Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the appropriation bills and update the House on the electorate of Solomon and the solid progress that the coalition government is making for the people of Darwin and Palmerston.

When the government were elected we promised we would stop the boats. And we have. For the people of the Top End, people-smuggling activities were more than something we read about in the newspapers. They were something that we dealt with on a daily basis. Mr Deputy Speaker, you probably remember that one boat got within 13 kilometres of Bathurst Island and another one landed on Croker Island undetected. When the number of boats surged after Labor opened the gates to the people smugglers, my electorate was one of the ones that bore the brunt of it. At the peak of the boat arrivals in 2013, there were five immigration detention centres within, or immediately surrounding, my electorate. You would have heard me, Mr Deputy Speaker, saying that Labor opened more detention beds than hospital beds during its term in government.

Labor's complete loss of control over the immigration system had a number of flow-on effects for my electorate. Essential services had to cope with the rapid influx in the population. The ambulance, police and fire services felt the strain, as did the Royal Darwin Hospital and the other medical services in my electorate. The tourism industry felt the squeeze, with entire hotels in the CBD booked out by immigration, either to accommodate asylum seekers—yes, things got so bad that the immigration department rented an entire CBD hotel as a makeshift detention centre—or detention centre workers, and there were fewer rooms available for tourists. Even major construction projects and heavy industry were put out, with the developments built to accommodate the fly-in fly-out workforce snapped up by Immigration.

This is why I welcomed Minister Dutton's announcement last month that, due to the coalition government's success in stopping the boats, the Blaydin Point facility would no longer be required by the Australian government. The Blaydin Point facility is the 11th immigration detention facility that the coalition government has closed in just over 12 months. The savings to the federal government from the centre closure will be around $18 million in lease costs alone. Despite Immigration moving out, the local economy will not suffer. I am pleased to advise the House that the facility at Blaydin Point will actually revert to its original intended purpose as accommodation for fly-in fly-out workers on a nearby major construction project.

You have heard me speak, a number of times, about Tiger Brennan Drive. When I was campaigning for re-election I promised the people of Solomon that we would deliver on the duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive. Tiger Brennan Drive is one of the major arterial roads linking my home in Palmerston to the Darwin CBD. It gave me great pleasure to stand beside the Deputy Prime Minister and my Northern Territory colleagues at the opening of another stage of the Tiger Brennan duplication. The duplication of the section between Woolner Road and Gonzales Road is easing the congestion and improving safety for traffic arriving to the CBD.

The $88 million duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive's section between Woolner Road and Berrimah Road is well underway. Just last Friday I was joined by my good friend the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Minister Briggs, and another good friend of mine, the Northern Territory transport and infrastructure minister, Peter Chandler, and we inspected the works that are currently underway. Despite the wet season, it did not rain while we were having a look.

The many thousands of constituents who commute between Darwin and Palmerston every day along the road will already be seeing construction of safety barriers and heavy equipment moving into place, as well as the specialised machinery building up the roads in low-lying areas to protect against storm surge. When these are completed, these works will give the 22,000 vehicles that use the road each day easier access between Darwin's CBD and the Palmerston and rural area. It will reduce traffic on the parallel Stuart Highway, and will ease congestion of traffic between the East Arm Wharf and the Darwin industrial areas.

And that is what this government is all about. We are about delivering on our promises—delivering infrastructure. Tiger Brennan Drive alone represents a $103 million commitment. The coalition government promised that we would deliver the roads of the 21st century; that we would be an infrastructure government. I am very pleased to report that, in Solomon, we are doing exactly that.

It is not just in constructing world-class road infrastructure that the coalition government is making life easier for people in the Top End. We are also doing our very best to drive down the cost of petrol. Darwin and Palmerston motorists—and, indeed, all Territorians—have being paying far too much for petrol for far too long. At its worst, someone filling-up in my electorate would pay probably 30 cents per litre more than a driver in Sydney. That is an extra $18 on every 60 litre tank of fuel. A forum convened by the Northern Territory government had an immediate impact by reducing prices by a few cents a litre, but Territorians are still paying too much.

That is why I was delighted to hear the news last week that the ACCC is to undertake an unprecedented investigation into the fuel price in Darwin. Under its new powers, the ACCC will break down each element of the supply chain to determine where it is going so badly wrong for Territory motorists and to see what can be done. And I would like to place on record my thanks to all the Territorians who got involved in the campaign to get the ACCC to come to Darwin and investigate. It is a true sign that people power actually works.

A fortnight ago I was also delighted to announce to my electorate that a proposal for an $18 million joint defence logistics facility at Darwin's East Arm Warf is being investigated by the Public Works Committee, and I am hoping to have their sign-off very soon. This facility, including barge ramps, staging areas and supporting infrastructure, will give the Navy the ability to operate their new helicopter, and to dock ships and amphibious vessels out of Darwin harbour. It will also be available to commercial operators such as the Top End's transport, fishing, oil and gas operations, and pearling fleets. This is another big win for Darwin and Palmerston. A facility of this scale will mean jobs in the construction phase, ongoing civilian and military jobs to run the facility, and a boost to the industries which will use this area.

Another thing that I have talked about many times in this House is the Palmerston hospital. Throughout my 2010 election campaign and my first term in office, I fought hard for the people of Palmerston to get a hospital. Northern Territory Labor had 11 years in office, and federal Labor, as we know, had six years through the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era, and in that time they could have built a hospital. Throughout this time, though, the only progress towards a Palmerston hospital was a temporary fence erected around a small bush block on Palmerston's fringe—hardly something that I would call progress.

I can tell you that works are now well underway upgrading infrastructure around a larger site in the area to accommodate a major new full-service hospital at Palmerston. The roads, intersections, traffic signals and paths in the area are already in the process of being upgraded and planning for the hospital itself is well underway. There is room for the hospital to grow, which was always the Country Liberals plan: to build a hospital that is going to grow with the community.

Labor were aiming to underdeliver. It was a box-ticking exercise for them. They were aiming to build a small hospital on a small block, with no room for growth, in the fastest growing city in Australia. And they could not even manage that!

As I said, during the six years in the federal government and 11 years in the Territory government Labor managed to deliver only a temporary fence around three hectares of bush. Thanks for nothing!

When complete, the new Palmerston Regional Hospital will be the first facility of its kind built in the Northern Territory for more than 40 years. The coalition is delivering a level 3 facility, meaning it will offer a 24-hour accident and emergency department, as well as general medicine, surgery, maternity and children's services. The hospital will have a full-support service, including pathology and pharmaceutical services. The Palmerston Regional Hospital will complement the service already offered by the Royal Darwin Hospital, the Northern Territory's only level 6 facility.

The Northern Territory Minister for Health, John Elferink, along with my Palmerston Territory colleagues Lia Finnachiaro, member for Drysdale; Peter Chandler, Minister for Infrastructure; and Nathan Barrett, member for Blain and I are all absolutely united in our drive to deliver a new hospital for Palmerston and the Greater Darwin area.

Minister Elferink will be here this week, meeting with our new federal health minister, Minister Ley, and me, to update us on the Palmerston hospital, because there are some mistruths being spread by those opposite.

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