Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

A few weeks ago Queenslanders woke to the news that the state Labor government is planning to sell assets. I know the people in my electorate very clearly remember exactly what Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she would never do. In fact, at the 2015 state election, the now Premier launched her campaign in front of massive signs that said 'Stop the asset sell-off'.

I spoke on this topic here in parliament as soon as I heard of the state government's plan to flog off assets owned by the state in Carseldine in my electorate. I called out the Premier for misleading Queenslanders, just as Bill Shorten and those opposite misled Australians with their Medicare campaign—their scare campaign—at the last federal election. I spoke specifically about the plan to sell the Carseldine government precinct, formerly the QUT Carseldine campus. I want to add that I said that there were a number of issues here. It is the fact that the state government said they would never sell assets, and now they are blatantly going ahead and doing it. But they have done so without any consultation in the community. Carseldine residents are fed up, and they have the Save our Carseldine Facebook page up and running, where people in Carseldine can get information on the environment, on traffic and town planning, on flooding and on what this will mean for the suburb.

Growing up in the area, I used to run around down in Cabbage Tree Creek, which borders Carseldine. It is a great green space, full of native plants, reptiles, birds and animals. The Carseldine government precinct on the corner of Dorville Road and Beams Road provides Carseldine residents with valuable green space. There are cycleways, sporting ovals and it is a popular market venue with the Carseldine markets every Saturday morning. The space in Carseldine is home to squirrel gliders and some 103 bird species, including long-billed corellas, red-backed fairy-wrens, owls, honeyeaters and kingfishers that live around Cabbage Tree Creek. There has been no planning in relation to wildlife at all in this rushed campaign. This is a significant urban bushland area in the northern suburbs, and selling off this land would destroy some 60 per cent of the green space.

The other thing is that, because there has been no consultation and no thought, there has been no thought around traffic and town planning. Let's look at the limited information the state government has given locals. This sell-off would make way for 900 new dwellings of four, five and eight storeys high. I am certainly not against development. I certainly know that, as a growing city, Brisbane needs new places for people to live in order to help bring down the cost of housing and to house people. But there is one rule for normal developers and then there is a separate rule for the state government. The people in my electorate of Petrie cannot stand that the state government just says: 'Oh gee, we're short on a buck. We racked up $80 billion in debt. We've offloaded it from government debt onto assets like electricity assets'—that is not really government debt, but it pushes up everyone's electricity bill in Carseldine. There has been no planning. There is one rule for the state Labor government and another rule for everyone else.

Roads in this area—in particular, the level crossing over the railway tracks at Beams Road—need upgrading urgently. The Brisbane City Council, to their credit, and the former Newman state government upgraded the Bracken Ridge overpass and the Geebung overpass. They did not get around to upgrading Beams Road. But this state Labor government has no plan to upgrade it. The sale of the land in Carseldine might net up to $100 million. But it would cost a minimum of $80 million just to build an overpass over this area—and according to the local councillor, Amanda Cooper, it could be higher. I want to thank the local Brisbane City Council councillor, Amanda Cooper, and the state member for Aspley, Tracey Davis. They have been strong advocates in calling the state government to account and making sure they consult with Carseldine locals on this important issue. To the people in Carseldine: thank you to everyone involved. If you want more information, get onto the Save Our Carseldine campaign on Facebook. Thank you.

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