Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was interesting to hear the contribution of the member for Kingsford Smith to the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2020-2021. I'm obviously strongly in favour of the substantive bill before us. It's such a shame that, after everything that Australia and Australians have been through over the last 18 months with COVID-19, still we see Labor MPs, like the member for Kingsford Smith, come into this chamber and resort to the politics of envy and to cheap political points about class warfare, when Australia has achieved so much together over the last 12 months. I do not understand why Labor MPs can't get on board with 'Team Australia'.

The member for Kingsford Smith spoke about JobKeeper and the JobKeeper program as a negative. It's extraordinary! It has kept hundreds of thousands of people in jobs. It has allowed the economy to come back to such an extent that there are now more jobs in Australia than there were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, Labor MPs find a way not to be on 'Team Australia', not to support Australians, and not to congratulate them for what they have achieved in keeping their small businesses and their businesses together and in keeping their employees connected to businesses. They find a way to make it about partisan politics, and it's just such a shame. The member for Kingsford Smith even had the audacity to come into this place and talk about insecure work and try and blame that on some fault of the government. First, they like to pretend that COVID-19 didn't even happen because it doesn't suit their political narrative, but, second, we had an industrial relations reform package of bills in this place not so long ago which included a better pathway for casuals to get into long-term, secure employment. What did Labor MPs do, including the member for Kingsford Smith? They voted against it; they didn't support it. They didn't support the whole package because they wanted to play partisan politics with something that had been negotiated with both business groups and the unions in order to provide more employment for all Australians coming out of COVID-19. That just shows you everything you need to know about how the Labor Party views Australia coming out of COVID-19. They view it as a political partisan game-playing exercise. We on this side of the chamber view it as an opportunity to push Australians forward, create more jobs, help them into secure employment, and help them provide the opportunities and certainty for their families which have been missing over the last 18 months during the COVID pandemic.

I digress a little bit from what I intended to speak about today, because, substantively, the appropriation bills are some of the most important mechanisms that we have to deliver for our electorates. I have to say that it is a privilege every single day to come into this place and represent my electorate of Ryan. I was born there. I've lived my entire life there. I was raised there and educated there—the whole kit and caboodle. I now raise my young family there, and I make that point simply to emphasise how much of a privilege I know that it is to represent the people of Ryan and how dedicated I am to delivering for them. There are so many things that I know our area needs and that I have committed to deliver, and I wake up every single day and work to tick them off my list.

Before I move on to the local commitments that the appropriation bills are allowing us to deliver, I want to talk about what is pressing in the electorate of Ryan at the moment, and that is the vaccine rollout. It's being embraced by local residents. I had the pleasure of sending out information just last week as we moved to the 1b stage of the vaccine rollout and of talking to the residents of Ryan about the nine GP clinics that are already signed up to deliver the vaccine. They include Kenmore respiratory clinic, the SmartClinics Walton Bridge at The Gap, the Ferny Grove Family Practice, the Bardon Rainworth Medical Centre, the Keperra Family Practice, the Brookside Family Clinic, Myhealth Toowong, the Fiveways Surgery at Taringa and the Bellbowrie Medical Centre.

I want to encourage Ryan residents to be patient. I know how enthusiastic they are to get the vaccine. These GP clinics are working very, very hard to make sure that they take bookings and schedule people going forward. There will be more vaccines to roll out, so don't stress if you don't get a booking straightaway. There are plenty more vaccines coming from our locally manufactured vaccine stop, which is something only a very few number of countries in the world have been able to achieve. We've been able to achieve that in Australia because of the foresight of the Prime Minister and the leadership team in making sure we secured local production of the AstraZeneca vaccine at CSL. This has been so important and will continue to be so important for our rollout.

So please be patient if you can't get in straightaway. Be friendly and kind to the staff at those GP clinics because they're going to have more vaccine rolling out. And there's going to be more GP clinics joining the rollout as well, so there will be the opportunity for everyone to get the vaccine. But I'm so pleased that I'm standing up here in this place talking to Ryan residents about having patience in getting the vaccine rather than the other way around and having to encourage people to get it. I know that my electorate has seized the opportunity to get the vaccine as a way forward and a path back to normality, so that we can get back to doing the things that we love in Australia.

I want to focus specifically on the local commitments I've made to the people of Ryan which the appropriations bill allowed us to achieve. One of the most significant of these was to fix local roads. I am conscious of the frustration of Ryan residents as they spend time stuck in congestion each and every day—the fact that they want to get home to their families sooner and safer. I am dedicated to making this happen. There's no easy silver bullet. We live in a beautiful part of Brisbane—a beautiful part of the world. As the member for Brisbane knows with his area, when you have a beautiful part of the world more and more people want to move there. They want to live there and we don't want to stop those families from doing that, but as we get that growth we have to cater for it with appropriate infrastructure. That's what I've dedicated myself to doing.

One of the bottlenecks that we're tackling is the Indooroopilly roundabout. During the last election I secured $50 million in federal funding to fix this well-known choke point. I am happy to say that I'm working with the Brisbane City Council, which has matched this funding—that's very exciting. We have got straight on with the job since the election. We went to public consultation on two draft designs that were being proposed by Brisbane City Council. There was an overwhelming response from local residents for the overpass option. Thank you so much to all the local residents who participated in that consultation process. Obviously, that option was chosen because it was the overwhelming option.

The detailed design and planning work is now almost complete. I see surveyors on the Indooroopilly roundabout site all the time as they work to finalise that design. It won't be too long until we see a shovel in the ground this year. This has been a project that has taken a considerable amount of time. I reckon I was involved back in 2010 or 2011; I stood on the roundabout with then Lord Mayor Campbell Newman to talk about how the council wanted to purchase this particular site in order to enable the upgrade to occur. But it was only on being elected to federal parliament as part of the Morrison government's team that I was able to secure the $50 million in federal funding that allowed this project to actually get underway. Now we're going to see shovels in the ground later this year.

I really want to thank Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and the Brisbane City Council for acting so swiftly, because they too are seized by the importance of tackling traffic congestion in our local area. I'd like to say that all levels of government are seized by that opportunity but they are not. Unfortunately, the Labor state government continues to obfuscate, delay and stall our very dedicated efforts to fix local traffic congestion in the Ryan electorate, including in the western suburbs. The bottleneck just down the road, on Moggill Road at the Kenmore roundabout, is unfortunately another story entirely. During the last federal election, again I was successful in fighting for and securing funding of $12.5 million for this much-needed project. It was then a long and gruelling local campaign, along with Dr Christian Rowan, who is the state member for Moggill—the LNP state member, I might add—to drag the state Labor government, kicking and screaming, to match that funding. They finally did that in September 2019. Since then, we have unfortunately heard crickets. We've been persistently lobbying them to get on with the job. Finally, now in 2021—another 18 months later—they've managed to release some draft plans for consultation. Again, I really want to encourage all local residents, because they know their suburbs the best. I grew up at Moggill—my family is still there, and I know what it is to drive through that roundabout every day. The residents are the ones with the local knowledge, so I really urge you to give your feedback to the TMR officials, who are leading that consultation process, and myself, so that I can fight to ensure that we get the best outcome out of this $25 million upgrade. We fought for the funding for so long. The consultation is currently open, so please be part of that.

Another example of where the state Labor government have been, unfortunately, dragging their feet is with the funding that the federal government has provided as part of the appropriation bills—that is, the $10 million to do a scoping study to upgrade the Metroad 5. This is something that is dear to the member for Brisbane's heart, as well as mine. As it is, the member for Dickson is also keen on this. The three of us, together along with the member for Petrie, are all seizing on the importance of upgrading the Metroad 5. It is a very, very difficult and congested road to navigate for everyone from Bardon, in my electorate, and in Ashgrove, in the member for Brisbane's electorate, to right along that corridor. The federal government put $10 million on the table to find out what it would cost and what a larger upgrade would achieve. We would love to see something come out of that planning study from the state government so that we can help ensure that we fight for that funding. You've got at least four federal MPs who are very keen to fight for an upgrade and funding for Metroad 5. It would be great for the state government to get off their hands and use that $10 million that has been provided to them from the federal government to present us with some options we can fight for on behalf of local residents.

I am pleased to say, because the Morrison government has made another commitment of $112 million to duplicate the Centenary Bridge, the work is progressing on that with the state government. I will certainly do everything in my power to make sure that we hold them to account. All of those funding commitments—the $112 for the Centenary Bridge; the $10 million for the Metroad 5; the $12.5 million for Kenmore and the $50 million for Indooroopilly—all adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars that I have fought for and have secured and that the Morrison government has provided in just the last few years, since I was elected in 2019. It shows what can be achieved when local members work together. I'm proud to say that I worked together with my LNP colleagues at the state and local government level to help fix local roads and help reduce congestion for local residents.

We're also contributing to a significant project: the Gresham Street upgrade. To all those residents in The Gap, don't worry. Although a lot of that previous funding has gone to the western suburbs corridor, there is plenty of funding for residents at The Gap and elsewhere in the electorate, including for the Gresham Street Bridge. I know that community has been waiting on that for a long time. The Brisbane City Council is getting it underway, because of funding from the federal government. And we're fixing other black spots like that, at the entrance of St Lucia, which is a key local safety upgrade.

While I still have time I want to mention that the electorate of Ryan is home to the Gallipoli Barracks in Enoggera, so we have a fantastic veteran community. Many soldiers, after they retire from the forces, continue to call the local electorate of Ryan their home, and our community is all the better for it. I'm always conscious of delivering funding and services for our veteran community. That includes significant funding that has come from the Morrison government saluting our service grants. One, in particular, has funded a project for the Royal Australian Regiment Corp to assist and restore the forecourt of the Contemplation Building and the RARC National Memorial Walk, which is a very, very important project.

Another for the Moggill Historical Society has been used to publish important biographies of those locals who served in the Second World War. I've spoken to them about that and seen some of their fantastic historical work that they are undertaking. It's great to see that preserved in print for the long term.

We've also got $100,000 in federal funding, that came out of the recent budget and appropriations bills, that is going to go to a brand-new Australian cadet unit, the first ever at Brookfield, which is being supported by the fantastic team at the Kenmore Moggill RSL. I was very pleased to get behind this project and secure this funding. The values that a cadet unit instils in our young Australians are so very important in this world, where you can otherwise get lost in social media and a very much selfish society from time to time. The commitment to serve that the cadet unit instils in our young women and men is to be applauded. I'm very pleased to support it and these appropriations bills more generally.

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