Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am not sure whether that is an interjection I should recognise, but I do feel particularly honoured that my friend the Chief Government Whip, who really should be a minister in this government, has come in to listen to this contribution. Obviously, one does not get elected to the Australian parliament on so many occasions without the support, not only of the electorate but also of very many people who work hard to achieve the electoral outcome that has seen me in this parliament. I would like to thank my wife, Inge. She has been incredibly supportive in every respect. I want to also thank the many volunteers. We have hundreds of people turning out on polling day, as happens in other electorates, and also during the election campaign. It is really humbling to see that so many people, who do not seek anything in return, were prepared to work extraordinarily long hours at the last election with a view to changing the government.

I would like to thank my Acting Campaign Director during most of the campaign, Greg Robinson. The Campaign Director Michael Bloyce was a great tower of support, but he had a long-planned holiday to the United Kingdom. I do not know whether he had a window into the Prime Minister’s mind as to when the election was going to be held but it was called when he came back. I would also like to thank the Sunshine Coast regional zone Chairman of the Liberal National Party, Greg Newton.

Other members of the campaign team were: Ken Hinds; Belinda Howard; Rob Matchett; Mark McEwan; Helen Sava; Jenny Sinclair; Val Bradford; Peter Pollock; Colin Caudell, who was a former member of the South Australian parliament; John Tusler; Arthur Walton, and so many others. It is always dangerous to highlight the efforts by certain persons because inevitably people who should be included are omitted.

I would like to thank my staff—Tim Knapp, Michelle Ellis, Melissa Ellard, Bill Van Motman, Nicky Fisher and Richard Bruinsma, and of course my son, Nick, and his wife, Ashleigh; my daughter, Alex, and her partner, Ben; my parents-in-law, Rob and Bev Hall; and, as I mentioned before, I would like to thank my wife, Inge.

We were very much supported by the staff at the Liberal National Party headquarters. They put in incredibly long hours to make sure that the LNP in Queensland achieved a strong and positive election result. The LNP was led by Campaign Director James McGrath; Cameron Thompson, who honourable members would know is a former member of this place; and James Mackay. I would like to thank the LNP President, Bruce McIver, Vice-President Gary Spence, and state Director Michael O’Dwyer for their leadership over this period and in the years since the merger which has helped to ensure that the Liberal National Party has grown to become a respected and trusted political force in Queensland.

Since the merger of the Liberal Party and the National Party in Queensland, the LNP has proven to all Queenslanders, and in fact to the nation as a whole, that it is a positive political force, and I am very pleased to have been associated with the party in a positive way right from the beginning. When one looks at the website of the Australian Electoral Commission and at the party’s success in a numerical sense, one will see, I think, that the Australian Labor Party has 72 members, the Liberal Party of Australia has 44 members, the Liberal National Party of Queensland has 21 members, the Nationals have seven, and then of course there are the Independents and Greens and so on. Had the conservative forces done as well in other states as we did in Queensland, then we might well have had a situation where there was a change of government. It almost happened but did not quite occur.

I would also like to thank the parliament for entrusting me with the role of Deputy Speaker. I want to thank publicly members of the Speaker’s panel, including you, Madam Deputy Speaker Bird. We work very well as a team. All of our members are dedicated with a view to ensuring that the parliament delivers to the Australian people in the way that the Australian people would like.

The challenge in future parliaments will be to preserve as many as possible of the positive changes which have occurred in this parliament, brought about by the necessity to negotiate and cobble together a government with the support of members who were not actually elected as members of the government party. I believe that the reforms that will succeed into the future will be those reforms which are seen to be objectively good. While we all collectively have our training wheels on, there will be a lot of positive outcomes from this parliament, not the least of which is that parliament is seen to be more cooperative. It is not a case of winner takes all. The Chief Government Whip would know that, every time there is a vote, he and the Leader of the House have to work to ensure that, on that particular vote, they have the support of the crossbench members. We will find that there will be many fewer guillotines applied. We will be talking more. Members will have the opportunity to express their views and the views of their electorates on so many areas. I see this as being a good thing.

Obviously both major sides of politics would have liked to have won the election outright, but every cloud has a silver lining. The parliament is now a place for debate and a place where decisions are actually made. We have the capacity to take some power back from the executive, and I think that is a good thing. It is great that we are voting on some private members’ bills and motions so we are able to display to the people of Australia where we stand on important issues and not just on the issues that the government of the day deems to be important. I am pleased to see the Chief Government Whip nodding in agreement on that. There has had to be a high level of cooperation—perhaps an even higher level of cooperation—between the government whips, the opposition whips and, for that matter, the crossbench members in this parliament. That not only taxes the ability of the people occupying those whipping positions but also means that they are able to achieve positive outcomes consistent with what some people refer to as the new paradigm—I must say, I hate that expression, and I suspect it will probably disappear soon enough, because it has become one of those words that seem to be repeated over and over again.

In the time available to me, I wish to mention that the Sunshine Coast is one of the fastest growing areas in Australia. It is an area where a lot of people move to from the rust belt areas of southern Australia. It has a wonderful climate and a welcoming population. It has easy access to and from the capital city. But we do have major problems as far as our infrastructure is concerned. The state government is seeking to dramatically increase the population of the Sunshine Coast even without the satellite city south of Caloundra, which contains some 50,000 people, and even without the Palmview development, which will have some 16,000 people. We are, as the Sunshine Coast, going to have our population close to double over the next 10 to 15 years. This means that the infrastructure in so many areas will be taxed.

We need to upgrade the Bruce Highway to six lanes all the way from Brisbane. The Howard government upgraded the Bruce Highway to six lanes as far as Caboolture. That removed the worst bottleneck between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast at the time. But, as population continues to grow and as traffic continues to become heavier, we now need the extra lanes between Caboolture and the Sunshine Coast itself. At the present time it sometimes takes two to three hours to travel to Brisbane, whereas at other times you might get there in an hour and a half. If we are going to achieve our full potential as a region, we do need to upgrade the Bruce Highway to six lanes. The official population of the Sunshine Coast is up from about 247,000 in 2001 to 322,000 in 2009 and it continues to grow as many people make the sea change move to our coastal communities or the tree change move to our lush hinterland villages and towns. I must say that, on occasion, we do not really seem to get our share of infrastructure spending. I certainly want to give the Leader of the House notice that I will be coming to see him in relation to a number of projects that we really need, and need now, on the Sunshine Coast.

We also need a major international entertainment centre. In the election campaign I was able to promise that an Abbott government would give seed funding of $10 million in relation to this arts and exhibition centre, and that would have been enough to get the project off the ground because the state would have kicked in and the council would have done their bit. Unfortunately, we did not win the election and we have a situation where we do not have that funding allocated, so at the present time the arts and exhibition centre is quite some distance away. We do have a number of smaller entertainment centres in places like Caloundra, Kawana, Nambour and so on, but the region lacks an international facility which has the capacity to host world-class entertainment shows and major conventions. For too long, local residents have had no choice but to travel to Brisbane on our inadequate highway to attend major entertainment events.

Also during the election campaign, I launched four pledges in four weeks. We were aiming to improve infrastructure—and I mentioned before the upgrading of the Bruce Highway. I would like to see the building of the Sunshine Coast University Hospital advanced. The state government promised it prior to the last state election and then delayed its construction by two years. I would also like to see the Sippy Downs Town Centre master plan developed, along with the business and technology precinct adjacent to the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Also, we need to make sure that we are no longer categorised as metropolitan with respect to decisions made by the department of health. We need to attract more general practitioners to the Sunshine Coast, and we need to get the coastal part of Fisher classified as an area of need so that qualified overseas-trained doctors are able to work there. It is always important to recognise that mental health is a really important issue, and we need to expand front-line services. Certainly we need extra facilities in this area on the Sunshine Coast.

I also believe we need to foster employment opportunities on the coast. One of the frustrations for families on the Sunshine Coast is that, when their children finish school, sometimes they can go to the University of the Sunshine Coast but it does not always offer the particular courses that people need, and then young people have to leave the Sunshine Coast to get a foot on the employment ladder. I would like to see more industry on the Sunshine Coast, particularly clean and green industry. If we could achieve more of that, more families would be able to stay intact; their kids would not have to go away. I think that is a matter of vital importance.

The Sunshine Coast, though, is a wonderful place to live. Lots of people are moving there. We need to promote projects which will encourage the ambience of the area, which will make sure that we preserve the atmosphere on the Sunshine Coast, which is the reason that so many people have chosen to move to the Sunshine Coast.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all honourable members a happy, safe and holy Christmas. This has been a very interesting and historic year for all of us. We all continue to learn. Our life, I suppose, is a collection of experiences, and we are the collection of our life’s experiences. It really is important to take a break at Christmas. I hope that everyone takes that opportunity so that we have a chance to recharge our batteries in readiness for 2011. The sitting program which has been announced is obviously a demanding one. Given the reform agreement, it is important that the parliament sit more, and we are obviously sitting longer, but I think it is vital that we take the opportunity over Christmas to spend time with family and friends. Some people ask me, ‘What are you doing for Christmas?’ I say, ‘I’m staying home, and it’s really quite exciting to be home because it is that time of the year for friends and family.’ I hope that people recognise that.

As Deputy Speaker I would like to officially thank all honourable members for their cooperation since my appointment to that position—a moment ago, I thanked members of the Speaker’s panel. It is a very great privilege to serve in the Australian parliament. It is a privilege which just over a thousand Australians have been given in the years since the colonies in Australia came together to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The electorate of Fisher was created in 1948 and was named after the Rt Hon. Andrew Fisher, who was a Labor Prime Minister of Australia. I went to a commemoration of Andrew Fisher’s prime ministership a couple of years ago and found that his descendants, as you would understand, are still very much resident in this country. Australia is a great democracy; we are a young country, but an old democracy. We have a singular—shall we say—opportunity in this parliament to make a real change. I thank honourable members for accepting this challenge and this responsibility, and I hope that during this parliament all of us will make a contribution towards making Australia an even better place than it is today. We are the lucky country, but we can do better.

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