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

It is a great honour to rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 and other appropriation bills. It is great to follow the former speaker, who talked about what this government is doing on infrastructure. This government has the country's largest infrastructure agenda. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you and I—both Queenslanders—know how important that vital infrastructure, particularly road infrastructure, is for our growing and very big state.

I want to go through a couple of these big initiatives locally. To start with, the biggest one, which I think will clear a big bottleneck of traffic jams as we head south from my electorate towards Brisbane, is the Gateway Motorway. So many of the daily commuters in our community know the challenges of that bottleneck between Nudgee and Bracken Ridge. This government is putting $1.16 billion into widening that section of the Gateway Motorway from four lanes to six lanes, which will make a very big difference.

This government is also investing $8 billion in the Bruce Highway, the lifeblood of our local region, the key economic driver and the road that facilitates the greatest amount of movement around our community. We are putting $8 billion into the Bruce Highway across Queensland. Three billion dollars of that is going from the Pine Rivers through to Gympie. So there is over a billion dollars into the Gateway up to the Pine Rivers, and then over $3 billion into the highway from Pine Rivers through to Gympie.

That is upgrading a whole range of things, but one particular example I want to jump on is the Boundary Road overpass. So many locals know the challenges that we face there. This government is committing $84 million, in conjunction with the state government. It was a bit of an effort to get the new state Labor government to commit to that, but they are adding about $20 million extra to that project, bringing it up to about $105 million to build a six-lane overpass at Boundary Road. That is the sort of practical congestion-busting initiative that we are putting into the Gateway and the Bruce Highway.

The other road that locals know is so important to our region is the D'Aguilar Highway. The D'Aguilar Highway has caused far too many tragedies over far too many years. When I first campaigned for parliament in 2010, I made a commitment to fix the worst black spots on the D'Aguilar Highway. Of course, it is a state government road, but we said that we would commit funds to that because of the tragic loss of life on that road. Every local knows that story. At the time, the Labor member—the person that I beat at the subsequent election—said that it was impossible to do that. He said that that would take all the funds from Queensland and that the Labor Party was not interested in doing that or it could not be done. Well, we did not win that election. I continued to campaign, to lobby and to call on the federal Labor government and the state government to put money towards the D'Aguilar Highway. They did not do that, but at the 2013 election I made another commitment of $16 million to the D'Aguilar Highway. I am really proud to say that we are doing what the Labor Party said could not be done. We have allocated that $16 million in the budget. We have committed to that. The design work and geotechnical work has already been done on those vital upgrades to the D'Aguilar Highway. That project has now gone out to tender and we expect construction to start later in the year. That is such a vital improvement for our region. Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the state government. But where they have not acted, I am really proud of the fact that we have stepped in. Ultimately, these upgrades will save lives.

Talking about black spots across other parts of the region, we have committed over $3.4 million to local black spots in the Longman electorate in our local community. That includes, for example, upgrading 500 metres of the Pumicestone Road, which is an incredibly dangerous section of the road. These are really practical things where, again, it is not a Commonwealth government road but we have stepped in with some extra funds to help save lives. I think that many locals will appreciate that significant upgrade.

We have also committed over $20 million to our region through the Moreton Bay Regional Council for Roads to Recovery. Essentially, this is where the Commonwealth government comes in and gives additional funds to local councils so that they can upgrade their roads, which deals with those annoying maintenance issues that we face on our local roads. That is a very significant injection. In the next year, we are doubling the payment that the Moreton Bay Regional Council will receive through Roads to Recovery to do, again, what is essentially their job. This will give them a big financial boost. Next year, with that doubling payment, they will get over $6 million to go in to the maintenance of local roads.

The other thing that we should be discussing in these appropriation bills is, of course, jobs. In our local community, the unemployment rate has been too high for too long. We all know that the big creators of prosperity and the creators of employment in our region are not people here in Canberra. It is not bureaucrats. It is not the government. It is locals who are prepared to go out there, to have a go, to have a small business or start a small business, to grow that business and to employ more people. When you have a society that is big and a government that is small I think that you can create greater jobs growth and greater prosperity for our nation. That is why these initiatives include the largest package for small businesses that our country has ever seen.

The biggest part of that is the $20,000 instant asset write-off measure, which has received an enormous amount of media. Essentially, since budget night, local businesses can go out, purchase that piece of equipment that they might need to grow their business, to make them more productive, to help lift their productive capacity in that business and they can write that off against their taxable income, which is a massive initiative. Many local businesses have been speaking to me and saying how big a difference that will make. As they grow those businesses, they will be ultimately putting on more people.

We have also included a 1½ per cent company tax rate for incorporated companies, something that has been needed for a long time, and a five per cent tax discount for those unincorporated companies, and, of course, we are continuing to slash red tape as we promised to do. When local businesses are not spending hours or days on bureaucratic red tape or putting on extra staff to deal with bureaucratic red tape and we are getting that hassle out of their life, they can do the thing that they do the best, which is to go out there, grow their business and employ more people. We have achieved over double the target that we set when we went to the election. We have already reduced red tape in the first year by over $2 billion.

A lot of that red tape reduction, I am really proud to say, has come from our local community, where local businesses have come to me. We have taken it up with the government and we have been able to remove the red tape that is actually stopping them from growing their businesses and employing more people, and you can feel it when you are talking to these local businesses. They are prepared to go out there and to have a go. That will be what drives the future prosperity of our region and future jobs growth. We have interest rates at record lows. We have the dollar coming down, and we have these fantastic initiatives that will help businesses to be their best selves, to go out there and to grow their businesses.

If you look around our region, you have got some really big projects that will kick-start local jobs growth. You have got the Sandstone Point Hotel, which will be opening next weekend, creating enormous jobs growth in our area. You have got North Harbour, which has been delayed for far too long out there. It is a massive project across the course of several decades. Their economic modelling shows it could create up to 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. You have a great local story just recently where Airwork Helicopters has just had CASA approval to create rotor blades for Bell Helicopter, a world leading innovation and technology in the heart of Caboolture. They have said that they are going to grow their business by up to 20 staff. So there is something special about how we are creating those new jobs in our region. Ultimately, as I said, that comes from the private sector. It comes when we get government out of the life of these local entrepreneurs so that they can grow their businesses.

But, when we have these new jobs, what is important is that we have a pathway for these locals to find these new jobs, because you can have the jobs, but, if people are not skilled up, if they are not ready, if they do not have the right requirements or the right qualifications, or even the right connection and networks to find those jobs, we cannot get people into those jobs. So we have an enormous initiative or drive to help that employment growth. We are spending $6.8 billion on revamped Job Active employment services, an enormous expenditure.

In these measures we have $1.2 billion for a national wage subsidy pool to help those employers put on those staff, particularly the long-term unemployed. I will give you just one example, Mr Deputy Speaker, of where this wage subsidy will help employers to have that incentive to take on that new staff member. If you are an employer hiring somebody who is under 30 and has been on income support for six months, you can expect to receive $6½ thousand over 12 months for taking on that new person, which is obviously a huge incentive to help that business take on that new job seeker.

The other thing that I think is really important, as I said, is that we are providing that pathway for people to find that employment and that very individualised support to get them job ready or to find that job and actually get into employment. So this budget and these initiatives put aside $212 million for a youth Transition to Work program and $106 million for intensive support for vulnerable job seekers. Essentially, these two initiatives empower local organisations which have that local knowledge to give that very intensive, individualised support so that that local person can go in there, find that job and have the right skill set to do that. This will make a massive difference to people in our community and to unemployment in our community.

This is on top of the initiatives we have already announced and have been delivering. The job commitment bonus, one I have spoken about many times in this place, is for job seekers aged 18 to 30. They will be paid $2,500 if they can secure a job and remain in continuous employment for 12 months, and an additional $4,000 is available if they stay in employment for another year. That is a huge incentive. If you come off welfare and you go and find a job, there is a very significant financial incentive to do that.

We know that often people have to move to find a job, and we have been delivering our relocation assistance. If people are moving to take up that job, we will give them that financial incentive to help them do that. If you are relocating from a regional centre to a capital city, there is $3,000 in assistance for you to do that. If you are going the other way, out to a regional centre, there is $6,000 for you to do that. And of course, if you are relocating with a dependent child, we will give you another $3,000 on top for that.

We have been rolling out Work for the Dole locally as well. There is obviously a social contract and a meaning to that initiative. But what I have noticed and I think is really important is that it provides unemployed people with access to a real job, to network and meet real people, to put something that is real and meaningful on their CV. It helps them find that pathway into employment as well.

We have also increased better access to diplomas, advanced diplomas and TAFE by essentially saying that, if it is good enough for universities to have a HECS style system, it is good enough for diplomas, advanced diplomas and TAFE. You do not pay a dollar up front on your TAFE fees or your diploma fees, so you can get those skills or those qualifications to make you more employable.

We have rolled out the Green Army initiative, and I went out and visited the Green Army initiative in Burpengary, which was an absolutely amazing thing to do. There were these great young people from very different backgrounds. Some of them were university graduates and some of them had been working in construction or different areas and had found themselves unemployed and looking for work. The Green Army was giving them, again, real-world experience and real connections to the people that they would need to find future employment and was actually helping them find jobs. Some of them already had jobs lined up for when they finished their Green Army initiative.

The other initiative which has been very popular is our trade support loans. Again, if it is good enough for someone going to university, or if it is good enough for someone going to do a diploma, advanced diploma or TAFE level qualification, it surely must be good enough for our young tradies and apprentices to have a similar HECS style system. Our trade support loans will give them $20,000 up front. As we know, it is very hard for these people to get through that first part of the apprenticeship. This will give them an enormous support to complete their apprenticeship.

As you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, we are doing absolutely everything we can to create the jobs that we need in our community and to ensure that locals have every opportunity to get those new jobs. I commend these bills to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 21:00 .

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