Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My wife, Leonie, our eldest daughter and I moved to the Sunshine Coast 23 years ago for a better quality of life, and that is what we found. I am pleased to say that we have not been alone. From a population in the tens of thousands in 1975, the latest data suggests that more than 340,000 now call Australia's 10th-largest city their home. This steady stream of new neighbours is set to become a flood in the coming years, with 100,000 more forecast to join us by 2026 and another 100,000 in the following decade.

So many are coming that completely new cities like the Aura development, Palmview and Beerwah East will soon be springing up amongst us. The new development does not end there. The new Sunshine Coast University Hospital opens in a matter of weeks. The Sunshine Coast Airport is undergoing a substantial expansion due to be completed by 2020, enabled in part by a $181 million federal government concessional loan. We have new global businesses located in our community and new start-ups every year. We also have the new and exciting greenfield CBD SunCentral project having commenced.

But a community cannot double in size without the transport infrastructure to service it. We need dramatic improvements, and we need to start today. The federal government is doing its bit. Last spring, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport joined me on the Sunshine Coast to see for himself. I was proud to be part of this government when in September we announced the $929.3 million Bruce Highway upgrade between Caloundra Road and the Sunshine Motorway. This government also provided 80 per cent of the funding needed for the $8 million Bruce Highway upgrade planning study south of Caloundra.

We are doing our bit, and I will be working hard with the minister to do more. But I ask: what are the Queensland Labor state government doing? When it comes to infrastructure, they are doing what they have done on so many other occasions. They are avoiding making decisions, commissioning yet another report and making it somebody else's problem. In short, they are doing nothing to get the Sunshine Coast the infrastructure that it needs and deserves.

The Bruce Highway study has been scheduled by the state government to conclude in mid-2018, but it must happen much sooner than that. We have repeatedly called on them to fast-track the study, and I call on them to do so again today.

We need upgrades now to all of our many congested roads, not only the Bruce Highway but others like Kawana Way, which will be the main arterial to our world-class $1.8 billion Sunshine Coast University Hospital. There is not much point in having a world-class hospital if you cannot get there. Recent upgrades to Kawana Way fall a long way short of delivering appropriate access to and from the Sunshine Coast University Hospital.

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