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

Back in July this year the shadow minister for infrastructure and transport, the Leader of the Nationals; the shadow parliamentary secretary for roads and regional transport, the member for Gippsland; and I, along with a host of state and federal Liberal-National Party members of parliament, conducted an inspection of the entire Bruce Highway. From the outskirts of Brisbane to Cairns we drove all 1,652 kilometres of the Bruce Highway, meeting along the way local mayors and councillors, local ambulance officers, police officers, RACQ personnel, and truckies and other road users. We had plenty to talk about because there are plenty of problems on the Bruce Highway.

We also saw those problems firsthand, because we drove the entire length of the Bruce. We saw the congestion, the lack of overtaking lanes, massive potholes, dangerous intersections, flood-prone areas; we had a car that blew out a tyre from hitting a pothole that was the size of a crater, and at two spots—one I recall at Ilbilbie and the other one at El Arish—we confronted cattle on the road. They were Brahmans, if it am not mistaken, standing smack bang in the middle of the national highway.

Which brings me to the motion put forward by the member for Moreton: what a load of bull! I have a message for him, and all of the members opposite: do not come into this place and pat yourselves on the back on a job supposedly well done, without getting the facts right first and without going and talking to the people who know that the investment, or lack thereof, in the Bruce Highway is nothing that this government can be proud of.

Let's put the facts on the table about funding. The last time Labor were in office they left a debt of $96 billion. It took the Liberal-Nationals coalition under the leadership of John Howard to wind that around, leaving $70 billion in the bank. Now the Rudd-Gillard government has $240 billion debt and it is growing. So where did the money come from that has been spent most recently on the Bruce? I can tell you where it came from: the savings of the Liberal-Nationals coalition government under John Howard. I can prove that even further by mentioning the fact that Auslink 2 covered the periods from 2009 to 2014—right now—and was announced by then transport minister Mark Vaile, then leader of the National Party. He allocated $22.3 billion for future years to land transport systems in Australia, road and rail. A lot of that money has gone into the Bruce Highway under this government, but only by fate, because it was already predetermined under the previous government. And so we ask ourselves: what new has this government actually put into the Bruce Highway? I know the member opposite, the member for Moreton, has cited four projects. The member for Hinkler has rightly pointed out that, out of those four projects he has talked about, two have not even started yet, one is not completed and the other one involves minor works. The last one has been done. Well, one out of four ain't bad, mate!

But I have to tell you: he also quoted Collinson's Lagoon upgrade. Mate, if you want to see the reason why the work up at Collinson's Lagoon is going ahead, you are looking at it—because, when you guys previously proposed this flood levy, you decided you were going to cut a whole heap of flood-proofing projects on the Bruce Highway. One of them was Collinson's Lagoon, one of them was up near Townsville—

See this speech in context