Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program has been a big boon for the Ipswich and West Moreton area. One billion dollars has been allocated and distributed across Australia for that program. It is important to cooperate with local government authorities to support jobs in local regions and modernise and build community infrastructure such as parks. Other funding announced in these areas will make a big difference in terms of landfill, a skate park, an indoor sports complex and the like.

Across my region, in round 1, Ipswich City Council received $921,000; the Lockyer Valley, $661,000; the Scenic Rim, $667,000; and the Somerset region, which will be in the electorate of Blair at the next election, $369,000. In round 2 of that program, Ipswich City Council received $396,000, and that money has been put towards the upgrade of the Redbank Plains Recreational Reserve, universally acclaimed as a wonderful facility there in Ipswich. Eleven jobs are going to be created as result of that. The Lockyer Valley received $288,000 for many community infrastructure programs. The Scenic Rim received $291,000, and the Somerset Regional Council received $142,000. The Somerset Regional Council money is being put towards a $500,000 Somerset landfill upgrade.

Why is this important? I think it is important because Ipswich is the fastest-growing region in South-East Queensland, the Lockyer Valley the second fastest and the Somerset region the third fastest. Indeed, the Somerset Regional Council has cooperated with the Rudd Labor government on a number of projects. On 7 October 2009, I was pleased—with the Mayor of the Somerset Regional Council, Graeme Lehmann, and Senator Mark Furner, a Labor senator for Queensland—to inspect projects in the Somerset region. The Esk fitness trail construction was allocated $167,500. The Esk Skate Park construction was allocated $120,000. The Fernvale Campdraft Park amenities block was allocated $81,400. And, of course, the Fernvale Indoor Sports Centre was allocated $2.1 million, part of a $5 million total project cost. When I was inspecting those facilities with Graeme Lehmann and Senator Mark Furner, Mayor Lehmann said a number of things. He said:

“The Esk Skate Park has already proven to be a very popular spot for many of our young residents and visitors …

“The Esk Fitness Trail is a great bonus to our community.

“Since its completion, local walkers have enjoyed the bush walk as well as visitors—

and other people. It is a wonderful facility in the Somerset region.

On 1 December 2009, it was announced that the Somerset region, particularly the lower part, at Fernvale, will receive funding for the wonderful new complex being built, the Fernvale Indoor Sports Centre. Deputy Mayor Councillor Neil Zabel ‘said it was an exciting day for the Somerset with the building of this centre’. He said it was wonderful for the people of the Somerset ‘as it was the sort of facility which had previously been lacking in the Somerset, especially at the southern end’.

What is so significant about that? Last Friday week, at the Lutheran convention in Ipswich, where I was speaking, Neil Zabel outed himself as being the LNP putative candidate against me at the next election. Yesterday he was supposed to have come out of the political closet. Having arranged with the local media that he would announce his candidacy after the Somerset Regional Council, he squibbed it and did not announce it. There he was, supporting vital community infrastructure in the Somerset region on 1 December 2009 in the Gatton, Lockyer and Brisbane Valley Star, and what happens when he comes here? He purports to represent a political party that voted against this community infrastructure!

So here we have a Deputy Mayor, who purports to support the Blair area, saying, ‘I’ll support community infrastructure in council but I’ll support a political party that’ll vote against that community infrastructure in parliament.’ He says one thing in Esk but in Canberra the political party with whom he has an affiliation, which he supports and for which he has an aspiration to be their member does another thing. What rank political inconsistency and hypocrisy! The truth is that only the Rudd Labor government, through its candidates in Queensland, will deliver vital community infrastructure throughout Queensland, while the coalition, with councillors as their candidates, will not. That is the truth.

See this speech in context