Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011 and highlight some of the needs in my seat of Herbert, which includes the City of Townsville, Magnetic Island and the community of Palm Island. I have spoken a number of times about the need for North Queensland to have a PET-CT scanner. I have spoken about this in my maiden speech and in other speeches in this House, and I will continue to speak on this issue until we get one. A PET scanner is a positron emissions tomographer. It is the best technology we have to detect tumours and cancerous growths in people.

Currently, to get a PET scan after a doctor has said they need to get a photograph of what is inside, a person has to go to Brisbane to have that scan done. It is bad enough when a doctor says to you, ‘I think we need to get something done here’ but it is even worse to get sent down while you are undergoing radiation treatment. Quite often as soon as you have had your radiation treatment you must go back down to have another PET scan. It is an 1¾ hour flight to Brisbane and you must stay at least overnight while you are having it done.

A lot of these times people who have had radiation treatment are barely conscious. Their immune system is very weak. They are sick. They must travel with someone else. So the costs are huge. Currently, we have between 500 and 700 people from North Queensland travelling to Brisbane each year to have PET scans done. The cost of a PET scanner is around $9 million. There are plans to bring a PET scanner to the Townsville General Hospital for the new radiology section, with the upgrade of the hospital, but that is by the end of 2012. The coalition, coming up to the election, gave the promise of a PET scanner in a public-private partnership with Queensland X-ray to install a PET scanner at the Wesley Hospital in Hermit Park. That building is already built; all they need is the go-ahead from government and the PET scanner will be there within six months. So the PET scans needed in North Queensland would be there today—the building is already there; it is ready to go—and the cost to government would have been $2.5 million. Given that a PET scanner is essentially an outpatient service, there is no need to have it at the hospital. Yes, they do want them at the hospital—it is about the government wanting to centralise absolutely everything so they can control it. The other thing with doing it with a public-private partnership is that Queensland X-ray would be able to do up to 15 scans per day, whereas, at the Townsville General Hospital and the Royal Brisbane Hospital, they comply with a maximum of three scans per day. So it just makes sense—it is a saving to government of over $6½ million and it would be operating today.

Secondly, I would like to raise the issue of public health. We have had bad weather in North Queensland recently. We are in the clean-up phase after Cyclone Yasi. But what we have to do now, as well as clean up, is deal with diseases like dengue fever and melioidosis. We should not have to. During the campaign the coalition promised $40 million to establish the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University campuses in Townsville and in Cairns. James Cook University is the most significant tropical university in the world. There was to be $40 million to secure the facility. To do it properly we need $120 million. I do not think we should ever lose sight of how much we actually need to get this thing up and running. The people who live in the tropical belts of the world have a higher infant mortality and a lower life expectancy than those who live in temperate zones.

Townsville is closer to Port Moresby than it is to Brisbane. That is a fact: the nearest capital city to Townsville is in another country. That is how big the northern part of Australia is. So, when there is a cholera outbreak in Papua New Guinea, it simply should not happen—we should be able to mobilise and do things. Australia’s first people, our Aboriginal people, were the most susceptible to the H1N1 virus, or swine flu virus. We should be making sure that those things are tackled at a tropical level. If we are to turn the western plains of North Queensland into Australia’s food bowl into the future we need to make sure that the diseases which are endemic in the ground are taken care of and that we have a plan to combat them. The Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine must be established. Even today the Thursday Island hospital has cases of drug resistant malaria and Japanese encephalitis—in the hospital now. We must be prepared for that as the movement of people from Papua New Guinea, across the Torres Strait into northern Australia becomes more and more prevalent. People put pigs, birds and other animals into their boats, and away they come—because they are very close.

Thirdly, I would like to talk about the Magnetic Island walkway. This was promised by both sides of the parliament, both major parties, in the lead-up to the election, but it would appear that the government has walked away from another election promise—a cost of $4.5 million only, to take a walkway around the front of the hills from Nelly Bay all the way around to Arcadia. This would be one of the great walks in the world. It would also link into the World Heritage forest walks and bush walks over the hills. Currently, to get across to Arcadia you must go over the hill. The verges are very narrow; it is a dangerous road. I actually tried to get the walkway put up through ‘black spot’ legislation, but not enough people have been killed. Magnetic Island is a great place for backpackers and lots of backpackers go there. They will try to save money wherever possible, so they will walk there. It is a pleasant walk—if you do not get run over. Recently we had a series of bus strikes on Magnetic Island which forced backpackers with large suitcases and big backpacks to walk over this hill. The edge of the road is the drop-off zone of the cliff. There will be someone killed there one day, and let us just hope it is not because of this. It will be one of the great walks and, at a cost of $4.5 million, I just do not see why we cannot do it and why the government has walked away.

Again, both sides of this House came to the party with the convention centre in Townsville, at a cost of $47.67 million, and both sides are holding true to their promise. I thank the government for that. I think the government does need some credit for this because it is visionary to have a convention centre in Townsville. But I would ask that not only do we promise the $47.67 million but we get $2 million straight away to the Townsville City Council to come up with concept drawings and design, and get the formation of the whole plan together.

A net economic benefit of $100 million per year is projected to come out of this convention centre, and that is not taking into account the added development which will go with this. Townsville does not have the tourism market that other places do. Our visitors are mainly there for business. What we do with our tourism is to get people there—say, for a convention—and then find we are a nice bunch of people to spend time with and it is a great place for families. We have people crying out to come to a convention space, because our entertainment centre is basically a glorified basketball court and can hold fully-blown break-out areas for a full convention facility of only 150 to 200 people. So we need a proper convention centre in our city. The one bone of contention I would like to note is that the state government is yet to commit to the convention centre, even though they stood there on their digs and said that, if the Townsville City Council did not pony up for Berth 10, the ocean terminal, the state government would not be helping out with the convention centre. I now call on the state government to help out with that as well.

Blakeys Crossing used to be the Bruce Highway. It used to be the main road into North Queensland, into Townsville from Ingham. But it goes under in a sunshower, and has done since I have been in Townsville, which is 17 years, and had gone under in a sunshower for years before that. It is an absolute disgrace that that was the Bruce Highway, the major highway in and out of Townsville. We now have Woolcock Street. That meant that the stretch of Ingham Road which is commonly called Blakeys Crossing was gifted back to the Townsville City Council. So what used to be a federal road is now a local road taking pressure off a state road. This is an important link between the industrial suburbs of Garbutt and the Bohle. When I first got to Townsville, the Bohle was the end of the world; you would not go there for a holiday. It is now a massive industrial park. The state government has brought in over $100 million in land tax alone, and yet Blakeys Crossing continues to be a road which goes under every year, and does so more and more. We have had a terrible year with it this year. And what happens when Blakeys Crossing goes under is that you have to use Mather Street, and that clogs the Mather Street roundabout. It becomes almost impassable. There is a level crossing for trains, ungated, on Mather Street, and sooner or later someone is going to get run over there through being stuck in traffic. If Blakeys Crossing goes under, that is the only way, from the Bohle, to get to the airport or the hospital without having to go back out of town and all the way around on the ring-road. It is obscene that we have to do this. There is talk of a flyover at the Mather Street roundabout, but that will only shift the problem from the Mather Street roundabout to the Duckworth Street roundabout, and then to the Pilkington Street roundabout. At a cost of $26 million to fix Blakeys Crossing and make it weatherproof—flood-proof—for the whole year will save governments of all persuasions at all levels over $70 million by not having to do flyovers at other roundabouts. It is simple, it makes sense and we should have to do it.

It went under this weekend, and I was receiving phone calls while I was in Canberra from people all over Townsville, complaining about it. I have launched a petition, which I will be tabling in the House, to get this brought along. I am not throwing slings and arrows at the government here, because they did not make the promise coming into the election. We made the promise at the election but we are not in government. The government should look at this as part of its overall flood mitigation strategy.

The final point I would like to talk about is Palm Island. Housing on Palm Island is an absolute disgrace and has been for an awfully long time. We have a situation at the moment where QBuild, the state government builders of property, are erecting buildings on Palm Island not much bigger than a garden shed and at a cost of over $300,000. In many cases, the floor of the dwelling is below the sewerage line. To anyone’s imagining, you cannot do that. You cannot flush the toilet and expect it to go uphill.

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