George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Again, I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2021-2021 at a time when the country is still recovering from the impacts of the pandemic, which has effectively reversed a lot of the good work that the government had done to properly manage national expenditure. It must be acknowledged, however, that the government's excellent fiscal management has put us in a recoverable position, rather than sending this country broke. A range of relief packages and incentives were rolled out for both workers and businesses to prevent job losses and business closures, and to enable our economy to recover quickly with minimal long-term impacts.

Further to these emergency measures, the Morrison Liberal-National government has been proactively investing in job-creating areas, such as manufacturing, upgrading our infrastructure, brokering new trade deals and upskilling the nation's workforce to encourage growth and to have a strong and prosperous future. Over the last few years, the federal government has invested more than $3 billion into the Dawson electorate and the surrounding regions. That has gone into the Bruce Highway and other critical roads, key infrastructure projects and local roads—

Mr Hill interjecting—

The member for Bruce loves that highway's name! He would love to know that around 390 kilometres of the Bruce Highway run straight through the heart of my electorate, from Mackay to Townsville. It's the most essential piece of infrastructure in North Queensland. This is recognised by the Morrison Liberal-National government through major investments in upgrades and projects on that highway.

There are projects such as the Horton River Floodplain Upgrade, a complete restructure of a 13½-kilometre section of the highway between Ayr and Townsville, including the raising of both lanes and the construction of a new bridge at a cost of just over half a billion dollars. This project will help to flood-proof the Bruce Highway and ensure that commuters, travellers and freight can all keep moving throughout heavy downpours, which are part and parcel of living in North Queensland—and part and parcel of what's happening in New South Wales at the moment too, sadly. It was also a great pleasure to attend the opening of the $497 million Mackay Ring Road stage 1 project in September of last year. That project has made huge improvements to safety in Mackay for local commuters. It has improved freight efficiency on the Bruce Highway, and it has reduced traffic congestion for local motorists throughout the centre of Mackay. We've seen $280 million of federal funding go to ring road stage 2, or the Mackay Port Access Road—a purpose-built road linking the Bruce Highway to the Mackay Harbour, maximising Mackay's import-export potential and taking all of the heavy vehicles off the smaller suburban roads. The $120 million Mackay Northern Access Upgrade Project is in full swing. That is another project which will significantly improve safety for locals and ease congestion through one of our busiest intersections by adding additional lanes as well as making important safety improvements. These are all significant road infrastructure projects throughout Dawson which will equip North Queensland with the tools to grow and give our communities the infrastructure they need, and deserve, to cope with that growth.

The Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program has provided over $5.8 million to four local councils in the electorate of Dawson which enabled them to deliver some necessary upgrades to local roads as well as to community infrastructure, such as playgrounds and parks. As well, $29.6 million from the Roads of Strategic Importance program has gone towards important upgrades on the Shute Harbour Road, which is the only road into the tourist haven of Airlie Beach. Airlie is the gateway to the beautiful Whitsundays. Most tourists who visit the island arrive via the Proserpine Airport or the Bruce Highway, and they have to go down Shute Harbour Road to get to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays. This road is a key access road for tourists visiting the Whitsundays. As our regional tourism industry bounces back and grows, we'll see this road being put under increasing demand, so I would call on the Queensland government, which has delayed and delayed and delayed accessing and using that funding, to get going because we want to see Shute Harbour Road improved and we particularly want to see that improved before we have tourism back in full swing. Now is the time to do it. Now is the time to get going. Please, state government, get going.

The Cannon Valley reservoir will deliver water to Airlie Beach, Cannonvale, Jubilee Pocket and Shute Harbour thanks to a $3.75 million upgrade project through the Building Better Regions Fund that the Morrison Liberal-National government has awarded to the Whitsunday Regional Council. A 12.5 megalitre bit of water infrastructure will ensure water security for the fastest-growing area of the Whitsundays well into the future. We are also getting big water security projects off the ground. Ten million dollars in funding was awarded to get the Urannah Dam project going. That is a one million megalitre water storage project. This dam will transform North Queensland. It will open up huge tracts of agricultural land and provide long-term water security for the region. The federal government's Supporting Reliable Energy Infrastructure Program has also provided an additional $2 million for planning work into the pumped hydro capabilities of Urannah Dam. Power generation is also going to enable the dam to tackle two of the biggest issues facing farmers today—water costs and power costs. Speaking of power costs, the Collinsville power station will bring down power prices in the north. Four million dollars was provided through the Supporting Reliable Energy Infrastructure Program to assess the case for a clean high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power station in North Queensland. That Collinsville power station will allow us to dig and burn our own beautiful coal and reduce household power prices, business power prices, industry power prices, agriculture power prices, and manufacturing industry power prices in the north.

It's interesting that we have this ethical dilemma, apparently, on the Left, where we can dig up the coal here in Australia and ship it overseas for places like Japan, China and other countries to burn in their ultra-supercritical HELE 'clean' coal-fired power stations. But, when we try to do it ourselves, it's crazy, it's unethical and it's harming the environment. That view, my friends, is nuts. We have to use our own coal to actually get cheaper power in this country. We can do that through the Collinsville Power Station.

We have also allocated over $10 million to the Great Barrier Reef Arena which will be built in Harrup Park, making Mackay the regional cricketing capital of the country. The state government did delay by about 18 months before matching funding, conveniently just before the last state election, for that project but that project is now going full steam ahead. There's going to be a lot of great matches held there. But before the matches are held, we have 18 months' worth of jobs and work—90 construction jobs, 90 ongoing jobs. That is what the Morrison Liberal-National government has delivered in community and sporting infrastructure in Mackay that is creating jobs. As I said, Mackay is now going to be the regional cricketing capital of the nation. We are going to have all sorts of events—big bashs, international events. It's going to be international broadcast standard. With all of those matches are going to come more tourists to our region, stimulating the local economy.

More than $5.8 million in Roads to Recovery funding, almost $200,000 in Black Spot funding, over $420,00 in Bridges Renewal funding, over $5.8 million in Building Better Regions funding has gone into the electorate of Dawson. There is Stronger Communities funding of $150,000 coming to a range of different local groups. Over $3.1 million in Community Development Grants Program funds and over $3 million in Regional Growth Fund is being delivered. Over $4,000,000 in Regional Jobs and Investment Packages funding is being delivered in the electorate. Financial assistance grants helping councils and defraying costs for ratepayers by almost $22.5 million is a substantial investment by this government in the electorate of Dawson.

I'm very proud to have overseen that as the local member but there are more matters than local that need to be fought for in this place. To that end, I have ummed and ahed about whether or not I was going to renominate as the member for Dawson and I have decided this very week that I will be doing that. I'm doing that for a very good reason. There are several things.

An opposition member: Shame.

On the left, I'm sure that they will say 'shame' because it will hopefully mean that I will be back here after the next election. But we need to deal with some serious issues in this place. I want voices here that are going to be fighting on those issues. I want to be one of those voices who are standing up on issues like the threat that big tech social media platforms and giants pose to free speech and democracy in this country; the existential threat that is posed to our nation, to our sovereignty, to our democracy, by The People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party; the threat that they pose to humanity through their persecution of Uighurs; their persecution of pro-democracy activists; their persecution of Hong Kong sovereignty activists; their threats towards Taiwan; their threats and persecution of people of faith. They all need to be dealt with. I want to be here to push our government and our side to legislate a Magnitsky act. That is something that is going to be important for protecting our democracy and sending a signal to these monsters in other countries that are not only undermining global law but are undermining human rights, and the CCP has got to be targeted.

It's a big call but I fear in the next decade that there is conflict coming in our part of the world. That is a serious, serious thing for any member of parliament to say but you only have to look at the geopolitical situation, read the tea leaves, to expect that that is probably going to happen. So I want to be part of the push to ensure that our critical supplies in this country—fuel, manufacturing of critical supplies—are sacrosanct, that we have that ability in this country before there is a substantial issue with shipping lanes because of international conflict. It is coming, and we need to be prepared in this place for that. I also want to continue to push on measures that are about the issue that I hold above every other issue—that is, protecting human life, including in the womb. That's why I'm going to continue to push for my Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill 2021, coming to this place as a private member's bill.

I also want to push against the new, woke, globalist, corporate push for the so called great reset. It has been called many names before. There are a lot of people who are going to be asking us to adopt these things. It's just socialism by any other name. What we need free enterprise again in this country to pick up, after the pandemic, for small business to go out there and create the jobs, create the investment and recreate this nation to make it great once again.

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