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

It is a great privilege to be here in the house of the people. To be re-elected to represent an electorate in the House of Representatives is a great honour. It shows trust, it shows commitment and it shows that the people of the electorate of Blair have put their faith in a Labor representative and in the Gillard Labor government. I thank the people of Blair for this responsibility and I commit myself once again to discharge those duties with diligence and that responsibility with determination. I thank my wife, Carolyn, and my daughters, Alex and Jacqui, for their wonderful support in this campaign, my campaign director Peter Johnstone, my chief of staff Jennifer Howard, and my 2IC and staff member Kylie Stoneman. I went into this campaign, my third campaign, with a Labor Party membership ticket in one hand and with a union ticket in the other. I ran what Dennis Atkins in the Courier-Mail described as a maverick campaign. I stood up for the people of my electorate. I stood up for the working people whose representatives are the trade union movement, who have for the whole history of this country stood up for working people in the electorate of Blair, in Ipswich and in rural areas. I want to thank my union, the Australian Services Union, the BLF, the Plumbers Union, the CWU, the AWU, the ETU, the CFMEU and the Queensland Teachers Union for their muscle on the ground, their financial support and their longstanding commitment to my candidacy.

I was born in Ipswich and have lived there all my life. My family has lived in the Ipswich and West Moreton community for generation after generation. I have a longstanding commitment to my community. The Blair electorate covers 6,400 square kilometres in South-East Queensland. It is a regional and rural seat. It is based on the city of Ipswich, about 70 per cent of it, and the rural area known as the Somerset Regional Council. But 60 per cent of Ipswich is indeed rural. Ipswich is the fastest growing city in South-East Queensland. It grew, according to the ABS data, by five per cent last year. The Somerset region grew the third fastest in South-East Queensland at 4.5 per cent. With that growth comes great challenge. The South-East Queensland infrastructure plan and program for 2010 to 2031 talks about the need for $134 billion in investment in infrastructure. This will support 930,000 jobs in South-East Queensland. One in seven people in the country live in South-East Queensland. South-East Queensland’s population will grow from 2.8 million in 2006 to 4.4 million by 2031. The area from Noosa through to Coolangatta and out to Toowoomba is indeed the fastest growing area in the country. That poses the problems of a sustainable future, addressing climate change, protecting regional landscapes, supporting rural production and lifestyle and managing the growth in what is known as the Western Corridor.

Improving infrastructure and services and supporting healthy and strong communities is vital for South-East Queensland and vital for my electorate of Blair. As previous terms in this parliament show, the re-election of the federal Labor government will assist, particularly in the areas of roads, schools, health and hospital services. Indeed the $1.75 billion for the Roads to Recovery across the forward estimates to 2014 will assist as well, particularly in local roads in the fast-growing regions of Blair. I congratulate the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and my fellow Queenslander the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Wayne Swan, on their success. A re-elected federal Labor government was the only hope for the people of Blair. Eleven and a half years of the Howard coalition government gave us nothing in my electorate. The coalition’s attitude to the people of Ipswich was to punish the workers, ignore the commuters, neglect the schools and disinvest in health and hospital services.

The worst travesty of the Howard coalition government was its refusal to upgrade the Ipswich Motorway, the vital link between Brisbane and Ipswich, which is important for farmers, small business, commuters, children and families. Between 90,000 and 100,000 vehicles a day travel on this road. It is appalling that the coalition refused to upgrade it. The Howard coalition government’s attitude to my region is categorised by ignorance, inertia and inaction. Only the election of a federal Labor government in 2007 saw the investment of $1.95 billion to upgrade the Dinmore to Goodna section of the Ipswich Motorway to six lanes and to bring in service roads that will take 20 per cent of the commuting traffic off the Ipswich Motorway. That project will be completed by 2012. The member for Oxley, Bernie Ripoll, and I campaigned for this for many years against the opposition of my predecessor and against the opposition of the Howard coalition government. And what was their attitude to this in the last term? They voted against the funding for the Ipswich Motorway, and in October 2009 the leader of the Nationals in this place, the shadow roads minister, stood up here and said he would stop construction on the Ipswich Motorway. This is a project in South-East Queensland on which up to 10,000 workers have worked over the years. The opposition would stop construction of the Ipswich Motorway. That was their policy and that was their attitude for 11½ years, and if they had won they would have stopped construction of the Ipswich Motorway, which would have affected my community. Only the re-election of a federal Labor government ensured that construction of the Ipswich Motorway between Dinmore and Goodna would continue.

And it was not just in this area. They also voted against the nation-building bills, the $22 billion in regional and rural roads, rail and port and $37 billion in nation-building funds, a lot of which was in South-East Queensland. What did we hear about this from the member for Groom, my LNP opponent, and the LNP candidate, who is now the member for Wright? What did we hear about this from the shadow spokesperson for roads? We heard nothing but opposition to the nation-building and stimulus package and opposition to vital road funding in my community. He had no commitment to vital nation building. We are the ones who upgraded the Warrego Highway. There was $30 million of federal government money, and the coalition opposed it. But the state government is putting $40 million into the Warrego Highway, which is important for farmers, businesses, schoolchildren and residents.

The member for Grayndler, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, came to my electorate during the federal election campaign and made a $54 million commitment to upgrade the Blacksoil Interchange with a flyover, linking the Warrego Highway and the Brisbane Valley Highway. There was $16 million on the table from the Queensland Labor government. They put the proposal and a business case to us in early May 2010, but what did we hear from the coalition during the whole campaign in relation to that project? There was silence from them. There was no commitment at all to do that, when it is important for Toowoomba, it is important for the Lockyer Valley, it is important for the Somerset region, it is important for Ipswich and it is important for Brisbane. That is the extent of their commitment to vital infrastructure in South-East Queensland—none at all. The LNP in Queensland pose, preen and posture as supporters of regional and rural Queensland, but their record does not bear it out. Their record shows that they would disinvest in those areas. That is what happened when it came to road infrastructure in South-East Queensland in my electorate of Blair.

It is the same thing with respect to schools. They opposed the $108 million for local schools in Blair. From Mount Kilcoy to Toogoolawah to Linville to Springfield, the coalition in the last term opposed every last dollar and every last cent spent on school infrastructure in my electorate. Only the re-election of the federal Labor government will ensure that spending continues. Again, they opposed the computers in schools program. Two hundred thousand computers were rolled out across the country, and that is important as well.

When it came to nearly $14 million of community infrastructure in my electorate, the coalition opposed it. My LNP opponent, the Deputy Mayor of the Somerset Regional Council, voted in his council for all of it. He voted in favour of building the Fernvale indoor sports centre. It was on the record in the Gatton Star, where he said how wonderful these sorts of projects are, but then he stood for a party that opposed every last dollar that went into this community. We had coalition people posing, preening and posturing in South-East Queensland, saying they supported these types of programs, but in fact they opposed them. They say one thing down here then they go back to their electorates and say the other. That is the truth.

I am pleased to see that the state Labor government in Queensland is building new schools in my electorate. In Springfield we are of course seeing a new school, the Springfield Central State School. I was pleased to recently meet Angela Gooley, the new principal. That school will open in 2011 to cater for the rapidly growing Springfield area in the Grand Avenue development. Springfield Lakes, which borders Blair and Oxley, will see the rollout of the National Broadband Network, which is important for that area.

We are seeing projects all through my electorate being brought forward by the federal Labor government—everything from the Springfield Central Parklands, which border Oxley and Blair, through to the upgrade of the Ipswich Civic Centre and the Ipswich CBD. Of course, there are also projects like the Fernvale indoor sports centre, which will open in the next few months. These projects are creating jobs and vital community infrastructure, supporting sports, the arts and families as well as providing amenities.

In housing, which is so important in my electorate, the coalition failed. You only have to talk to Queensland public works minister Robert Schwarten to know the trouble he had for many years—he is a longstanding minister in the state Labor government—with successive coalition housing ministers. Their idea of social housing was to disinvest. In my electorate, we are seeing $66.5 million injected into social housing and defence housing under the nation-building stimulus fund. What does the coalition say about that? The coalition voted against every last cent for that. Jobs are being created in my community. There are 111 defence houses being created for the rapidly expanding RAAF base at Amberley. This is occurring in the same suburb that I live in. Many of these defence houses have been created and built in Flinders View in the southern part of Ipswich. The coalition opposed $21.5 million worth of construction. That is why it is important to have a federal Labor representative in Blair and that is why it is also important to have a federal Labor government.

In health and hospital reform, the Gillard Labor government has and will make a difference in my electorate. In the next couple of months, we will see the opening of the Ipswich GP superclinic at the University of Queensland Ipswich campus. I thank the Minister for Health and Ageing for the commitment in that regard. We will see an injection of $7.3 billion over five years into health—more than double the coalition’s commitment to health and hospital funding. We will see funding for 3,000 new nurses and 1,300 GPs over the next three years. We will see a focus on a national health and hospital system, which will be funded nationally and run locally. I look forward to working with the division of general practice locally as it is rebadged into a Medicare local. I also look forward to seeing the Ipswich General Hospital form the hub of what will clearly be a hub-and-spoke model for the health and hospital network.

The Ipswich GP superclinic will be located at the University of Queensland. I have inspected it a number of times, including with then regional health minister, Warren Snowdon, recently. The division of general practice is running the federally funded psychology clinic at the University of Queensland. It now has a very strong focus on health education, particularly with doctors and nurses being trained there. I want to assure the people of Ipswich in the Brisbane Valley and the old Kilcoy shire that I have a strong commitment to health. I have had such a commitment prior to my election in 2007. I practised as a lawyer for many years—in fact, I was a senior partner of a Brisbane CBD law firm, even though I lived in Ipswich—and I have had a longstanding commitment through the health council in the Brisbane Valley and Ipswich and also through the running of aged-care facilities in the Ipswich and west Moreton areas. So I am strongly committed to seeing good health services and good aged-care facilities in our region. We have seen the upgrade of the Cabanda Aged Care in Rosewood—an election commitment of $1.5 million that I secured in 2007. We have seen an interest free loan to the RSL for the Milford Grange project in Ipswich—a $5 million project. I have seen a lot of money poured into my community, and for that I am very grateful.

On 7 July this year, Minister Snowdon came to my electorate and visited Esk. There is a wonderful hospital in Esk; it has been there for a very long time. Brenda Maloney does a fantastic job as the person in charge there. We held a health forum in Esk because the coalition was claiming falsely that that hospital and other regional hospitals in the Ipswich and West Moreton areas, including Gatton, Laidley and Boonah et cetera, were going to be at risk of closing down—simply blatant nonsense. We assured the people of the Brisbane Valley that the Esk hospital would continue. We then held a forum at the Kambu Medical Centre, which is a wonderful Indigenous medical centre in Ipswich that is federally funded. I thank the people there for their hospitality and warmth and for their commitment to the very large Indigenous community in my area. I do pay respects to the Indigenous peoples of Ipswich in the West Moreton area for their custodianship and stewardship of the land which I have the privilege of representing in this place. I am pleased that we have supported regional and rural areas in health funding. We have massively increased funding for rural health by 65 per cent. In the current budget, $795 million is targeted at rural and regional health.

Perhaps it is the National Broadband Network which demonstrates the great difference between the coalition and federal Labor. The fibre-to-the-premises rollout will not only cover Ipswich but 93 per cent of Australia. It will go to country towns in my electorate like Marburg, Rosewood and Walloon, and, in the Brisbane Valley, places like Minden, Fernvale, Esk, Coominya, Toogoolawah, Lowood and up in the old Kilcoy shire, Kilcoy itself. This will make a big difference to the farming communities. This will make a difference to the small business operators in this area. It will make sure that a kid who lives in Toogoolawah will have the same opportunities as a kid who lives in Toorak. It is extremely important, and the coalition opposed it.

Indeed, my LNP opponent, as the deputy mayor of Somerset Regional Council, was privy to the western corridor submission by the councils of Somerset, Ipswich, Scenic Rim and Toowoomba, which were advocating how important the national broadband rollout would be for the whole region in the western corridor and how important it would be for those particular council areas to receive the National Broadband Network delivered early across the region. But during the campaign he said nothing about it; indeed, he campaigned for a party that would oppose and destroy the National Broadband Network. The National Broadband Network is extremely important. The coalition would have left Ipswich and the Somerset region a broadband backwater in terms of take-up speeds and prices.

During their 11½ years and since that time, the coalition have proposed about 19 plans but they have never been able to get it right, and the people of my region will judge them harshly. There were 25,000 jobs at risk from the coalition’s policy. But do not take my word for it; take the word of a local operator, Paul Heymans. Paul runs Paul Computers and he is a well-known businessman in the Somerset region. He has advocated strongly that the National Broadband Network was vital for our region. Paul is not a member or supporter of any particular party, but this is what he said:

What we need in our region is a major telecommunications upgrade. Somerset Region is a water catchment area for the Brisbane water supply, so there are environmental restrictions on the type of industries that can be developed. Improved broadband services will enable the greener industries that are required; it will boost employment opportunities, reduce emissions by providing better facilities for telecommuting, improve education and medical services, boost the local economy and enable local businesses to compete in national and international markets.

He wrote that in an article that was published in the Somerset newspaper on 18 August 2010. He outlined in that article why this was necessary and how the coalition had left us in a broadband backwater.

It is a privilege and honour and a great responsibility to be here as the member for Blair. I will discharge those responsibilities with commitment, determination and rigour for the next three years. I thank the people of Blair for entrusting me with the opportunity to represent them once again in this place. I will argue, agitate and if necessary annoy people for funding for my electorate.

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