Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in support of the appropriation bills today. In deference to the number of members wishing to speak in this debate, I will keep my contribution brief. It is a particular pleasure to stand in this chamber during Queensland Week to make some comments on a budget that has been delivered by a Treasurer from Queensland. The reality of the 2008 budget is that it is a good budget. It is an economically responsible budget through fiscal conservatism. It delivers immediate benefits for all Australians, it delivers on Labor’s election commitments and it provides for the future.

This budget has been framed in the context of world economic conditions. It has been framed in the context of the global credit crisis and a US economy in decline—the principal economy in the western world. It has been framed in the context of rising fuel and food prices domestically. It has been framed in the context of a rising Australian dollar, with the implications that that has for manufacturing and tourism, amongst others. The budget has also been framed in the context of the former government’s legacy: eight consecutive interest rate rises, the highest inflation in 16 years and the lowest productivity growth in 17 years. Notwithstanding those, it is fair for us to acknowledge that, as a consequence of the mining boom, this budget has also been framed in the context of an Australian economy best placed in the world to avoid tumbling into the abyss that appears likely to swallow up other Western economies. Avoiding that pitfall requires a budget just like the one presented by Wayne Swan—a responsible budget.

I want to turn very briefly to the specifics of this budget as they relate to my electorate of Longman. This budget has delivered some valuable and long-overdue assistance to some sporting bodies in my electorate. The Burpengary Jets junior rugby league club, at Burpengary, will receive $130,000 to install lights on its fields. The Jets are a large and very successful junior sporting club and a tribute to the voluntary efforts of those who have guided them over the years, and I am very pleased that we have been able to provide them with this assistance. All members would understand the value of lighting playing fields and the difficulty that volunteer groups have in raising the funds to do so.

The Caboolture Rugby League Club—the senior rugby league club—is to receive $110,000 for additional lighting and for facility upgrading. The club is known as the Snakes, which reflects the meaning of the place name of Caboolture; in the language of the traditional owners, Caboolture translates as ‘place of the carpet snakes’. We are not terribly venomous but we can frighten you! The Snakes compete with distinction in the Sunshine Coast Rugby League, which has night-time fixtures as part of that competition. This money will assist them to make sure that their facility is of the standard that is required for that competition.

The Caboolture Sports Softball Association will receive $200,000 for the installation of batting cages, for the lighting of an additional playing diamond and for canteen and toilet facility upgrading that is required by the local council. In the interests of transparency, I indicate that softball is a sport in which I am heavily involved, although not with the Caboolture association. The new batting cages, in particular, will be welcome among participants, as there are presently no facilities on the north side of Brisbane and from our area have come two players who will shortly represent Australia at the Olympics.

This budget also delivers a valuable addition to community facilities in the electorate of Longman, where $250,000 will be spent installing solar panels to provide water heating for the Deception Bay Aquatic and Fitness Centre and to extend the useability of the facility through what are thankfully, in Queensland, short winter months. These panels will be installed on the roof of the adjoining PCYC and common sense would dictate that the panels will also provide hot water for both the aquatic centre change rooms and those of the PCYC.

This budget also provides for valuable new health facilities in my electorate of Longman to service the north side of Brisbane—and I speak of $7 million for a 12-chair renal unit to be included in the North Lakes health precinct and currently being constructed by the Queensland government. The dialysis needs of patients on the north side of Brisbane, the Moreton Bay region generally and the electorate of Longman particularly will be much better met through this initiative. I know from discussions with a number of people who require these services that they are very appreciative of this new initiative.

Valuable new road infrastructure funding—not new funding but new directions—will see overpasses completed at Boundary Road, Bribie Island Road and Pumicestone Road as they cross the Bruce Highway through my electorate, each of them subject to heavy traffic these days. There is also valuable assistance for local small business. The Caboolture Business Enterprise Centre is to receive recurrent funding of $300,000, or $1.2 million over four years, to provide business advice and services to microbusinesses and small businesses in our region. The enterprise centre has been operating since 1994, offering a range of services to the local business community. This funding will allow those services to be extended. Again, for the sake of disclosure, I announce that I spent a considerable period of time, seven or eight years, as chairman of that group, the enterprise centre having been an election commitment and funded as a consequence of the 1992 Queensland state election, when I became the local state member.

Just to wind up, the budget has not been without disappointments, and I am sorry the previous speaker, the member for Fadden, is not here to hear me say this. It is in many respects a disappointment that the Regional Partnerships program has been discontinued. Not all of the projects were bad or rorts; in fact, the majority were no doubt valuable to their communities. This makes the rorts even more regrettable, because, as a consequence of the program misuse, some really good local initiatives are on hold—and I think that you will find that you have the support of most members of the Labor government in that regard. There were good projects delivered under this program; however, the rorts—

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