Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2020-2021. There are many important parts of the government's investment agenda, but perhaps none as long-awaited and much needed as the Morrison government's program of infrastructure on the Sunshine Coast. Under this coalition government the Sunshine Coast has seen more investment of federal government funds in transport infrastructure than ever before.

Sunshine Coast locals are well aware of the transformational change going on in our region, and most understand the pivotal role that this government's investment has played. Apparently the only person who has missed this investment in our community is Queensland state Labor minister for transport Mark Bailey. It is a sign of how little interest Minister Bailey has in the Sunshine Coast that he knows absolutely nothing about the federal government's $3½ billion worth of works underway or in the pipeline in our region right now. On a near weekly basis he appears in the Sunshine Coast media, parading his abject ignorance of all that the federal government is doing in our community. All he can do is call ever more for Commonwealth funds to bail him out on projects for which the state is wholly responsible and on which the state has wholly failed. Residents of the Sunshine Coast are rightly concerned about the competence of a state government minister who not only refuses to do his job in providing a fair share of state government infrastructure spending to our region but is apparently totally uninformed about the many major Commonwealth funded projects underway on the coast today—especially when you consider that it is his department which is responsible for the construction of most of them.

For the avoidance of doubt, and for the education of Minister Bailey, I will use my time today to review the unprecedented strategic investment the Morrison government is making in infrastructure on the Sunshine Coast and compare it to the meagre scraps tossed by the Queensland Labor government to our long-suffering region. Though you wouldn't know it from the number and range of projects we are undertaking on the coast, the Commonwealth government is responsible for only one piece of infrastructure in our region—the Bruce Highway. Unlike the state Labor government, we are not just living up to our responsibilities; we are far exceeding them. In my electorate of Fisher locals will be very familiar with the upgrades currently nearing completion on the Bruce Highway between Caloundra Road and the Sunshine Motorway. These upgrades are adding an extra lane each way between these two intersections, creating more than 100 kilometres of ancillary roads, and upgrading two dangerous interchanges to create capacity for more vehicles. The federal government is contributing $745.6 million to this project. The state government is just contributing $186.5 million.

Work has also begun on a major upgrade of Caboolture-Bribie Island Road to the southern Steve Irwin Way intersection. This section of the highway is getting an additional lane each way, with upgraded bridges along the entire stretch. The Morrison government is paying $530 million towards this upgrade. Mark Bailey and his colleagues in state Labor are paying just $132½ million.

It's the same story up and down the Bruce Highway between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane. Upgrades which will directly benefit my constituents are underway or in the pipeline for the Deception Bay interchange, where the federal government is contributing $130 million compared to the state government's $32 million; between the Mons Road and Maroochydore Road interchanges, where the federal government is contributing $241 million compared to Labor's $60 million; and between Pine River and Caloundra Road, where the federal government is paying $84 million compared to the state's $21 million. In total the federal government is investing more than $3.2 billion in improvements to the Bruce Highway between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, which constitutes an unprecedented investment in my community and is four times the amount that Minister Bailey and state Labor have committed.

This is far from the end of the Morrison government's investment in our community. While the Bruce Highway has always been a shared responsibility between the Commonwealth and state governments, on a 80 to 20 split, rail in Queensland is the sole domain of the state government. After decades of neglect from successive Queensland Labor governments, however, the north coast rail is in a parlous state. Operating on a single track in parts, more than a century old and located nowhere near the coast's contemporary population centres this rail is in desperate need of upgrades.

In the face of continuing inaction from Labor something drastic had to be done. The coalition federal government has once again stepped up and offered to pay a full 50 per cent of the cost of the duplication of the north coat rail at a cost of $390 million to the federal government. Did Mark Bailey and state Labor accept this half price payment? Did they accept it gratefully? Not on your nelly. They simply demanded more. Minister Bailey offered a pathetic $161 million, just 20 per cent of the funds we need. As a result the project has had to be scaled back to a bare minimum, disappointing resident throughout my region.

However, Mark Bailey's rail fail does not end there. The existing north coast rail line is located some 20 kilometres inland from the major population centres of Caloundra, Kawana and Maroochydore. It's clear that transformative change for our community could be delivered by the construction of a new heavy rail line along the already reserved land corridor through these population centres and on to Brisbane via Beerwah.

Following my advocacy for the project, the Morrison government invested $6.75 million in a detailed business case for fast rail along the corridor, which has just been evaluated by Infrastructure Australia. However, despite its great value to our community, Infrastructure Australia has not named it on their priority project list. Why? I hear you ask. Why wouldn't they do this? Because so lazy, and contemptuous of our communities, is Minister Mark Bailey that the Queensland Labor government have refused to even agree in principle to build the project, even if funding had been arranged. It's the federal government that's doing the heavy lifting on the Bruce Highway in my community. On rail it's the federal government that's making a difference for Sunshine Coast residents. Most damming for this Queensland state Labor government, however, even on state government roads of our region it is the federal government that's having to take the lead.

Steve Irwin Way is one of the coast's most important state government roads. As I have seen on my 'tour de fisher' rides around the region, it's dangerous and getting older as we speak. We have committed $14.4 million to upgrading the Steve Irwin Way on a safety package. The state government, on its own road, just $3.6 million. In Kawana and Caloundra we have many extremely congested state government roads: Kawana Way, Nicklin Way, Caloundra Road. They're already at more than capacity during peak hour and the situation is only deteriorating. Minister Bailey's response to this dire situation has been a traffic light here, a traffic light there, an additional lane around a roundabout. It is not good enough. Sunshine Coast residents demand more from this Labor state government than what they are getting. I see this being repeated right across the great state of Queensland. Even with the smallest of our council and state government roads the state is doing very little, if anything, to assist.

You compare that to what we're doing in the federal government: providing $12 million for a brand new bridge over the Mayes Canal on Brisbane Road to assist the council with their Mooloolaba transport corridor upgrade. Between February 2020 and today the Morrison government has delivered $5.2 million in funding for safety upgrades of more local and state government roads across the region. Why are we doing this? Because the state is nowhere to be seen. Quite frankly, unfortunately, the more this federal government puts in and saves this hapless state government the more they demand. We have created a noose around our neck by continuing to help this state government, but we have got to do that because our Queensland residents demand more than what they are getting from the state. The problem with this, of course, is the more we do the more the state government just takes a back seat.

The Queensland government is very happy to create a top-down population plan in South-East Queensland. It wants to introduce another 170,000 people into my electorate but is not prepared to lift a finger to provide the funding we need for it. Enough is enough. It's time for Minister Bailey and the Queensland state Labor government to get on and help support the Sunshine Coast.

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