Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Blair is correct: he said nothing. We heard not a single comment from the shadow minister about what the Labor Party is going to do for roads in the Gold Coast, the fastest growing city in Australia. We have heard not a single word from the Australian Labor Party about what it is going to do to improve the lives of residents. That is because the Labor Party does not care. We know that because the Beattie Labor government does not care about residents on the Gold Coast. The Beattie Labor government could today, if it wanted to, provide the funding necessary to ensure that important local roads like the Nielsens Road interchange were built. The Beattie Labor government could start the widening of the M1 from Nerang to Tugun today, if it chose to. But the Beattie Labor government turns its back on it.

Paul Lucas, the Minister for Transport and Main Roads in Queensland, would rather keep up his political posturing and political game-playing than actually do something to improve the lives of local residents. I say to Paul Lucas and to the Labor Party: start to understand that Gold Coast residents will not accept your shabby treatment of them. Start to understand that Gold Coast residents know some simple facts. That is, this government has provided to the Queensland Labor government a 119 per cent increase in local road funding. That is our commitment to local roads. If we had our own engineers and our own main roads department, I would have them out there building the roads. But, unfortunately, we have got to rely on the state Labor government, which is completely inept when it comes to project planning and delivery.

If you want a case in point—Gold Coast residents know about this—you can look at the absolute mess that was the Tugun bypass, thanks to the Beattie Labor government. That bypass was initially costed by the Labor government at $70 million. That was the initial project cost that the Labor Party put forward. Right then and there, the federal government said, ‘We’ll fund half of that. Here’s our $35 million.’ And then we waited, and we waited, and we waited. The consequence was that, when the Beattie Labor government finally got around to building the bypass, it was no longer a $70 million project but a $500 million project. That is the Labor Party legacy to the Gold Coast residents. That is Labor’s record: massive cost blow-outs that cause massive inconvenience to local Gold Coast residents, and we do not hear one word from the Labor member opposite, who claims that he cares about road funding in south-east Queensland. He spoke about one road, the road to Ipswich, and I say that Gold Coast residents know that the Labor Party turns its back on their needs; they know that the Labor Party cannot control costs and they know the Labor Party cannot deliver roads.

I say to my local residents that I will continue pushing for funding increases and I will continue pressuring the state Labor government to do something for them with its 119 per cent increase in road funding. I say to the Labor Party: you stand condemned because of your ignorance of Gold Coast local road needs.

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