Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the additional estimates appropriation bills today, because it gives me an opportunity to talk about the work our coalition government is doing for all Australians. As a big country, we are faced with many challenges of a geographic nature. This includes vast distances; transport and freight logistics; road networks; telecommunications; and extreme natural disasters such as bushfires, floods, and, of course, as my electorate of Capricornia has recently witnessed, category 5 cyclones.

Today, I want to focus particularly on rural and regional Australia. We often hear so much about big cities in this House. Yet city people may not realise that the most important export goods created in this country stem from rural and regional Australia. Industries such as agriculture and mining contribute the most wealth to our national GDP. In rural and regional Australia, our Liberal-National government is helping communities in the bush to obtain better roads, better mobile telephone reception and significant infrastructure projects, that firstly create construction jobs and are then followed by the opportunity for other new ongoing jobs.

Some of the programs to which I refer, that we are budgeting for, include: our Roads to Recovery program, helping local councils to fix up local streets and roads; our $500 million roads Black Spot Program, fixing up dangerous blacks spots to reduce road accidents and deaths; our Bridges Renewal Program, funding 50 per cent of the cost to replace old bridges in regional areas; our Stronger Regions fund, providing $1 billion over four years to help rebuild infrastructure and create jobs in regional Australia; our $100 million Mobile Black Spot Program, to fix up telecommunication blackspots; a $300 million drought assistance package to support people doing it tough in the bush; and our promise to spend $6.5 billion to fix the Bruce Highway, our main transport and freight corridor. This important highway runs the full length of Queensland's coastline, linking Cairns to Brisbane via Rockhampton. Many of these programs are costed in our federal budget.

Where is the evidence that these things are being successfully rolled out to help regional Australia? I can tell you that, in my electorate of Capricornia in Central Queensland, there are many examples. Capricornia takes in a vast area from the Great Barrier Reef to the inland beef and coalfields. In our 91,000 square kilometres, we have big distances to cover. Therefore, our roads are important infrastructure. While working hard in this electorate in a short 15-month period, I have overseen the following benefits for our road network: $166 million to fix up the notorious Eton Range section of the Peak Downs Highway, which leads into the Central Queensland coalfields west of Mackay; $8.5 million for overtaking lanes on the Bruce Highway between Sarina and Koumala; and $296 million for stage 2 of the Yeppen South flood plain project on the Bruce Highway south of Rockhampton. This impressive project elevates parts of the highway, effectively creating the second longest bridge in Queensland. Its aim is to keep the city open in times of flood, thus keeping the state's freight and economy flowing through to North Queensland.

Our government is spending wisely to make our roads safer. We have recently completed three new overtaking lanes, and extended a fourth, along the Bruce Highway between Marlborough and Rockhampton and between Rockhampton and Gladstone. This project was worth $15.5 million. In our budget, we will supply $30 million to five regional shires in Capricornia to help fix local council roads and streets. This comes under our five-year Roads to Recovery program for the bush. The $30 million is being shared between my local councils of Isaac, Mackay, Rockhampton, Whitsunday and Livingstone, and payments have already started being rolled out.

But it does not stop there. The Liberal-National coalition has just committed $35 million to the Isaac-Mackay area under our Bridges Renewal program. The money will replace four bridges on the Peak Downs Highway between Nebo and Mackay in my electorate of Capricornia. People who regularly travel the Peak Downs Highway to work in the mines or to provide service and maintenance will appreciate a safer and more reliable highway. Dangerous intersections in local towns are also being fixed-up, thanks to help from our federal Roads Black Spots program. Motorists in places like Rockhampton, Mackay and Yeppoon will be better off due to safer traffic conditions. Under this Liberal-National program we have paid $850,000 to install a roundabout at Kent Street and Denham Street in Rockhampton; $260,000 to install traffic signals with a pedestrian crossing on Thozet and Rockonia roads in Koongal; $55,000 to relocate a pedestrian crossing further north and provide kerb extensions, additional lighting and a median strip at Fitzroy and East streets in Rockhampton's CBD; $166,000 to fix Murray and Derby streets in Rockhampton, with improved visibility at this intersection; $108,000 for the notorious Caroline and Davis streets intersection at Allenstown in Rockhampton; and $102,500 to make Bolsover and Stanley streets safer in Rockhampton.

Under this program we have also committed over $1 million to fix up two notorious black spots at Yeppoon. This includes $550,000 to install a roundabout on Queen and Mary streets and $500,000 to install traffic lights at Vaughan Street and Appleton Drive in Yeppoon. We can add to this more important road works in the city of Rockhampton: The federal government poured much-needed money into improving the George and Albert streets highway intersection on the south side of Rockhampton's CBD. This was thanks to a $9.2 million federal contribution. The project, in fact, came in under budget and improved an extremely congested city intersection that sees almost 35,000 cars and heavy vehicles go by each day.

Rural and regional Australia was forgotten by the Labor Party. Our government will provide opportunities for new infrastructure Our $1 billion Stronger Regions Fund aims to help rebuild infrastructure and create jobs in regional Australia over the next four years. In my electorate of Capricornia, applications have already been submitted for a contribution towards a new emergency headquarters for the Capricorn Coast Helicopter Rescue Service; a contribution towards a $50 million convention centre in Rockhampton; a contribution to rejuvenate the Fitzroy River precinct to create a new economic and visitor hub in the heart of Rockhampton; and a contribution towards stage 4 of the Yeppoon Foreshore Master Plan, worth about $13 million. If such projects get up, they will create construction jobs and then ongoing opportunities for small businesses to grow our local economy and spur new jobs.

Rockhampton and Yeppoon were devastated two weeks ago by Tropical Cyclone Marcia. I call on the federal government to bring forward further funding opportunities in the pipeline from the Stronger Regions Fund so that Capricornia can rebuild and rise from the ashes to create new and vibrant economic opportunities and work for local people. I will be pushing this idea forward in the coming weeks with my ministerial colleagues.

To cement a future in regional Australia, we also need vital water infrastructure projects. Projects such as dams and weirs will create opportunities for new agricultural and mining development. Such schemes need bipartisan support from all sides and forms of government. In Capricornia I am pushing for the Connors River Dam between Sarina and Moranbah; the Fitzroy Corridor's Eden Bann and Rookwood weirs near Rockhampton; and the Urannah Dam, which would benefit the struggling town of Collinsville. These three concepts are among 27 water projects listed as priority projects in the recent green paper on agricultural competitiveness and the green paper on Northern Australia.

I mentioned that telecommunications was an issue in the bush. Our government's $100 million mobile phone black spots program aims to give bush communities better access to mobile coverage. I have been lobbying hard for the small community of Clarke Creek, near Marlborough, for funding under this initiative. Poor quality internet and mobile phone services at Clark Creek impacts on schooling and community safety. In fact, while on a visit there I made the point that you can make mobile call from the middle of Africa but not from Clarke Creek. We are currently awaiting the outcome of this application, but the federal government's $100 million mobile black spots funding program itself offers regional Australia the chance to have access to the same mobile services that city people take for granted.

Communities form the heart of rural and regional Australia, and our Liberal-National government continues to budget and approve funding for many important community projects. These include $300,000 for Rockhampton Meals on Wheels to help build a new kitchen, a vital service to our senior citizens; over $322,000 towards $1 million of refurbishment of St Anne's Catholic Primary School in Sarina; and over $700,000 towards new facilities at St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, North Rockhampton, which forms part of a $1.5 million building project. Such projects boost education and support local jobs.

Our Liberal-National government is also budgeting for smaller grants that are vitally important to smaller groups in our community—such as $5,000 to allow the Yeppoon Surf Life Saving Club to buy new training and safety equipment, and over $1,300 to help the men's shed at Sarina undertake first aid training. Both of these groups are fantastic, and I have been fortunate enough to visit them. Near Rockhampton we are also providing $61,000 to the Fitzroy Basin Association to revegetate endangered vine thickets near Mount Etna, under our $20 million trees program. This is one of many examples of our conservation projects.

At the end of the day, all of these things could only be funded when there is responsible fiscal management, and that is what we are trying to achieve through the bills we are discussing today. Today's bills on the budget mean a lot to all Australians. We inherited a budget black hole thanks to Labor, and we must get it back on track so that we can provide even more benefits to regional Australia in the future.

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