Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Do you know what, member for Batman? A year ago I went and saw Paul Lucas and said, ‘Give me the ammunition to go and fight for this money for the port access road.’ That was a year ago, in July last year. Do you know what he said? ‘Happy to work with you. Happy to give you the information.’ Do you know what? Today, this letter arrived, a year later, after the budget, saying, ‘Oh, would you please fight for $190 million?’ Do you know how much the cost was five years ago? It was $10 million.

Five years later QDMR are saying, after the budget, it is to cost $190 million, and all your Labor colleagues up in North Queensland are saying, ‘Peter Lindsay didn’t deliver.’ What they are really saying is that neither your state minister in Queensland nor the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport and Main Roads, Lindy Nelson-Carr, gave me the wherewithal. Wouldn’t you think she would come to me and say: ‘Hey, Pete, we need your help to get this money in the federal budget.’ She is the parliamentary secretary, she is in Townsville and she knows the importance of the port access road, yet she does not come to me and say, ‘Why don’t you go and get this sort of money?’ After the budget she came along and said, ‘Here’s the amount.’ We have this escalation going on.

On top of that, this letter says on stage 1 that ‘the state government is providing $8.147 million, as a 50 per cent contribution’. That means that the total cost of stage 1 is about $16 million. Then, on the second page of the minister’s letter, he says, ‘Well, the Stuart bypass stage 1 is actually accounting for $28.5 million.’ How hopeless is that? A state minister, the minister for main roads, on two different pages in this letter gives me two different figures that are $12 million apart. The incompetence of the state government on road funding is just breathtaking.

That is not the only funding for a road in Townsville that has blown out. Before the last election I was able to secure some money to complete the Townsville ring road. When I asked QDMR how much it would cost—because it is a road over flat country with only one small bridge—they said $35 million. Do you know what I did? I added $5 million without telling anybody and I went to the federal government and said: ‘This is going to cost $40 million. I want a commitment for $40 million.’ They did not know it was only $35 million, but I was building in a little buffer. I secured a commitment, and there was an election promise to spend $40 million completing the Townsville ring road. Do you know what the cost is 18 months later? Do you know what the cost is now? It is not $40 million, it is not $60 million, it is not $90 million; it is $117 million. What kind of competence is that? Now the Queensland Labor state government is coming to the federal government saying: ‘Well, we’ve made a mistake. How about we go halves?’ We made a commitment for $40 million and now QDMR want another $40 million on top of that initial commitment.

Do you know what? If a private contractor had got in there, they would have had the road completed in a year, on time and on budget. Do you know what the Queensland state government want to do? The state government have said: ‘I’m sorry, federal government. We want an extra $80 million and, by the way, we can’t finish it until 2009.’ It is hopelessly incompetent. The Labor Party say, ‘We’d be better managers of this country.’ Do not believe that.

A very significant project, the Chalco aluminium refinery, may come to Queensland. The proposal is that Chalco, a Chinese company, will mine bauxite up near Weipa. It will ship it around the coast and process that bauxite into alumina in either Gladstone; Abbot Point, near Bowen; or Townsville. All three communities are working hard to try to secure that project. It is not clear yet whether it will actually come to Queensland. It may yet go offshore. But, be that as it may, our communities have to work hard to try to win that project. If Townsville are going to win that project, we need to have a port access road. It is so disappointing to me—

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