Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This construction-led recovery is well underway in the great city of Townsville. As the Prime Minister has said, and the budget very clearly highlights, infrastructure—commercial and residential construction—is going to be extremely important in helping rebuild our economy as we recover from COVID-19. In my electorate, this is already occurring. We are already in recovery mode. Our local economy has been suffering since the loss of jobs, since QNI closed and since the one-in-500-years flood event that happened recently. We'd already made over a billion dollars worth of commitments in the area to help create jobs and to build the roads and infrastructure our community needs. As we look to emerge stronger from the latest challenge, we have added incentives like HomeBuilder and JobMaker to get the cogs turning again.

As the Treasurer said, this is all about jobs, jobs and more jobs. That's why I was extremely happy to read some figures put out by industry body Construction Skills Queensland. According to CSQ, there is about $1.8 billion worth of construction work underway in the Townsville, North Queensland region right now, and $2.3 billion worth of committed major projects in the region. That is a huge amount of both public and private investment into the region. What's more important is how that translates into employment. This work, over the next year alone, is going to generate more than 13,000 trade jobs. That's 13,000 people who will be working hard and earning a good wage. That will create a ripple effect through the rest of the local economy, as I've stated previously, whether it's from people buying coffee in the morning, getting a bacon-and-egg burger on the way to work or having a smoko down the road, or from people taking their loved one or family out to dinner. More jobs drive the economy, but they also generate more income and more money in their hip pocket.

The CSQ chief executive, Brett Schimming, told the Townsville Bulletin: 'We are seeing a buoyancy coming to the construction industry here and we know construction will be central to the recovery from the pandemic. Townsville is looking very strong and healthy.' This is great news. You don't want to hear it from a politician, because most politicians will talk about how good their community is and, 'The jobs are going to be great.' We're listening to industry leaders. We're listening to the professionals who are on the ground, who have all the knowledge about how it is going to drive our economy. This is fantastic—more jobs, more people moving to Townsville, more money pumping through our great community.

You only have to look at the rental vacancy rates to see this playing out. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland has calculated that Townsville's vacancy rate is 1.7 per cent. That's compared to recent years when it's been seven per cent. This is great for our region. But make no mistake: this strong and healthy outlook is a direct result of the investments that we are making in both local infrastructure and the residential sector, and the hard work of the community. We are investing $35 million into the Cowboys community and high-performance centre. That is through $15 million in grants and $20 million through a NAIF loan. It's supporting more than 200 jobs during construction right now, and there will be more than 58 ongoing once it's operational. We've recently announced Riverway Drive, stage 2. This project—280 jobs. It's fantastic.

We know the best way to get out of the COVID recession is to keep people in jobs and to create that opportunity for employment. We want people to have confidence to take their loved ones out to dinner and to spend their money where they would like, and the people will lead us out of this. I thank everyone in Townsville for their hard work during the pandemic and everyone throughout the country who's doing it tough.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:59

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