George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Shane Summers, his wife, Leanne, their 17-year-old son, Brendan, and their four-year-old daughter, Mia—four lives cut tragically short 13 days ago in another crash on Queensland's Bruce Highway. Eighteen-month-old Damien is in a critical condition in hospital, and the remaining 19-year-old sibling, who was not in the car, is left to deal with an unimaginably difficult and heartbreaking situation. Six days ago, a truck driver was killed in a collision with another truck at Pindi Pindi just north of Mackay. Earlier this week, young Anthony Bezzina was killed when his non-motorised tricycle slammed into a truck, again around the area of The Leap. In the last fortnight there has just been tragedy upon tragedy on the Bruce Highway in my region.

The Calen crash 12 days ago just north of Mackay, which claimed almost the entire family that I mentioned, was one of a series of crashes. Earlier in the year, the Leader of the Nationals and shadow transport minister led a convoy of 13 federal and state coalition MPs travelling the entire 1,600-kilometre length of the Bruce Highway. We met locals, councils, local road users, state MPs, truckies, RACQ representatives, police and ambos all up and down the coastline. They showed us problem areas, such as the flood-prone Goorganga Plains and Sandy Gully, and problems with flooding issues in Rockhampton. They were grateful that 13 state and federal members of parliament would take the time and do the hard yards needed to get a real understanding of the highway, and to set the right priorities.

There was another reaction, that of derision, probably inspired by a bit of jealousy which came from a rapidly diminishing section of the community—that is, the Australian Labor Party. But the more that the Labor peanuts, such as the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, attacked our convoy, the more the locals grew interested in what we were doing and saying—and the less interested they were in what the government was saying. Like me, the locals are sick of hearing this government's excuses for inaction on the Bruce Highway, excuses like the old chestnut: 'We spent more on it than you did.' The Howard government spent more on the Bruce Highway than the Hawke and Keating governments, but the difference is this: the Hawke and Keating governments drove Australia into a debt of $96 billion, and the Howard government paid that back and then built up a safety buffer of more than $70 billion, which was immediately squandered by this oniomaniac government—

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