the area well. It serves the needs that currently exist on both sides of the river, and there is no desire whatsoever by those who live in the nearby suburbs to have this bridge constructed.

There is an infrastructure deficit in Queensland: Moggill Road. Moggill Road is the responsibility of the Queensland state government. All Queenslanders know that the political colour of the state government is very much red and of a Labor persuasion. I want to remind constituents in Moggill, Indooroopilly and Mount Ommaney that the Labor Party has been in office in Queensland since 1989, bar two years of the Borbidge government, and that Queenslanders deserve better. The people of Ryan deserve better. The people of Moggill, Pullenvale and Brookfield deserve better than a Queensland Labor government. The people of Taringa, Indooroopilly, Toowong, Mount Ommaney and Riverhills and all the voters in and residents of the suburbs of Westlake and Middle Park absolutely deserve better than a Queensland Labor government. I call on Ronan Lee, the state Labor member for Indooroopilly, and Ms Julie Attwood, the state Labor member for Mount Ommaney, to get their acts together and call upon the state Labor government to invest funds in Queensland roads, which are their responsibility. The GST provides the Queensland government with some $7.7 billion. As the Treasurer said in parliament yesterday, the Western Australian Premier, Mr Alan Carpenter, has said that the GST is in the national interest—so I call upon the Queensland government to invest in roads. (Time expired)

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