Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always a great pleasure to follow my good friend and comrade the member for Charlton. Tonight he seems like a glass-half-full sort of bloke, so I might try to inject some optimism back into the appropriations debate, which is always a great opportunity to paint a vision or a picture of the important things that are happening locally in the electorate and the great things that the federal coalition government is delivering in my local community. And I thought there was no better place to start than with the fact that, when you drive around our local community, everywhere you go you can see NBN workers out there putting in fibre so that locals in my community can have superfast broadband. This is happening a year sooner than it would have happened under the Labor government. By the middle of this year there will be 37,000 premises across the electorate of Longman—in Caboolture, in Caboolture South, in Upper Caboolture, in the northern part of Morayfield, in Elimbah, in Wamuran, in Bellmere, in Bribie Island, in Woorim, in Bongaree, in Banksia Beach, in Bellara, and in White Patch—that will all have superfast broadband, a year sooner than they would have had it under the Labor government.

We have also announced the second tranche of the rollout, which means that the good people of Beachmere, of Godwin Beach, of Ningi, and of Sandstone Point are all allocated to have the construction of the NBN start by June next year. Those 37,000 premises, plus the other ones I identified to start by the middle of next year, will have speeds of up to 100 megabytes download and 40 megabytes upload, which is about 25 times faster than current ADSL. It is fast enough internet to stream 10 high-definition TV shows into your home at once and upload a three-minute YouTube video in about 42 seconds. These are areas that had some of the worst internet connections in the country and that by the middle of this year will have incredibly fast internet a year sooner than they otherwise would have had it.

I think the key difference on the NBN between this side of politics and that side of politics is that we want to see the people who had the worst connections in the country have access to at least decent internet, while the Labor Party spent billions of dollars ensuring that people who had good internet had really, really good internet, at an extreme cost. And I want to commend my good friend the Minister for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull. He has done an amazing job turning around the NBN. When he came to government, nobody who was delivering the NBN had any experience in the telecommunications sector. He changed that. He changed the board. He commissioned the myBroadband review, which went about measuring everybody's internet access speeds across the country, and that is where we identified the areas of highest need. We provided that review to NBN Co and said, 'Target the areas that have the worst access to the internet first and make sure they get the best possible upgrade as soon as possible. As part of that process we are trialling the construction techniques of fibre to the node. That is where we get our 37,000 premises locally. And the next step is that NBN Co, using that information, will develop the next rollout maps for the NBN and by the middle of this year we will see the next rollout strategy for the next three years and beyond. So, we are very much getting the NBN rollout back on track. It means that thousands and thousands of premises across our community will have access to incredibly fast internet years and years sooner than they otherwise would have. No matter where you live in the electorate of Longman, we will have incredibly fast internet years sooner, at a lower cost to taxpayers and more affordably for the customer. I think that is an enormous win.

One of the other local issues I want to talk about is the very important issue of Boundary Road at Narangba. This is a huge congestion hot spot in the electorate. In the last Queensland state election campaign I was really proud to go out to the Boundary Road overpass with my colleagues the member for Petrie, Luke Howarth, and the member for Dickson, Peter Dutton, and promise that if a coalition government or an LNP state government was elected the federal coalition government would put $84 million on the table, and the state LNP team was going to put $20 million on the table, funded through their Strong Choices plan. Unfortunately that was not to be. A Labor government has been elected in Queensland. Throughout the campaign, the Labor Party never made any commitment on this very important congestion hot spot locally. They made no funding commitment; they made no promise.

Since the government has been sworn in in Queensland I have been in contact with the Premier and with the local members and suggested that they might want to try to find this $20 million, because it is an incredibly important road. The coalition government in Canberra has $84 million sitting on the table. Our region really deserves this vital infrastructure upgrade, and I really worry that our good friends in the Queensland state Labor government have absolutely no plan to deal with not only this road but any infrastructure upgrades across Queensland. Effectively, as of today, we have an infrastructure freeze in Queensland and we cannot build these vital pieces of infrastructure, so I urge the Premier of Queensland, I urge the Labor state members of parliament, to pick up the phone, find the money, tell us how you are going to fund it, and get stuck into this vital piece of local infrastructure so that the residents in Narangba and North Lakes and everyone who uses the Bruce Highway can have a bit of relief and spend less time in their car. We have $84 million on the table from here in Canberra to help with that upgrade.

We do not always want to be so pessimistic, so let me talk about another overpass over the Bruce Highway, the Pumicestone Road upgrade. To the credit of the former government, they started some allocation of funding for the upgrade of Pumicestone Road. We came to government and increased that funding for the upgrade of the Pumicestone Road overpass, and I am proud to say that that has just opened up to traffic and people now have much easier access across the highway at Pumicestone Road. This is part of a much bigger package that the coalition government is delivering on the Bruce Highway. We are spending $195 million to upgrade the interchanges from Caboolture to the Sunshine Coast and we are spending just over $3 billion on the Bruce Highway from Pine Rivers all the way through to Gympie. We are spending over $8 billion on the entire Bruce Highway. For those commuters going south, we are putting over $1 billion into the Gateway Motorway. So we have upgrades on the Bruce and on the Gateway Motorway. From the strong action that the federal coalition government has taken, we will see very significant improvements on the Bruce Highway, which will make the life of so many commuters in my electorate so much easier. I am proud to be part of a coalition government that is delivering these very significant upgrades on the Bruce Highway.

With this next issue, again I am a bit worried about a Labor state government in Queensland—I think many people in my community are becoming very worried as well. At the last state election the then LNP MPs, Darren Grimwade, the member for Morayfield, and Lisa France, the member for Pumicestone, promised to upgrade the Caboolture hospital car park. As everyone who goes to the Caboolture hospital knows, there is a huge parking problem there. It is at crisis levels. The former state LNP government promised to deliver 100 extra parking spaces. At the state election Labor promised nothing, they had no plan, and unfortunately now, with the state Labor government in Queensland, there is a big question mark about what will happen with the Caboolture hospital car park. Again I have contacted the Queensland Premier, as well as local Labor members Rick Williams and Mark Ryan. I know they do not have any funding for this, I know they do not have a plan, but I urge them, please, in the interests of the community, to talk to the Premier of Queensland, find the funding and fix what is an absolute crisis at the Caboolture hospital car park. Our community has wanted this improvement for a very long time, and anybody who visits the hospital deserves better car parking. Come on guys, our community deserves this so let us see what you can deliver.

Another issue I want to talk about is the bridge across the Caboolture River on Morayfield Road. As many people in the community know, the bridge is over 90 years old and just about every time it rains the bridge floods. Morayfield Road is a completely state government road but at the last election the coalition government took a Bridges Renewal Program to the electorate to upgrade these really old bridges across the country. Even though the bridge on Morayfield Road across the Caboolture River is a state government road, we committed at the request of the former state LNP government $8½ million to upgrade that bridge—a bridge that must be upgraded because it is well over 90 years old. It is a fifty-fifty funding split—the coalition government is putting $8½ million on the table to upgrade the bridge and I have been in contact with the local state Labor MP, Mark Ryan, who to his great credit is very keen to work with us on this. But if we are to replace this bridge surely common sense would say to us let us not just replace it, let us upgrade it so that it does not flood every time it rains. I have spoken to the new director-general of transport and, as I said, I have spoken to Mark Ryan, the local member, and I would hope that the state government, given that the commonwealth government is putting on the table $8½ million that it would not usually give for a state government road upgrade, can find a little bit more money and make sure that we upgrade this bridge not just by replacing it but by making it flood proof so that we do not have to travel a different route every time it rains.

Another issue I want to talk about is the D'Aguilar Highway. This is a tragedy of a road. For years and years we have seen death after death, accident after accident, on the D'Aguilar Highway. Once again, this is a state government road—when I was elected in 2010 there was a state Labor government and I lobbied them to upgrade the road. They chose not to do that. The coalition was elected in 2013 here in Canberra and, despite this being a state government road, we committed $16 million for the upgrade of the D'Aguilar Highway. The design and geotechnical work has been almost completed and very soon we will see an upgrade worth $16 million, which will go after those worst black spots on the D'Aguilar Highway. This work is long overdue. It really should be the responsibility of the state government, but I want to thank my colleagues here in Canberra for stepping in and providing extra funds to ensure that this road is safer, and that will ultimately save lives. We will need further upgrades and I encourage the state Labor government to do something on this road but at the very least, thanks to the coalition government here and after years of lobbying, very shortly we will see work begin on that $16 million upgrade to the worst black spots on the D'Aguilar Highway.

The next issue is youth mental health in the electorate of Longman. It is an absolute tragedy that in my electorate we see rates of youth mental health issues that are much higher than the national average. Some social workers tell me that, tragically—I know this from talking to locals as well—we have youth suicide rates of twice the national average. Many of us have been affected by this, and many of us are affected by mental health issues—one in five Australians are affected by a mental health issue every year, and one in two are affected by a mental health issue during their lifetime.

After years of lobbying, I am really proud to say that the federal coalition government will build a headspace facility, or site, in Caboolture, which will provide an amazing opportunity and resource to young people across our community to go and get the help that makes such a big difference in their lives and to find the social worker or the youth worker, or the mental health clinician, who can make a very big difference in the lives of young people. It has been a long process to get to where we are today, but when I reflect on my time in this place delivering a headspace site for Caboolture is probably one of the best things that I could possibly do with my time here. I really want to thank my colleagues for helping to make our community a better place and for giving a new start to so many young people who are dealing with some very difficult issues.

One of the other things I want to talk about is remembering our veterans. I am very proud to say that, having never had a war memorial, the communities of Burpengary and Narangba will soon, in time for the centenary of Anzac commemorations this year, have their very own war memorial. This is a very dignified and special place to honour our men and women who have laid down the ultimate sacrifice for our country. As somebody who has gone to Afghanistan twice, and also to Iraq, I want to say that, as we approach the centenary of Anzac, we have really seen a century of sacrifice from our diggers. There is $80,000 on the table from the federal government to deliver this very moving war memorial. (Time expired)

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