Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I heartily endorse the comments of the member for Brisbane. In many respects, parts of my speech follow his. I am sure Cathy is a saint, and you can tell her I said that.

It gives me a tremendous amount of gratification to stand in the chamber today, symbolically at the start of my sixth term—because we have been going for six months—and give this address-in-reply to the Governor General’s speech. Like those of many members, my electorate underwent a radical change of electoral boundaries in the recent redistribution in Queensland. Hinkler shed the industrial city of Gladstone and many of its outlying rural communities, and I was allocated the busy city of Hervey Bay to the south as well as the satellite townships to its west. This represented a 44 per cent change to my old electorate—that is almost a new electorate. Fortunately, I was under the same TV umbrella, so people knew who I was. That was to some extent helpful. But it was a big alteration to the electorate of Hinkler and probably the most significant since its inception in 1983-84.

I was sad to lose Gladstone. That might sound strange—I suppose the member for Brisbane would say it sounds a bit strange—and I am not afraid to say I was a little apprehensive when I first took on Gladstone. It had a reputation as a robust industrial town, but I found quite a different dynamic when I got there: well-trained young technocrats and highly focused process workers who were not going to be pushed around by union officials and shop stewards. They had minds of their own, as was demonstrated in one of the very early EBAs—I do not think we even called them that in those days—when they had a referendum in the plant and, as I remember it, the workers voted 83 per cent to 17 per cent in favour of going into the EBA. That was significant, and obviously they were thinking of their futures when they did that.

Most workers were prepared to give me a go, and local families appreciated the stability and security afforded by the coalition government. Over time, I built my vote in Gladstone to 48.6 per cent because the region was getting what it needed from the coalition government in infrastructure and social programs. The coalition funded the Port Access Road to the tune of $7½ million, Calliope River Road and Landing Road to $4.1 million, Callemondah Overpass to $3 million and Kirkwood Road to $12.7 million. The coalition recognised the special needs of young, working Gladstone families and invested $3 million in developing an early childhood project for Gladstone under the Communities for Children program. It was significant there because it is a young community and it is also a transient community. The coalition delivered economic security to all Gladstone families by investing in major industries and companies like Comalco. At one plant alone, even after the construction phase, 600 jobs were created.

These investments in turn created other jobs that kept the boom going in Gladstone, and it is still going today. As well as Gladstone and Calliope, the coastal communities of Agnes Water and the town of Seventeen Seventy, along with the hinterland towns of Miriam Vale and Rosedale, moved out of my electorate and into Flynn. Again the rapid population growth in these areas gave them special needs in terms of infrastructure and I was proud to have helped deliver millions for safer roads, mobile coverage for the region and a healthcare centre. They had absolutely no healthcare facilities there at all.

The environment is particularly important to local residents because of the region’s natural scenic beauty and emerging tourism industry, so various programs like Green Corps, Envirofund and Regional Partnerships were put to good use in maintaining the region’s pristine environment. The Hinkler electorate also lost the thriving rural towns of Monto, Eidsvold, Gayndah, Mundubbera, Mount Perry, Gin Gin, which also moved into the new seat of Flynn. These smaller centres were the true blue heartland of the old Hinkler—some would say true National Party country—relying primarily on agriculture and small business for the health of their local economies, with tourism becoming a more prominent feature. It was difficult to say goodbye to each of these communities and I urge the new member for Flynn to do everything in his power to keep delivering for them, because a small project in one of those towns has quite a significant effect on the whole community.

Turning from the old Hinkler to the new, the seat remains one of the most diverse electorates in the country, incorporating the sugar and small crop city of Bundaberg in the north, the growing city of Hervey Bay in the south—with its emerging tourist industry—and the coastal communities and rural centres in between, as well as Biggenden and Woocoo. Each community has its own distinct character. They have pressing needs and unique challenges—the City of Hervey Bay, particularly so.

A generation ago, Hervey Bay was a group of small coastal communities with a total population of about 7,000 or 8,000. It was a little bit like the Gold Coast. In the past 30 years, those villages have grown together and today the city has a population of upwards of 50,000 people, many of them young families and, at the other end, many retirees. Its natural growth pattern, a long and narrow corridor hugging the coastline, has created unique transport problems. It is a bit like the Gold Coast except that it goes east-west, and that means you have these long thin corridors. I think the urbanised part is about 14 to 15 kilometres wide, which means you have long thin corridors, and we do not have enough of them. There is an urgent need for big-ticket road projects to ease traffic congestion and cut down on travelling time from one end of the town to the other. And there is an equivalent need for social and civic infrastructure. Because the town has expanded so quickly, councils have not been able to keep up with the demands of infrastructure, and there is a need for government intervention.

The coalition recognised and responded to that clear need, pledging $9.3 million for three separate road projects: $5.6 million to realign Urraween Road, $2.8 million to complete River Heads Road and $900,000 to complete Old Toogoom Road. These were three of the arterial roads I was describing before. I cannot say how disappointed I was that the Labor candidate neglected to commit to these urgent projects. These projects are vital for the future development of the Hervey Bay region, given the increasing popularity of the area with families, retirees and tourists.

The city also badly needs a new community centre. It does not have anything like a community centre. It has a neighbourhood centre, which was a home that was donated some 20 or more years ago and its capacity to provide services such as limited hours of childcare, counselling, youth mentoring programs and quasi-medical activities is being outstripped by the area’s growth rate. The coalition was prepared to back the construction of a new centre with $1½ million of a $5 million anticipated outlay. Again, the Labor government has left this project high and dry.

I cannot say what a huge disappointment this is for the families of Hervey Bay. I promise you, I will keep fighting for this funding even from the opposition benches. It really has to be done. To leave 30 community groups and quasi-medical organisations without a home is unacceptable.

The people of Hervey Bay gave me their strong endorsement on 24 November 2007 and for that I thank them profusely. Hinkler resisted Queensland’s ALP swing of 8.5 per cent, especially Wide Bay, but my margin was stripped to 1.7 per cent. Hinkler has always been a tough seat, although I did not expect it would be quite so tough in the recent election. In three close elections, my margins have been as little as 0.4 per cent and 0.3 per cent, and on one occasion was less than 0.1 per cent. Other than the Keating election, 1996, I have never had the luxury of a ‘safe’ seat. Hinkler has always come down to the wire. This was perhaps the sweetest victory of all—to paraphrase Paul Keating.

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