Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Labor hates Telstra. We have seen more evidence of it tonight, where the member for Hindmarsh has misled this chamber. I say to the member for Hindmarsh: I have open access to Telstra any time night or day. I am able to solve Telstra’s customers’ problems immediately. It is a great service, it is a great Australian company and it does not deserve the treatment that it is getting from the Australian Labor Party. I will tell the member for Hindmarsh how I do it later on.

In North Queensland—I represent in the parliament Australia’s largest tropical city—road infrastructure has always been a very significant issue. We have long distances. We are a long way from our capital city. In fact, my city is further north of Brisbane than Canberra is south of Brisbane. There are long road distances to travel and our people are always very interested in road issues. And so it was that in the city of Townsville I identified a very significant new road project: the Douglas Arterial Road. It was to link the upper Ross suburbs over the river to the hospital, the university and Lavarack Barracks. It was ultimately to become part of the bypass of Townsville. You would not believe the fight that I had with the state government to get that project built. Despite the state government saying that, if I delivered this from the federal government then they would do this every time I delivered something, they then wanted more. It went on and on. Fortunately, I prevailed, because I was not going to give up. We built the Douglas arterial and, as soon as it opened, it was an extraordinary success and probably one of the best road projects that has ever been built in the city of Townsville.

However, in 2004 I saw that the Douglas arterial should be extended to the Bruce Highway, going to the north of the city, and this would complete the Townsville ring road. Nobody was talking about it; nobody thought that it was possible. People wanted the port access road built, but I knew that the benefit-cost ratio of building the port access road was less than one, meaning we would have to spend more money than what it would actually save the community. But the benefit-cost ratio of building the Townsville ring road, connecting to the Douglas arterial, was eight. In other words, it delivered eight times the benefit of the cost that was put in to build the road. It was a no-brainer.

I promoted that as an election promise at the 2004 election. The chamber of commerce, the Townsville Enterprise and the city council all reacted in horror and said to me, ‘How could you do this?’ But I knew that it would a huge success for the city—and we built it. When it opened, the people from the northern beaches, the people coming from the north to the south and the people going from the south to the north found that it cut a lot of time off the journey and that it was a high-speed motorway, the first motorway in North Queensland. It was an outstanding success.

However, sometimes when you succeed, you have unintended consequences. The unintended consequence in this case was that the Douglas arterial, which I had fought to have built two or three years earlier, could not carry the extra volume. So at the last election I said, ‘I will find the money to four-lane the Douglas arterial.’ That was very well received, because everybody knew that that was what had to be done. Fortunately, the Australian Labor Party matched my promise to four-lane it. So they were locked in and it did not matter which government was going to get elected; we were going to get the four-laning of the Douglas arterial for Townsville.

Have we got it? The answer is no. What is interesting is that federal funding was provided for this project as promised in the 2008 budget. It was then re-announced in the 2009 budget. So now, nearly 18 months after the first announcement, construction is yet to begin. That has really let down our city, and it is interesting that, representing one of the state electorates in the area, we have the state Minister for Main Roads, the member for Thuringowa. In a press release from Minister Albanese and the Queensland Minister for Main Roads, Craig Wallace, of 16 September 2009, Minister Albanese reported that the Douglas arterial duplication was ‘running ahead of schedule’. I beg your pardon? Ahead of schedule?

It was promised in the budget in 2008. Not a sod has yet been turned, but it is ‘running ahead of schedule’. That is why I aggrieve here tonight in this grievance debate. It is wrong to give our community an expectation that we will build this and then not start the project. Another press release from Minister Albanese, this one on 16 June 2009, talked about ‘vital nation building legislation passed’. The minister said:

… upgrading Australia’s transport network is central to the Government’s nation building agenda and essential to the country’s international competitiveness.

The projects referred to included the Douglas arterial upgrade.

Given the vital nature of this project, and the fact that both federal and state funding has been allocated, I ask the question: why hasn’t it proceeded? We all know as members of parliament that the current government has very much talked up the nation building, the infrastructure and the stimulus package. Well, hello, where is the stimulus in not building anything? I think it is a fair question. I think we are all embarrassed that we have not been able to deliver. I am embarrassed, as the local member; and the government is embarrassed, as the provider of funding.

In response to a question I asked the minister in June this year regarding the progress of the duplication, he informed me that construction would commence this year in the third quarter. Well, hello, we are in the fourth quarter and no construction has been commenced. Gosh, that is sad. Gosh, that is tough for my community. When you have these longstanding commitments it is very difficult to explain to the community that construction has not begun.

Today in question time the minister told the House that apparently the government was getting on with the job: ‘Infrastructure development will remain at the heart of the government’s economic policy.’ Not building anything is not the heart of a government economic policy, I would suggest. The minister is saying one thing and doing another and despite publicly committing to infrastructure development, the minister has allowed the Douglas arterial duplication to be pushed further back on the agenda. Clearly, Labor’s stated commitment to nation building is all talk and no action. I demand that the minister review this; I demand that we get cracking on this much, much needed duplication of the Douglas arterial to stop the traffic problems that are there.

In the two minutes I have available to me I would also like to mention the issue of the PET scanner in Townsville, the nuclear scanning machine that easily detects cancers very quickly. There are no PET scanners in North Queensland and once again we are being short-changed in a regional area. We should have a PET scanner in Australia’s largest tropical city. On 22 February 2008 I moved a private member’s bill in the House calling on the government to match a commitment offered by a private X-ray business to install a PET scanner. Their offer to the government was extraordinarily generous: ‘We will pay half the capital cost—$2 million.’ The Queensland health department strongly backed this particular proposal. They want to use a PET scanner just as much as anybody else wants to use a PET scanner.

Recently Craig Wallace, the member for Thuringowa and Minister for Main Roads, whose electorate is also where this PET scanner will be installed, said that he would lead a delegation to Canberra to see the Minister for Health and Ageing. I immediately wrote to Craig saying, ‘Count me in. I’ll get you an appointment with the minister.’ That was a month ago and I have not heard a word from him. Mr Wallace, you are a populist politician. You need to have actions not words, just like all of us need to have actions and not words. We need to deliver a PET scanner for our community in the interests of their health and I ask that you move with me on this. Together we will see the Minister for Health and Ageing and together we will get a PET scanner for Townsville.

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