Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go again, the Labor Party at every level is calling on more money so that inner-city seats relying on green votes can get a nice trip to work. Before I speak about this, I would like to point out some details to our colleagues on the other side of the room. It seems that even those who live in Queensland have forgotten a few things.

Brisbane is a city in Queensland that makes up a total of 0.9 per cent of Queensland's total land area. More than half of Queensland's population lives outside of the greater metropolitan area of Brisbane. That is a larger proportion compared with the rest of highly urbanised Australia. Coal royalties paid to the Queensland government are forecast to contribute almost $3 billion this year; 39 per cent of that coal comes from my electorate of Capricornia. Let's repeat that: Central Queensland is contributing a total of $1.17 billion in coal royalties to the Queensland budget. Why is any of this relevant? I say this because now the very people who have lobbied time and time again to stop the production of coal now want to use the royalties from that very coal to build a nice train line.

They want the sweat and tears of my electorate to keep supplying them with the lifestyles they are accustomed to. How dare you! How dare you stand there and say the people of inner-city Brisbane need a better train line to get to work. Here is a thought: how about instead of using a band-aid solution to fix growing congestion in Brisbane, get behind projects that would provide jobs in the region so they will not have to move away in the first place.

Just last week, REIQ revealed statistics showing that 3,500 people had left the Fitzroy catchment area in the last year alone. They are leaving because there are no job opportunities. You sit there and cry poor because your rail line is at capacity. Our Central Queensland region would be glad to have anything operating at capacity. The Queensland Labor government had an ideal opportunity to fix the mistakes of the past with assets sales in last week's budget. They had an opportunity to create real and meaningful jobs for Central Queensland in the budget. Central Queensland has become 'Division 9' to the capital, Brisbane. The working people of my electorate contribute to your Hunger Games. In fact, the Queensland Treasurer has stated that 15,300 additional bureaucrats will be employed over the next four years.

The state government has no decentralisation agenda, so these jobs are just going to end up back in Brisbane not with the people of Central Queensland. If we want real long-term employment, we need a state government willing to invest in industry, development and infrastructure. They give us a list of 31 things in the budget and act as if Central Queensland should be grateful! Should we be grateful for the 22,000 jobs that will be given to 15,600 inner-city bureaucrats? They are the ones who should show some gratitude that the coal revenue from Central Queensland has balanced the budget so that inner-city greens can take a nice train ride to their secure inner-city job while tapping away at their tablets, which are also made from mining.

But, no, the Labor Party will keep bowing to the hypocrisy, with no pathway to actually help workers. They want to keep the regions poor; they want to keep the people poor. Then they will ride in on their fast train and tell the working poor that we are not doing enough to help them. Here's a thought: how about we reduce the need in the first place by actually creating real and ongoing employment in the regions, particularly in my seat of Capricornia? Instead of crying poor over your train, how about you give a thought to the people who get nothing for the hard work that makes the city jobs possible?

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