Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It beggars belief that the member for Forde thinks this is a smart strategy, coming into this place. Of all the things he could talk about, I know he does not want to talk about cutting penalty rates. I know he does not want to talk about cutting health and education services in his electorate. I know he does not want to talk about how he has cut the energy supplement for the pensioners in his electorate. So what is the go? He gets a phone call from the leader of the opposition's office in Brisbane that says, 'Member for Forde, we need your help.' Do not take my word for it. This is their current Leader of the Opposition in Queensland, Tim Nicholls, of whom Senator Brandis said off microphone that the problem with him is that he is very, very ordinary. They are your words.

So the old member for Forde rolls in here. What did they say about the budget in the member for Forde's electorate just last week? 'Budget bonanza'. That is in his own local paper. There he goes, scurrying out of the chamber. He is afraid to hear the debate. Having done the LNP dirty work in this place, he runs out of the chamber. The paper says:

LOGAN was well looked after in Treasurer Curtis Pitt's third Budget with the city getting nearly $900 million in funding …

So it is such a bad budget his own local paper calls it a budget bonanza.

But let's just deal with this unemployment nonsense. Let's put it on the table. When the LNP left office under Campbell Newman—they do not mention his name anymore—the unemployment rate in Queensland was 7.1 per cent. It actually grew to one of the highest in Australia. Let's remember what the member for Fisher and the member for Fairfax aided and abetted when they were campaigning out there for Campbell Newman: 14,000 public servants ripped out of their employment. We know what happened: unemployment did not just go up and up but went to an 11-year high. Electricity prices did not just go up but went up by 43 per cent. Waiting lists went up. One hundred thousand people were left waiting in the waiting rooms of hospitals. This was before the member for Farrer ripped out $10 billion from Queensland hospitals.

This is what happens over and over again when it comes to frontline services and looking at employment, and also the dignity. Who can forget what the LNP said when they sacked people? The then Premier, a failed Premier, said, 'We're going to have to get the Pooper Scooper out.' That is how he described public servants, and the LNP absolutely relished it. It was not good enough only to sell off our essential assets. Then who can forget last week? I take the point made by the member for Forde when he was talking about the member for Clayfield's speech last week about the budget. They have now committed to not sack public servants. They have now signed another contract. Well, the member for Clayfield is a lawyer. He should be sued, because he signed the first contract. Remember that, before the election? 'Public servants have got nothing to worry about.' The first thing they did under that failed experiment of Campbell Newman, an absolute failure, was to sack frontline nurses and hospital workers, and they were proud of it. They thought it was the right decision. I will tell you what they also did in my electorate: they closed the Barrett Adolescent Centre without any consultation. They closed a youth support hospital for young people most at risk, and we know the tragic, tragic results of closing that frontline service.

The Palaszczuk Labor government is a government that believes in the dignity of work. It does not throw people on the scrap heap. It does not just sack people by text message. That is the LNP's record in Queensland, and they have the gall to come in here. Under their watch, we saw the loss of 12,900 full-time jobs, and the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 7.1 per cent. Unemployment in Queensland is too high. The government know that, and they are working day in, day out to make sure that there are jobs—jobs for the future, jobs in the regions and jobs in places like Townsville. It was the state Labor government and the federal Labor opposition, under the leadership of the member for Herbert, which delivered the announcement and now the reality of a Townsville stadium. If it had not been for that advocacy and that leadership, once again, the regions would be neglected by this government. We know that right across the state, whether it comes to employment or to health and education services, Queenslanders can only rely on a state Labor government under Annastacia Palaszczuk's leadership.

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