Teresa Gambaro (Petrie, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak in this cognate debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2005-2006 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2005-2006 and to outline the great successes that have occurred in the Petrie electorate since the Howard government was elected in 1996. It has benefited enormously, in a multitude of ways—in health, roads and the education system. The other day I had the pleasure of attending the opening of the Australian Technical College in North Brisbane and I look forward to participating in the great work that is going to occur there. I want to speak about aged care funding, business infrastructure and some of our trade and export successes.

The Petrie electorate is a very diverse electorate. It is made up of Brisbane North, the metropolitan area, and also the city of Redcliffe, which is on a peninsula. It has a very long, diagonal shape and it is constrained by infrastructure issues. There are many road issues that this government has funded. The black spot program, a $44.5 billion program, has been a very successful program, including in the electorate of Petrie. In fact, many residents of the Petrie electorate regularly write to me and update me on what roads should be next on the priority list. The electorate has received $345,000 for black spot road improvements under the program. I want to highlight one improvement in particular—the Gaynesford Street, Aspley area and the Gympie Road area, where there used to be continual pile-ups of cars. It was continually like a car park. It was very stressful to get onto that main road. Because of this wonderful black spot funding, the residents of Aspley and surrounding areas now do not have to be stuck in traffic for longer than necessary. It is absolutely vital that we continue to free up our roads in the local area.

In recognition of this fantastic program, which is one of the best programs that we have had in terms of people being directly involved in the process and nominating roads, the federal government is committed to extending the program by a further two years. We have invested $90 million until 2008.

The Petrie electorate is blessed with some of the best hospitals in the country. The Prince Charles Hospital was part of my electorate until recently, but unfortunately it has been redistributed to the electorate of Lilley. In the time that I have been the federal member for Petrie we have had a substantial amount of funding. The last lot of funding received was through HACC funding to make sure that our older residents are serviced well, with a HACC office at Prince Charles Hospital so that people’s loved ones can access services when they are greatly needed. The National Drug Strategy is an area that has been benefiting the Petrie electorate: $261,998 was recently committed to the electorate.

The electorate has a number of welfare organisations that do an amazing job. I want to put on record some of those fantastic groups that help many out there who turn to them in times of need. Centacare is one that I particularly want to focus on. It provides respite care and accommodates three care recipients overnight in a homelike environment for an average of five nights and five days. It does a wonderful job. Recently it was the recipient of some $110,000 worth of funding. There is always a demand for low- and high-care places. I want to put on record the wonderful work that Ozcare and Blue Care do in the Redcliffe community area. I thank them for the great outreach services that they provide to the local Petrie constituents.

Child-care places have also been great beneficiaries of the Howard government. Some 129 outside school hours places were provided for the Petrie electorate recently. These reflect the ongoing commitment that this government has in making sure that families and supporting parents with school-age children have access to high-quality child-care places. I myself have in the past been a regular user of outside school hours care. I could not have functioned without this wonderful support. Expressions of interest for the second allocation are scheduled for the first half of this year. I commend the wonderful work that our schools and our community organisations play in providing those outside school hours places—and the care and commitment that their staff provide.

We have a growing electorate. The middle of the electorate, in the North Lakes area, will have some 25,000 people living there by the year 2011. A number of schools have been started and have grown and developed. One that I am particularly proud of is the North Lakes State College. It benefited recently from a $4.2 million capital grants program. It is doing some very innovative teaching. The very comfortable setting and the design of the school makes it a pleasure for the students and teachers. I commend them for their great work and for their classroom and music improvement section which we recently contributed to as well.

I want to talk about Investing in Our Schools, which is one of the best programs that the former education minister, the Hon. Brendan Nelson, instigated. It has been very well received in my electorate. It provides direct funding to P&Cs. Previously I would go along to P&C meetings and talk to them about federal-state funding. Now we have an opportunity to fund the P&Cs directly. P&Cs know exactly what schools are in need of. They work very hard to ensure that schools are resourced correctly. I want to place on record the $27,510 that was given to Somerset Hills State School for installing airconditioning. I am sure that that will make many students very happy. And recently Stafford Heights State School was outfitted for a computer lab upgrade and storage facilities—to the tune of $55,000. This has been a very successful program. I delight in visiting schools and seeing what a great improvement has been made in the lives of the students by providing this direct funding to the P&Cs and the school community.

The Lighthouse program has also been a successful school based program. It really shows our commitment to young people, particularly young people at risk. Literacy and bullying issues were clearly something that we needed to tackle. We have been able to deal with those issues through the Lighthouse program. I also want to place on record the great work that the Redcliffe Special School does, particularly with students with disabilities. They were recently provided close to $50,000 for a health and fitness room. I would also like to thank the Woody Point State School for developing those special school career options.

We have some challenges ahead as a nation. Childhood obesity is one of those challenges. Again, I commend the former education minister Brendan Nelson for the work that he has done there. I also commend the minister for health, Tony Abbott, for the Healthy School Communities program and making sure that school communities and canteens provide healthy food options. I want to place on record the fine work that Bracken Ridge State School, Somerset Hills State School, Stafford Heights, Grace Luthern College and Northside Christian College do to ensure that their students have healthy food. Some of those schools have banned soft drinks and are providing healthy alternatives. They have redesigned their tuckshops and they have put healthy food on the menu.

A surprising spin-off with all of this is not just that they have provided healthy food but that their profits have gone up, which is a very welcome addition that provides additional funding for the parents and citizens. If you can get that healthy outcome as well, that is good. Of course, they can then contribute some of those funds back into redeveloping the tuckshop further. I was very pleased to hear that that is a positive spin-off. The Clontarf Beach State School has had upgrades in the playground equipment. We have provided the Humpybong State School with shade cloth. Also, Hercules Road State School has benefited from a new school community hall. I want to say what a terrific program this is. I hope that it will continue and be funded well into the future.

Every year I take great delight, as do many of the members in this House, in presenting students in my electorate with student prizes. This year is no exception. We always have four or five students who go on and do bigger and greater things. It is wonderful to see them later on after they have left school to see some of the academic pursuits, endeavours and opportunities that they find for themselves. I think that this is a terrific program, providing $2,000 for students. I always welcome the opportunity of inviting their families and their friends to my electorate office and presenting the certificates personally, because I think that too often in this country we do not reward academic achievement as much as we reward sporting activities. I think we need to do a lot more of that and make people feel very special and privileged because they have achieved great things in their academic life.

Sporting communities play a large part in the Petrie electorate. It was a great delight when I presented the Peninsula Cricket Club with funding for their community organisation last year. I know that they will continue to provide great support to the community. It is a real collaborative program. They work with a number of other clubs. It is terrific to see the great work that they are doing enhanced with this grant to their sporting facilities. Redcliffe RSL is another great community in the electorate. The volunteers there and their advocates do fantastic work. I had the pleasure of working with them more fully in the portfolio area that I was involved in in the defence area. I want to pay tribute to them, their president, Bob Long, and the welfare advocacy work that they do in particular. We have been able to provide some $17,000 in funding through a building excellence in support and training grant to them. It will be a tremendous help and boost to ex-servicemen and ex-servicewomen and it will help veterans, widows and widowers. I would also like to acknowledge the welfare organisations in my electorate, Chermside Anglican Welfare Ministries, Redcliffe Welfare Council, St Vincent de Paul at Deception Bay and St Vincent de Paul at Margate for the emergency relief funding that they provide and the care and dedication of their staff.

I mentioned earlier that last Friday I was at the signing of an agreement for a $17 million Australian technical college, the Australian Technical College Brisbane North. The Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, Gary Hardgrave, was with me. This is a wonderful achievement for the Petrie electorate. We have shortages, as do many other electorates, in the automotive, electrotechnology, commercial cookery and hospitality areas. Redcliffe City Council—I pay tribute to the mayor, Les Bradshaw, and all of the people on the committee—and businesses have worked solidly on this project for a year to provide that terrific pathway for students so that they will have the advantage of trade training and an industry placement in addition to their grade 11 and grade 12 academic year. The college will be located at the Scarborough campus of the Southern Cross Catholic College and a second campus will open at St James College in Fortitude Valley. This has been a collaborative effort. This technical college has been established in the north Brisbane region, which includes Redcliffe city, and has been made possible by the joining together of two organisations, the Redcliffe City Council and Commerce Queensland. They have been working together to form a strong industry partnership and gain the support of local businesses and employers. I pay tribute to Councillor Peter Howston, who has been a  leading light in the past year in making this project possible. I congratulate the Redclifffe City Council and the local businesses for what they have done to bring this project to fruition. Last Friday was a terrific day. The project is worth $17 million in buildings and it will be a great leap forward.

I also acknowledge the work of the four councils in the area, Pine Rivers Shire Council, Redcliffe City Council, Brisbane City Council and Caboolture Shire Council. They benefit greatly from the roads funding which the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Jim Lloyd, administers. Improved flood-warning systems and natural disaster mitigation programs have been funded. These programs protect lives, homes and infrastructure, which sometimes we all take for granted. They also provide business and employment opportunities. I commend them for the great work that they do. They are all experienced in growing communities and they have many challenges ahead. Recently, $35,880 was provided to the Redcliffe State Emergency Service—I thank them for the work that they do—for a new garage, communications equipment and rescue tools. They do a great job whenever a disaster epic in nature occurs. The grants have been very important to the councils in my area. We will continue to ensure that they are funded and will provide some ongoing recurrent funding for infrastructure which is so important to our lives.

There are a number of great companies in the Petrie electorate that are benefiting greatly from the Export Market Development Grants Scheme. I think this is a terrific program. It gives companies a boost to get into the world export area. I pay tribute to Aeropower at Kippa Ring, Bayline Services, Military Agency Services at Bracken Ridge, Sirius Observations at Clontarf, the St Pauls Foundation and Polyflex. They work in a number of areas, including educational and technological services. They provide vital jobs for Australians: 20 per cent of all Australian jobs are dependent on exports and in regional areas one in four jobs are provided by export companies. It is a terrific scheme.

The Petrie electorate is a great beneficiary of both the Howard government’s fiscal management and the programs which have been introduced since it came into power in 1996. The electorate continues to grow. Queensland is one of the fastest-growing areas in Australia, and the electorate of Petrie is no exception. We have many challenges ahead. We need to work to ensure that the funding of infrastructure, particularly our roads, continues. I was delighted to see the state government finally taking some responsibility for extending and duplicating the Houghton Highway. That highway has been a constant source of problems and accidents in recent times. We have a strong economic future and it is only because of the Howard government and Peter Costello’s strong fiscal policies that we have been able to fund all these valuable programs. I am delighted today to have been able to speak about the great achievements of some of the companies and organisations in the electorate which are benefiting from our strong economic climate and the ability the government has to continue to fund its programs.

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