Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

Black spot funding and Roads to Recovery funding are supported by both sides of the chamber. During the 12 years I have been here, Labor governments have invested in black spot funding and coalition governments have invested in black spot funding. I can think of intersections in my electorate, for example, Cemetery Road and Whitehill Road in Eastern Heights, Ripley Road at Flinders View or, indeed, a bend of a road in Lobb Street in Churchill where black spot funding has made a difference. I remember speaking on numerous occasions to the various mayors and councils in South-East Queensland that I have had the honour of representing—the Scenic Rim, Somerset, Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley—in the last 12 years about how Roads to Recovery has made a difference.

But this government has taken cronyism and corruption on road funding to an art form. It reminds me of a conversation I had with now passed on Don Livingstone, the former Labor member for Ipswich West, who told me that when he was elected on 2 December 1989, he could find no significant road-funding projects in Ipswich West in the long history of the Bjelke-Petersen regime in Queensland. When I looked at this motion today, I thought of Don, who passed away five years ago, tragically—a great man who did a lot of good in our local area. We have a bridge named after him at One Mile. This government, when it comes to major projects and road funding, has favoured coalition governments in an extraordinary way. They must think, for example, traffic congestion finishes at the intersection of a federal Labor electorate and a federal coalition electorate.

The Urban Congestion Fund, for example, has been rorted extraordinarily by this government, with 83 per cent of the $3 billion going to 144 projects located in coalition seats and marginal seats they hope to win off the Labor Party. This is the sports rorts on steroids. There wasn't a specific project in Blair that was funded under this fund. When I think of areas in my electorate, I think of things like the Cunningham Highway, which is outside the RAAF base at Amberley. Federal governments, from Howard's day all the way through, have spent $1.3 billion on the RAAF base at Amberley but have not fixed up the Cunningham Highway from Ebenezer Creek to Yamanto. And this government seems not much interested at all in dealing with the Queensland government to fix up one of the worst black spots in Ipswich. People have lost their lives, cars have been damaged and lives have been changed for the worse. There are traffic jams galore in the morning and in the evening.

Every time I talk to the 8,500 people who work on the RAAF base at Amberley, whether they are serving military personnel or those working in the aerospace area, they always talk about this issue. Why aren't the government fixing this? Why aren't they dealing with the Queensland government to make sure this upgrade is absolutely necessary?

At the last federal election, the Labor Party took to the campaign a commitment to put another $500 million into the Darra to Rocklea section of the Ipswich Motorway, not matched by the coalition. It took the election of a Labor government in 2007 for the Dinmore to Darra section of the motorway to be upgraded—designed, built and completed under a Labor government. This Liberal government was eventually shamed in 2016 into putting $200 million towards the upgrade of the Darra to Rocklea section of the Ipswich Motorway, but didn't match this.

And of course there is the Oxley roundabout. We have close to 100,000 vehicles a day going through that roundabout. There is a final section that goes towards what we used to call the Centenary Interchange that needs to be done. We talk about black spots and areas that will help road safety, talk about saving lives and damage to vehicles and about helping communities.

This government should have a good look at themselves because they're not doing the right thing. Sure, they might be doing the right thing on black spot funding and on Roads to Recovery funding but there is so much more they could do. They're not doing it in my electorate and it is affecting the personnel on the RAAF base at Amberley and the people who live around that base, the whole of Ipswich and the whole of Somerset. They should do a whole lot better than they're currently doing.

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