Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the minister says, it would decimate small business. When the Southside Chamber of Commerce talked to me before the 1996 election they said, ‘If you can get rid of this dumb unfair dismissal law we reckon there are 50,000 new jobs that could be created in Australia. If we could restore an environment where we could hire the best, maintain the best and pay the best a better wage but where, if there were those we didn’t want in our workplace, we could dismiss them we would actually hire more staff, because the way Labor set it up is that even if you steal money from the till you can’t be sacked.’ That is Labor’s vision. That is Labor’s return. That is Labor’s back to the future approach.

Labor also want to repeal the Howard government’s Work Choices reforms and replace them with all sorts of significant changes that would further confuse and further envelope Australia’s small business and, in particular, small business owners, in a confusing matrix of changes. Just as things have settled down, just as 200,000 more jobs have been created, just as businesses gain the confidence to expand by hiring more people and just as businesses are investing in their businesses by training people in record numbers, the Australian Labor Party say, ‘No, we don’t want to do that anymore.’ Why? It is all very obvious. It is handed down and writ large in the testament that comes from ‘Sharan’s burrow’, the ACTU. It is passed on by the union movement, which reflects a smaller and smaller base of influence on the real working men and women of Australia.

Just a couple of dozen per cent of workers are actually involved in the union movement and a lot of them regret it and resent it, because they are forced to part with money to prop up union leaders. Yet here we have the Australian Labor Party saying, ‘We will listen to the minority and we will impact on the majority in the workforce.’ I am all for defending the defenceless minorities, but the very well-oiled, very well-heeled, over-resourced and overly important trade union movement in this country have got to get themselves back to their roots and represent what the workers say and not what their particular philosophical view on a particular matter happens to be. They should not simply represent those who go their way and maintain that everybody who does not has some sort of fascist streak running through them. By the directions they take in public policy, the Labor Party show that they do not trust ordinary men and women, ordinary workers, in this nation.

Another point in this prosecution of the member for Oxley and those opposite is very plain. A hundred years ago the first member for Moreton was based in Ipswich. James Wilkinson resigned from the Labor Party before the 1901 election because they embarrassed him over conscription matters. They were also against Australia standing up for democracy in foreign battles in those days. It was all to do with the Boer War. Wilkinson resigned from the Labor Party, stood as an independent member and won two elections. Interestingly, when he joined the Labor Party again he lost that election. Ipswich is very much part of south-east Queensland’s history. I am very proud to have come from that part of the world with family that have been there for many generations—right through; Ipswich and beyond.

It is extraordinary to think that the current member for Oxley should say those words tonight. As far as he is concerned, digging up stuff does not do a lot for us in terms of the future. The whole city of Ipswich and the viability of south-east Queensland have been built around the coalmining industry. It has been the mainstay of so much of Ipswich’s economy. I am sure that out at the Swanbank mines 1 and 2 and at the CFMEU’s headquarters at Ebbw Vale they will be somewhat stirred up by a member for Oxley who wants to dump on the mining industry in this way in favour of the cafe latte brigade from the electorate of the member for Kingsford-Smith and, indeed, that of the member for Griffith, and talk down the idea of the coal industry.

As the Courier Mail said last Saturday, $26 billion in exports and 20,000 Queensland jobs would be sacrificed off the back of the Labor Party following the loony Left’s approach on these issues. Even worse, those coal exports would automatically be substituted with coal from countries that do not have the quality coal we offer out of Queensland, which is more likely to provide a cleaner burning capacity and not feed into greenhouse gas emissions to the extent that dirtier coal from places like China does. But here we have the member for Oxley turning his back on the birthright of the electorate he claims to represent and jumping on the coal industry in this way. I think he should be ashamed of himself tonight.

We are very concerned about Labor’s approach on these matters for another reason. It was of course outed last week by the Financial Review, which said that the member for Griffith, as the latest Leader of the Opposition, has moved to secure preferences from the extreme Green movement in Queensland ahead of this year’s election. So it is all about the pragmatics of trying to win a few seats—saying whatever it is the Greens want to hear and hoping the rest of us do not realise the impact that this kind of approach will have on Australia’s long-term future prosperity. As the Prime Minister said in his weekly radio message:

Australia’s prosperity will be put at grave risk if Labor is elected.

They cannot be trusted on the economy. They have too many small-minded, narrow-based interest groups. To cobble together their platform, they have to build around these narrow-minded interest groups. These sorts of knee-jerk responses to climate change could damage the mining and energy sectors. Our experience and track record as a government have shown that it is our way to make considered moves that will take jobs forward, not detract from the employment situation in Australia, and that will build the prosperity we already have in this country, not destroy it.

When you stop to think about the recently announced water package of over $10 billion, it is an amount of money very similar to the sort of interest that we were paying on government debt alone when we came to office in 1996—the $96 billion black hole in the Labor Party’s budget. Their mishandling of the economy delivered a $10.5 billion interest payment each year. That meant every bit of tax collected had to go towards paying that before anything else could be done. By comparison, this government has shown itself willing to back communities that want to work in favour of their local communities, trusting local communities in partnership with the Australian government.

One of the best examples which are dealt with in these bills is the Investing in Our Schools program. In my electorate, there are 41 projects worth $3.1 million. That money has gone directly into the hands of local school P&Cs—money which the Australian government has passed to local communities as a sign of trust in their common sense and good exercise of that money and those projects.

It is astonishing to think that in south-east Queensland the neglect of the Beattie state government has meant that the statistics associated with Investing in Our Schools are like this: 11 schools have air-conditioned parts of their schools. Twenty-one schools in all have been helped in my electorate, including special schools. These are schools with kids with physical and sometimes mental disabilities. When I rang the Tennyson Special School late last year and told them of the $132,975 grant that will help them with a specialised learning area, I had a teacher crying over the phone. These sorts of moments are enormously emotional for me as a local member.

Moorooka State School had a fire late last year, but before that happened $148,800 was provided for a new canteen complex that is going into a long-awaited school assembly hall. It is a great local school that does a lot in our community and has done for many generations, and in more recent times it has provided a real focus for kids with refugee backgrounds from places like Sudan. This school should be mightily proud of its record, and that $148,000 from the Australian government made its day.

Warrigal Road State School received $150,000 for a new library and upgrade of computers. It has the highest Islamic population of any state government school in Queensland; it is also hugely dedicated to its students from a Chinese-speaking background. It has made an enormous difference in many lives and is getting this vote of support with funding going directly to the local P&C to spend. Even some new schools needed funding. Stretton State College received $49,100 for new play equipment and shade structures—forgotten by the state government but paid for by Australian taxpayers.

I want to pay tribute to Siganto and Stacey, a local air-conditioning company in my electorate, whose owners, as parents of students at Sherwood State School, value-added to a Commonwealth grant of $150,000 for air conditioning and made sure the century-old library building was properly air-conditioned. Robertson State School received three grants totalling $99,733 to air-condition demountable buildings, for a new playground refurbishment and for new library books. I was very proud to be a part of the openings of some of those facilities last year.

We have also looked very strongly at infrastructure questions. Gearing ourselves for a long-term, viable future for Australia is not simply about investing in our schools and the young people of today; it is also about building some of the physical infrastructure. The Granard Road overpass at the start of the Ipswich Motorway was opened late last year by me and the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, the Hon. Jim Lloyd. It is an $18 million project, something also left undone by the state government. It now provides a safe environment with four lanes on Ipswich Road as it becomes the motorway passing over Granard Road.

We are very frustrated with the speed of progress by the Queensland Department of Main Roads, which prides itself on being as slow and as costly as it can be! If there were some way of building physical infrastructure without having to rely on Queensland Main Roads, I would like to do it—and maybe I will move a private member’s bill to make it possible to fund active and capable companies to do some of the things we want.

Let me use the example of the Acacia Ridge grade separation, where the national rail corridor at Acacia Ridge—the Queensland government owned Brisbane-Sydney rail corridor—crosses Beaudesert Road. There was a big prang there the other day which caused hours of delay, but there are normally 15 to 20 minute delays each time a train leaves the Acacia Ridge rail freight terminal. The Queensland government wanted $25 million from us three years ago and we put $25 million forward. Nothing has happened; it has sat there and done nothing. It has now gone from a $50 million project to a $105 million project. Not one sod has been turned, yet the price has more than doubled.

Look at what has happened with the Logan Motorway and Ipswich Motorway interchange at Gailes. Minister Lloyd and I were there the other day helping to turn the sod. We have seen that go from $155 million to $255 million—again an almost doubling of the project. Despite the fact that four years ago it was voted that the money go to that project, nothing has been done by the Queensland government.

Consider what is happening at Kessels and Mains Roads. Kessels and Mains Roads need to have a grade separation with Mains Road going under Kessels Road—a project that is going to cost some hundreds of millions of dollars. It is one thing to advantage local residents instead of interstate truck traffic, but here we have the Australian Labor Party saying they are in favour of interstate trucks on local roads and that local residents can take second place when it comes to infrastructure. Federal Labor and state Labor continue to say they want to put Kessels Road under Mains Road. Federal Labor and state Labor say all they want to do is keep the trucks running through Robertson, Coopers Plains, Salisbury and Macgregor and through Upper Mount Gravatt and Wishart in the member for Bonner’s electorate.

When you talk about the Ipswich Motorway, federal Labor and state Labor have no imagination to bring to the question of infrastructure other than simply widening the current corridor to six lanes. They do not want to look at any other alternatives. They simply want the six-laning of a four-lane road, whereas we have been promising a total of 10 lanes in that corridor by using some new corridors. Federal Labor and state Labor have run out of puff and run out of ambition to do anything when it comes to infrastructure.

Turning to water, the problem we have in south-east Queensland at the moment is most profound. Here in Canberra they are running around trying to tighten up a few leaky taps! If we had had the Wolffdene dam built in the late eighties, which the member for Griffith when he was the key adviser and string-puller of the then Queensland Premier advised him not to do, we might have more water at our disposal in south-east Queensland. We now have the pretend Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, trying to hide his track record when it comes to his failure on Queensland infrastructure—the failure of the Goss government years, which he was the chief architect of, to build the Wolffdene dam and to provide proper road infrastructure.

When you start to deal with all of these issues you start to see a pattern emerge. You start to know that the Australian Labor Party will cherry-pick their way through the next six months. It is the old confidence trick of keeping people amused with one hand while doing something else to them with the other. I do not believe Australia would ever want to risk the prospect of the sort of damage that could come from a team that actually has no new ideas and no new ambitions. When you look at what they have done in government you realise there is a complete lack of ambition amongst state Labor governments as well.

Look at the area of vocational and technical education—the portfolio involvement I had until recently. In 1995 Labor’s budget was $1 billion towards things like funding TAFEs. In this current year it is $2.6 billion. When Labor was last in government just 123,000 people were taking on apprenticeships. Now it is over 400,000. If the member for Oxley or any other person opposite get up and start to talk about the side of this place that has got an eye on building for the long-term benefit of Australia they are of course talking through their hat when they start to claim some great expertise. On this side we have not only the track record and experience but also the ambition to do even more in favour of the everyday people of this nation. This country deserves the best that the experience of the last 10 years can provide in the years to come, and I am certainly determined to be a part of the process of making sure we are here to deliver on that. (Time expired)

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