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

I am indebted to the Courier-Mail newspaper for finding, buried in the Queensland government’s recent budget, the fact that the government is increasing tax on south-side residents. It seems to typify Labor governments that they want to increase tax and increase debt. There is, around Australia, $58 billion of increased government debt at the state level, at a time when we are building a Future Fund of $50 billion over the forward estimates.

Labor governments are not good at these things. Fuel prices are bad enough, but local residents and motorists in my electorate have the only toll road in the entire state of Queensland—the Logan Motorway and the Gateway Motorway extension. Tolls are going to go up by 10c at each tollbooth, and that means you will pay 20c for a trip starting at the Ipswich Motorway and completing at the Gateway Motorway at Wishart. You might think 20c is not much; that is what the Queensland government are hoping. But add it all up: given that the Gateway and Logan motorways actually have more cars on them than the Gateway Bridge, which is also putting up the toll by 10c a trip each way, with 33,000 motorists travelling along those motorways every day, if you do the simple maths you will see it is $1.1 million a day extra that the Queensland government are going to rip off south-side residents—$1.1 million extra a day.

They are never afraid to take money in stamp duty for new homes and new land and so forth, projects that are very evident in my area; but, when it comes to getting rid of the only toll road in Queensland, what do they do? They increase the toll. Residents are writing to me—I have had hundreds of letters in the last couple of days—

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