Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I, like the member for Capricornia, joined this parliament in 1988 and it is certainly a delight to again be part of this parliament and to represent the electorate of Groom for a fourth term. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the many hardworking supporters and volunteers for their commitment during last year’s election campaign in Groom, which saw a very good outcome, if I may say so—certainly the right choice by the good voters of that electorate. In particular, I would like to thank my campaign manager, Phillip Blain, and the treasurer of my campaign, Dallas Kelly, both of whom put in an inordinate amount of effort and time.

I guess no-one does this job alone and I would also take the opportunity to thank my staff, both ministerial and electorate, who have supported me not only in the last term but in some cases for my whole time in parliament, and of course my family, who are the only ones who really know the sacrifices that people make—and they did make sacrifices. I thank my wife, Karen, and my two daughters, Kate and Laura, for their support over the nine years I have been a member of this House. It is the dedication, through their time and energy, of both my family and my supporters that has helped return me to this place to continue my role representing the people of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs.

To all the people in my electorate, regardless of their voting preferences, I give my word that I will continue to be a determined and unrelenting advocate as to the needs of our region and will represent all voters in my electorate, not just those who voted for me. I note that that was a pledge that the Prime Minister made but, having seen the budget that has been handed down for regional Australia, I start to wonder if he is as committed to that as he says he is.

In March in my electorate the political landscape underwent a fundamental change. Along with the rest of Queensland, people in Toowoomba voted for a new local government representative body, a body that encompasses eight local government authorities, and the Toowoomba Regional Council has been formed in a process forced upon the region by the state government and resisted by many people in the region to no avail. We should not underestimate the challenges ahead for this new group in ensuring fair representation for residents of regional Queensland. As a local member, I have always sought to be accessible to the local shire councils in my region and, despite the significant transformation, that will not change.

I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate former Jondaryan mayor Peter Taylor, who has been overwhelmingly elected. Peter is a man of great capability. I think he will make an enormous contribution with his council of 10, whom I also congratulate. I look forward to working with the newly elected representatives of my region to ensure that the Toowoomba Regional Council, which covers all of my electorate—in fact, it covers an area almost twice the size of my electorate—achieves the things that it sets out to achieve.

It has been a privilege to be the federal member for Groom during a time that has seen the electorate consolidate its position as one of the most vibrant inland regions in Australia. Toowoomba plays an integral role for people right across Australia, as it is at the heart of one of the country’s busiest and biggest freight corridors. However, the people in my electorate have had to pay a high price for their position in this vital supply chain, sharing their city with a steady stream of heavy transport 24 hours a day, or around the clock. For many years, the people of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs have been working hard to make their case for a Toowoomba bypass, a second range crossing, a road around a city of 100,000 people in which we currently see trucks traversing the main street of Toowoomba, carrying livestock and every imaginable good.

I was determined to join their fight. Dating back to my maiden speech in this place, I made it clear that delivering this road was a priority. There are several reasons why this alternative road would be so important to the Toowoomba and Darling Downs region. The first is that it would take heavy vehicles out of the city, off the same streets that school children cross every morning and afternoon on their way to and from school. No longer would drivers in Toowoomba’s busiest streets have to share the road with B-double trucks and other assorted vehicles. Along with enhancing the safety of and amenity for local residents, this would also eliminate the associated concerns of pollution and rapidly deteriorating roads.

Equally as important, the Toowoomba Bypass would enhance the safety of families, business people, holiday-makers and, most importantly, truck drivers who travel up and down the current range crossing each day. The people in this region did see our hard work come to fruition, when the previous coalition government announced that the road would be built. An initial allocation of $700 million to begin construction was made, with more funding guaranteed to follow. So you can imagine the crushing disappointment of the hardworking men and women, and families of my community who feel they have been brushed aside by the Prime Minister, the member for Grayndler and the Labor cabinet.

In fact, I wrote to both the Prime Minister and the member for Grayndler in December last year calling on them to let the people of Groom know whether Labor intends to complete the road. But the government’s only response has been to dismiss the need for a new bypass. And guess what we are getting instead—to add to that list of already 100 reviews, another review. Another review, on top of all those other reviews to see whether we need a Toowoomba range crossing. The Prime Minister does not need a review to decide the future of a second range crossing. It is obvious that this road needs to be built. That response is simply not good enough for the people living in one of the fastest-growing inland cities in Australia.

I have invited the member for Grayndler to come to regional Queensland—in fact, to my electorate—to have the courtesy of visiting the people whom he has so disadvantaged and to explain the justice of the argument: if they want access to the best quality national highway under a Rudd Labor government, they will have to pack up and move to a bigger city. Luckily, that does not apply in Tasmania, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom. The residents of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs deserve better than a Labor government which make themselves invisible. At a time when excuses are running out, I urge the Rudd Labor government to take action on this important infrastructure item for my electorate.

On the area of health, Toowoomba not only stands as one of the largest inland cities in Australia but has matured in its role as a central health hub for the people of south-west Queensland. One of the great successes, and I believe an example for other communities—and I have raised this matter with the current Minister for Health and Ageing—is the project which I was honoured to be part of and which I officially opened last year: the St Andrews Cancer Care Centre. This is a world-standard facility, providing lifesaving cancer treatment that serves not only Toowoomba but places as far afield as Tenterfield, Goondiwindi, St George, Roma, Kingaroy, Gatton and the Lockyer Valley. After the Darling Downs was identified as an area in need of radiation oncology services in 2003, St Andrews was awarded the tender in 2005 and, in 2007, a world-standard facility was opened. To add credence to that claim of world-standard, that cancer centre has in fact, in recent weeks, announced that it is currently leading Australia, if not the world, in a new form of prostate radiation treatment, which shows that things that happen in regional Queensland can be the best in the world.

We want to show more than ever that this is an outstanding example of cooperation between the former Commonwealth government and a local service provider to deliver in a vital area the level of care required. We want to continue to ensure that people of regional and rural Australia do not have to sacrifice access to the highest standard of health care simply because of their postcode. It is an obligation for the new Labor government to ensure the health needs of regional and rural Australia are met.

Toowoomba is a city with a proud education pedigree. Once again, it proves to be a focal point for surrounding rural areas. But many of the schools in my electorate have fallen victim to the Rudd Labor government’s budget committee, which has axed the immensely popular Investing in Our Schools Program to pay for its promises to give students in years 9 to 12 a laptop computer. What a shame they did not give any money to actually install them—let alone run them or provide the people to train the students on how to use them. Primary schools in Toowoomba and across the Darling Downs will be worse off because of this decision.

In my electorate, more than $8 million was provided for projects that local schools and parent communities decided were a priority and the state Labor government refused to fund. I was able to witness firsthand how these diverse projects were being put to use in local schools ranging from an all-access playground designed especially for children in wheelchairs with disabilities all the way to sports courts and air conditioning for small schools. Some of these items are basic comfort for school students, while others clearly enhance the learning and social experience. I ask on behalf of my electorate why these students would be forced to go without because of Labor’s poorly thought out laptop policy that is being conducted under a veil of secrecy. Primary schools have every right to feel they have been doubly done over, with the Labor promise taking on more cracks on a daily basis. Schools now find their promise to receive computers greatly cheapened by revelations that there is a list of schools that have been chosen to receive the first computers but that that list is being kept under lock and key.

We also have learned that school communities and parents will have to foot the bill for the extra costs associated with the Prime Minister’s policies such as power costs, teacher training, buildings, insurance, power points et cetera required for these extra computers. Not once did the Prime Minister give any indication to local parents that his education revolution would mean scrapping the Investing in Our Schools Program.

As a member of parliament whose electorate is based around one of Australia’s largest regional cities and extends to one of Queensland’s rural heartlands, I certainly know the value of communication services to people in regional Australia. As someone who as little as 15 years ago had a phone number which was 7H and that was the lot, which required a long-short-long ring to alert you to the need of it, I can assure you we have seen regional communications come a long way in a short space of time. The Labor government should be warned that the people of regional and rural Australia also know well the value of communication services and will not have the wool pulled over their eyes by Mr Rudd’s smoke and mirrors policy agenda. Unfortunately, there is good reason to be concerned about the impact of the Rudd government’s broadband policy—and I heard the member for Capricornia talking about it. Shame we are not seeing anything delivered. Shame the project mooted by the federal government prior to this government is not being put in place because it would be delivering broadband communications now. I think—and I could be corrected—we are having another review on that, and so the list of reviews grows.

Labor’s broadband policy runs a very real risk of isolating some of the more remote parts of my rural electorate. Not only will it slug Australian families more than $100 and will not be switched on until 2013 but one in four Australians will not even be able to access it. Labor’s broadband policy will work only if you live within 1.5 kilometres of the local exchange or node. It may shock some on the other side, but there are people who in fact live 10, 100, perhaps even 1,000 times that distance from their local exchange.

This contrasts with the coalition’s election commitment to deliver a new, high-speed broadband network that would deliver affordable, fast broadband to 99 per cent of all Australians. Not content with leaving rural and regional Australia out in the cold by ignoring crucial road projects and slashing school funding, the government now wants to further exaggerate the digital divide. Why should the people of Toowoomba or Pittsworth be forced to live with a second-class communications system compared to those in Brisbane, Sydney or, indeed, the Prime Minister’s electorate of Griffith or the Treasurer’s electorate of Lilley, where I am sure they have good broadband services?

As the shadow minister for trade, I also have the opportunity to work in an area which is of great significance to the people in my electorate. Toowoomba and the Darling Downs boast their fair share of exporters, and not only in agricultural products. It would surprise many here to learn that in fact manufacturing is the most significant earner of domestic product in my area. Some good examples of that are Russell Mineral Equipment and Wagner’s Fibre Composite Technologies, both of which export product, and, Russell Mineral Equipment in particular, lead the world in technology in mill relining machines. The experiences of these businesses are the story, reflected across the country in cities smaller and larger than Toowoomba, of hardworking and enterprising men and women who have found new opportunities abroad. Our exporters add more than $210 billion to Australia’s economy each year and that begs the question of why the trade minister and Prime Minister are continuing to be so erratic in their approach to trade policy. In my next speech, on the EMDG Scheme, I will highlight that position further. But suffice it to say that they ebb and flow between a desire to have FTAs—free trade agreements—and the multilateral Doha Round conclusion, with complete confusion being sown amongst the exporters in Australia. At the same time they have cut a huge amount of resources out of Australia’s ability both to attract investment here and to earn export dollars. I must say that, with some reason, the exporters of this country are really asking where the Rudd Labor government is going, heightened by the fact that a pledge to local exporters about the EMDG Scheme funding again seems to fall well short of what is being proposed.

The people who populate the electorate of Groom are some of the most wonderful people in Australia. I would assume that that would attract an argument from all members of parliament, who are obviously intensely proud of their own regions. Having lived in regional Australia all my life and having seen the ebb and flow of climate and the ebb and flow of different governments, I can say that overall my community looks forward to the decade ahead. We look forward to playing our part in contributing to the economy of Australia. We are a region blessed with natural assets. We are a region, thanks to the last government, which has an unemployment figure of 2.8 per cent. We are a region which, if the Rudd government gives us any attention at all, will do very well in the time ahead. I look forward to representing my constituents. I look forward to seeing some common-sense decisions handed down by the Rudd government. I still await the opportunity to see one, but I am looking forward to it happening and I certainly look forward to a change of heart in regard to the building of the Toowoomba range crossing.

Debate adjourned.

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