Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rose in this chamber on two occasions last week to call out the Queensland government for its blatant neglect of Far North Queensland. They are starving Far North Queensland of much-needed investment, and for one reason only: to help their federal colleagues. They are not only starving Far North Queensland of investment but their actions are also putting in jeopardy millions, if not billions, of dollars of third-party investment.

Traffic congestion, especially in and out of the northern beaches, has been a major issue for many years. Granted, the Queensland government finally came to the party and funded the Smithfield bypass—but only at the eleventh hour and only to help the local MPs during last year's state election. However, the first step in fixing the entire issue is to ensure that the current road from the CBD to Smithfield is redesignated as an A1 national highway. This can only occur with the Queensland government's assistance.

I have written personally to the Queensland main roads minister, Mark Bailey, requesting that he make a submission to have this stretch of state owned road redesignated as a national highway. Mr Bailey hasn't bothered to reply to my letter but suggested in the local media that a letter from a backbencher wasn't worth much. How arrogant is that? But, again, Mr Bailey has also ignored similar letters from the Cairns mayor and Advance Cairns—

Mr Dick interjecting—

If you want a repeat of last time, old fellow, just keep screaming out. If I was a union boss and asked for Mr Bailey's private email account I'm sure I would have much better luck.

The Queensland government's agenda is very simple: remain quiet about the issue, blame the federal government for the lack of funding and let Bill Shorten roll into town with half-cooked, half-baked funding announcements so that he looks like the hero. However, in this instance it has made Bill Shorten look like a dunce. His grandiose announcement of $40 million towards a $157 million section of the project is well short of any type of traditional funding split. I said at the time that he hadn't done enough homework, and I was right. The cost of the entire project from Ray Jones Drive to the Smithfield bypass is about $370 million. I spoke to the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, only last week and stressed to him the importance of this project. In fact I told Mr McCormack that we needed to call out the Queensland government for this and make it put its money where its mouth is. Once we do that the onus will be on the Queensland government to explain why it couldn't be bothered funding this project. Only this week, the state member for Barron River and minister, Craig Crawford, was able to hide and tell the Far North Queensland community that it would be near impossible to get infrastructure money out of the Queensland government unless it was—wait for it—the Cross River Rail in Brisbane. What a slap in the face that is for each and every Far North Queenslander. (Time expired)

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