Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Flynn for his question and acknowledge his great representation of his electorate. It's a diverse electorate. It's an electorate which relies on agriculture. It's an electorate which heavily relies on resources. It's an electorate which has a wonderful port in Gladstone, a deep port, which is doing so much good for Queensland. When you talk about agriculture, when you talk about resources, you talk about the COVID economic recovery, because those two sectors are leading the way through the COVID recovery. The resources sector, as the minister, the member for Hinkler, advised us yesterday, is going from strength to strength. In Queensland, where both the member for Hinkler and the member for Flynn reside, there's been a 17.9 per cent growth in the resources sector over the past 12 months. The vaccines have arrived in Australia, and frontline workers and vulnerable people will be getting vaccinated starting next week, as the Prime Minister has just indicated.

The government has been dealing with COVID both on the health front, of course, and in terms of the economic situation, providing $251 billion in direct economic support to individuals, families, businesses and industry. One of the support packages, the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, has provided that much-needed and vital support, as far as infrastructure is concerned, right across 537 councils—eight of them in Flynn. That has been so well received. But there is also the economic support to small businesses. I know—and the member for Flynn knows—a fellow in Emerald, in Flynn: Ross Drayton.

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