Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2010-2011 gives us the opportunity to look back over the first half-year of this new government. I do that in particular in respect of my own electorate and, to a lesser extent, in respect of the Wide Bay area and the east coast of Queensland. One of the decisions made in conjunction with the flood levy, or the flood tax as it has now become, was to cut back a billion dollars worth of infrastructure, $325 million of it in Queensland. What I find extraordinary is that the six projects that were chosen to be cut back in Queensland included the Bruce Highway, roads associated with the Bruce Highway and a flood plain—of all things a flood plain—involving the Herbert River. I am dumbfounded by that, because five of those six projects are in coalition marginal or semi-marginal electorates and many of them were promised by former Labor members for the seats. Why they would be targeted, especially after these floods, surprises me.

Let me tell you why. The greatest systemic failure in the Queensland floods in terms of transport—commercial and passenger—and getting people to places was that of the Bruce Highway, and that is the thing that has been targeted. ‘Sure,’ they say, ‘we’ll come back in three or four years time and have another look at it.’ But all these are things that need to be done now. One of them is not in my electorate but just outside it, in the electorate of Flynn. It is near the town of Gin Gin and it is called the Big Dipper. It is a big up-and-down section of highway that could be wider and is notorious for crashes. I have seen near-things there myself. Even today, just before I stood to speak, a friend of a constituent rang my office and said, ‘There’s a semitrailer tipped over on the Big Dipper with stuff strewn everywhere.’ This is one of the roadworks that have been put aside.

Let us look at what came out of the last election for my area. My opponent, who was a councillor on the Hervey Bay council, promised a toilet block would be converted to a canteen in Hervey Bay. She took the lowest item from the wish list of the Bundaberg Regional Council, a $3 million tartan athletics track, and promised half of that, $1.5 million. As well, prior to the election, she agreed to finish the community centre at Hervey Bay, something that I had promised three years earlier and had followed up with both the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the regional development minister at the time, Anthony Albanese. So it was very much on my hit list, and I acknowledge that they went ahead and did that. And they provided money for an art gallery and a resource centre as well. Both of those I acknowledge.

Hervey Bay is one of the fastest growing provincial areas in Australia. It is synonymous with lifestyle, with sea change, with retirement. It is a beautiful lifestyle, and a lot of people go there because it is relatively affordable. But it has huge problems not unlike those the Gold Coast experienced 30 or 40 years ago. All of you who know the Gold Coast know that it has a north-south road system—the corridors go north and south along the coast. In Hervey Bay they go east-west, and for that quite large city there are only three corridors. I promised a fourth corridor, called the Urraween to Boundary Road extension. I had shown it to the Prime Minister and visiting ministers and to visiting shadow ministers. To me, it was most important and I would have thought it was important to my opponent, who was on the council. There was also River Heads Road, which is the connector road to Fraser Island. That is where you have to go if you are catching a boat to Fraser Island. I promised—and it was endorsed by the coalition—$10 million for three major roadworks, two of which are the ones I have just mentioned. Nothing happened.

In the lead-up to the election the local program for dysfunctional youth, the Triple S youth mentoring program, was closed down by the government. The coalition promised to provide it with $600,000 to continue for a further three years. Here again my opponent refused to endorse the project. Since then, we have had people—including my opponent, who is still a councillor—wringing their hands over the problems with youth in Hervey Bay.

For the northern end of the electorate I wanted $2 million for a very important environmental program to restore the mouth of the Elliott River. The Elliott River has two mouths. Over the years, because of human intervention, the second mouth formed and now when the tide goes out through the two entrances there is not sufficient flow to lift the sand out. The sand that comes in on the high tide is deposited in the river and, over time, it is slowly building up and the channel is getting narrower and narrower. It needs dredging and the closing of that second mouth through the restoration of an isthmus from the south bank. It would cost $2 million—not a lot of money for a project of that size. Again it was not endorsed by my opponent.

We also promised $350,000 to the two tourist regions that make up the Wide Bay area: Bundaberg and North Burnett and Fraser Coast and South Burnett. Again, nothing comparable from my opponent.

There was $180,000 for another environmental project: an aquatic weed harvester. In the many years of drought that you have all heard about we had a lot of trouble from salvinia and water hyacinth clogging up river after river. Under Minister Ian Campbell, in the Howard government, I was able to get one weed harvester. This was a different type. This was one that went into little nooks and crannies and shredded these foul weeds and allowed the councils, farmers and owners along the river to control the salvinia. Again, this was not endorsed.

One of my favourite projects was $3 million for a performing arts centre at the Urangan High School at Hervey Bay, one of the two state high schools. Urangan has a lower socioeconomic profile than the rest of Hervey Bay—that is not to say it is not a very nice area; it is a remarkably nice area. But there are probably more battlers down that end of Hervey Bay than up the other end. The kids from that school are the best I have ever seen in performing arts, whether in music, dance or acting—they are simply remarkable. I have had them here at Parliament House. I remember Alexander Downer walking in one day when we had them in the Great Hall saying, ‘What country do they come from?’ They were high-school kids from Hervey Bay—remarkably good at their job.

As you know, we have schools of excellence in the capital cities and in Canberra as well, where you foster particular artistic, sporting or academic traits. This school, in my belief, should have a performing arts centre. It should be a school of excellence. I have had Prime Minister Rudd, Minister Albanese and Tony Abbott there and all of them have agreed, verbally, that it is right. All of them have said that it is right. But again my opponent would not endorse it. So we have moved on.

There are other things there—$125,000 put aside to revegetate that dredged area I spoke about in the Elliot River. There was another $125,000 to do the foreshore at Hervey Bay, which is the subject of much comment in the local media. Again, it was not endorsed. Another project was $260,000 for the Hervey Bay Hockey Association. No single one of these, I suppose, is a great project, but I get very close to my electorate and I think I know the things that are good for it in logistics, in public access through transport, in education, in health and so on.

My opponent would not debate me very often, except in one of the phoney debates they had about health which, I might add, were the same all over Australia and at no one of which there were more than about 35 people attending—including the one where then Deputy Leader Julia Gillard actually spoke for her. What I suspected—and I thought it was very cynical—was that party officials said, ‘We will not allow her to endorse any of the projects that Paul Neville has decided this area should have.’ Why? So that if I won they would not be committed to doing any one of them. But, let me tell you, they were blazingly obvious; they were projects that screamed out to heaven to be done—roadworks, education and other interesting things.

Examples include two grants of $100,000 I proposed. One would have been to study a bridge from Hervey Bay to the north bank of the Burrum River. Such a bridge would create a coastal highway from Hervey Bay to Bundaberg and would be immensely valuable for easier facilitation, for shopping and for general tourism in that area. I am not saying that the study would necessarily have endorsed the bridge, but it was a study worth doing.

The second grant would be to look at a convention centre at Hervey Bay, which has neither a town hall nor a civic centre. A convention type civic centre where conferences, conventions and the like could be held would make a huge difference to Hervey Bay—which, as honourable members know, is a tourist destination. It has all forms of tourism facilities from resorts to better quality motels, to mum-and-dad motels, to caravan parks. It has plenty of accommodation. It is the ideal place for a convention centre. I thought that $100,000 would make it worth doing the job and doing it properly: where should it be, what form should it take, should it have break-out rooms for seminars—all those sorts of things so that you could come back and say, ‘This would require $20 million, $25 million or $30 million for a convention centre that would supplement tourism in Hervey Bay and, to a large extent, also in Bundaberg and Maryborough, the adjoining cities. Why? Because of the accommodation I have spoken about, the array of restaurants and the close proximity to Fraser Island, Hervey Bay is the ideal place.

I implore the government to think again about these projects. We are in opposition and they are under no obligation to do them. I understand that, because they certainly did not promise any of them. But I think these are important projects if you want to approach all of Australia with an even hand. If you want even development along the coast, if you want towns to grow up properly and not like topsy, you need to do these things. I put it before the government, especially the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, to give it great consideration.

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