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

It is a great pleasure to rise to speak on this MPI today. I thank the Labor members for bringing it forward, because it gives me the opportunity to talk about the most important thing for my electorate of Ryan, which is infrastructure and tackling congestion, which is what this government is all about.

I have considered that, in fact, the most important issue for the Labor members is not anything that they have raised throughout this debate but is what occurred in question time, when the Leader of the Opposition was caught out blatantly recycling and plagiarising a previous Labor election commitment that the people of Australia have already thoroughly rejected twice. If that's the best that Labor MPs can do, then you know that they're not far away from recycling some of their other policies, such as the retiree tax, the property tax and the reckless spending they undertook during the GFC. That is of particular concern to my electorate because, at the end of the day, if you can't manage money, if you can't manage the budget, then you can't deliver infrastructure, and this is the pitfall that befalls every Labor government at every level. They simply cannot manage money, and that is the brick wall that we in Queensland are butting our heads up against with the Queensland Labor government.

The member for Ballarat said something that I actually agree with. It was the only thing that she said that I agree with. She characterised this government's infrastructure spending as 'writing cheques that will never be cashed'. Well, that is the problem that we have in Queensland. We keep writing cheques to the Queensland state Labor government and they keep refusing to cash them. It is unbelievable. What do you have to do to get a Labor MP or a Labor government at any level to actually build infrastructure? Right now the Morrison government and the Queensland MPs are doing the heavy lifting. They are certainly putting the money on the table when it comes to projects—and I'll take you through a few projects in my electorate where we have done exactly that—but we can't get Mark Bailey to stop playing politics and simply cash a cheque and put a shovel into the ground.

I do take umbrage with some of the comments from the Labor MPs that Queensland hasn't done well out of this budget. Queensland has done exceptionally well out of this budget, particularly—not only but particularly—because Queensland is the only state with a signed-up federal agreement to fund 50 per cent of an Olympics bid for our city and our region in South-East Queensland—50 per cent of the vital infrastructure that we will need to deliver. There is $5.8 billion waiting in the wings of this budget if Brisbane and South-East Queensland can be supported by the Labor state government to win the 2032 Olympic bid. That will see a new infrastructure boon for my city of Brisbane and my electorate of Ryan. It comes on top of a $110 billion infrastructure pipeline that the Morrison government is already investing in Queensland. It is significant. It is part of our road to recovery, it's part of creating jobs and it's part of reducing congestion.

But what I expect to hear from the Leader of the Opposition tonight—and what we have been hearing from Mark Bailey and the Queensland Labor government for years and years—is the Albo 'go slow' on our roads. They will hold up the 'go slow' sign and they will just refuse to get on with putting a shovel in the ground, despite the funding that has been put forward and continues to be put forward by the Morrison government. For example, the last two years that I have been elected to this place has seen $230 million—in the space of two years—be committed to my electorate to fund the upgrade of local roads. Yet one of those commitments, $12.5 million for the Kenmore roundabout, is entirely a state responsibility. The federal government need not have got involved. The only reason we are involved is that the state Labor government has committed no money to the western suburbs of Brisbane for over a decade. We got involved and put $12.5 million on the table, and it took two years just for Mark Bailey to issue a press release to say that he had matched the funds. It took two years just to acknowledge that the funding was there. How frustrating! What a frustrating way for the Labor Party to treat the residents and the people of my electorate in Ryan and the Brisbane western suburbs.

That is not how this government behaves. This government is about successfully managing our finances. We will keep pouring more money into infrastructure and we ask for Albo and the Labor Party to get out of the way and let us get on with the job.

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