Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this motion moved by the member for Oxley, who is a Queensland based member. His seat of Oxley is adjacent to the Ryan electorate, which I have the great honour of representing here in the parliament. When I first signed up to speak on this motion on behalf of the people of Ryan and the federal opposition, I thought that it would be a positive, optimistic and bipartisan motion minus the blame game. But then I came into the parliament and heard the member for Oxley straightaway launching himself into an attack on the previous government—that is, ‘The Howard government was responsible for everything that went wrong in Australia and everything that went wrong in Queensland.’ I am very disappointed. I say to the people of Ryan that, although the new Labor government has a Prime Minister from Queensland and we would have thought there would be much more for Queensland, unfortunately all the indicators so far are that the Prime Minister from Queensland is not going to deliver for Queensland. As I said, when I saw this motion I looked at the words and it talked about working together, an agenda for prosperity and long-term solutions, but the people of Ryan know that that is not the case with this government.

I want to talk about Queensland, and the first thing I want to highlight for and remind the people of Queensland about, especially the people of Ryan, is that there has been a Labor government in Queensland for almost 20 uninterrupted years. We talk about the long term and about vision and planning; I would have thought that they would be planning well ahead. I am disappointed that the member for Oxley seems to be leaving the chamber and not listening to a critique of his motion, given that I am happy to speak on this motion on behalf of the people of Ryan in the spirit of bipartisanship.

The Labor government in Queensland has been in power for nearly 20 years uninterrupted. When we talk about the long term, I want to draw the attention of the people in Ryan to Moggill Road. Moggill Road is a state road and it unfortunately has been brutally neglected by the Queensland Labor government. There is a great disconnect between council planning and infrastructure investment by the state government. In the suburbs of Bellbowrie and Moggill, indeed in all of the western suburbs of the Ryan electorate, the residents know that it takes almost an hour, or an hour and a half at times, to get from the far reaches of the Ryan electorate into the city. The problem is that Moggill Road is one giant car park.

This motion talks about urban planning, dealing with Australia’s future growth, specifically infrastructure in Queensland, and broad participation from all tiers of government, but what do we have in Queensland? Now we have a Labor government here in Canberra and, lo and behold, there is talk in the Queensland press that the federal Labor government are not going to honour their commitment to a full upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway. They were forced by the media to backtrack and to do a backflip because they knew full well that that was a tough ask for them to actually deliver. Now that they are in government, they are not going to deliver.

We all know that there has been an explosion of growth in Queensland and some 4½ million residents are going to be living in Queensland by 2025-26. It is going to exceed the growth of Victoria, so we therefore have to plan ahead. No-one disputes that; that is a motherhood statement. The disappointing thing about this motion by the member for Oxley is that it has nice, fine, wonderfully crafted words. The first part of the motion is a motherhood statement which nobody could disagree with. But, when you see what is happening at the heart of the federal government with Labor in power, they are clearly not going to honour their commitment.

On behalf of the people of Ryan, I would like to know what, as a Queensland based federal member, the member for Oxley will do. What will this Queensland based member of the federal government do to promote the interests of Queensland? What will he do for the people of Ryan? What will he do for Moggill Road, which is under the jurisdiction of a Labor government? We really want to know what he will do. We know that unfortunately a lot of money is being wasted by the Queensland government; it is going down the drain. I am just disappointed that clearly the Queensland government is not going to put the interests of Queensland first. It has again let down the people of Ryan and it has let down the people of Australia. Unfortunately, the $65 million in borrowing will just go down the chute. (Time expired)

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