Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I speak on the Special Recreational Vessels Amendment Bill 2021 and to follow on from my good friend and colleague the member for Dawson and his comments. He spoke at length about the value of superyachts to local communities up and down the Queensland coast. I would add that I am sure across the north of Australia and down the west coast they would equally love visits by superyachts. He also spoke about the impact on local businesses as a result of those yachts docking and spending time there and investing in our local communities $50,000 or $60,000 a week.

I would like to take a slightly different tack, Deputy Speaker Vasta, because, as you well know in your wonderful electorate of Bonner and in my electorate of Forde and just across the highway in the electorate of Fadden, we have two of the most modern superyacht refit facilities in Australia, with both looking to invest significant amounts as a result of the legislation we passed in 2019. I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, the member for Dawson and others in this place, myself included, spent a lot of time in 2019 to get to this point. We know from the discussions that we've had with people like Rivergate Marine on the Brisbane River and Tony Longhurst of the Boat Works down at Coomera the value of the initial legislation we passed in 2019. This bill seeks to extend that sunset clause from 30 June 2021 to 30 June 2023. I think that's a terrific decision given the impact of COVID right across our economy but also on the superyacht industry.

The reason I support this legislation and support the original legislation is the investment that this is going to bring to our communities. Whilst Rivergate and the Boat Works are not physically in my electorate, I know from my discussions with the owners of both of those superyacht facilities the number of people who work in those facilities who live and work in my electorate of Forde. So it's not just what happens on the precinct at the marina; it's what happens crossed South East Queensland and also, by extension—as the member for Dawson has very well articulated—what happens right across Queensland and our broader economy. Whether it is the beautiful Southern Moreton Bay Islands on the Gold Coast or Moreton Bay, in the member for Bonner's electorate, Hervey Bay, the Whitsundays, Cairns and further afield, it is a tremendous opportunity for us as a nation.

I will first look at the Boat Works. Over the past couple of years, they've spent nearly $100 million in upgrading their facilities to build a 25-acre superyacht facility. But, now, given the interest that has occurred—and I know that there are many, many Australians now buying their own superyachts and bringing them back to Australia, which is generating an awful lot of business as well—Tony Longhurst, the owner of Boat Works, is talking about bringing forward the development of stage 4, which would allow the construction of five new supersheds to accommodate 40 metre-plus vessels. They expect to have $300 million worth of boats there and over a thousand people on site on any one day. The 2019 legislation that we are now amending has resulted in creating the opportunity for people like Tony Longhurst and others to invest very, very significant amounts of money in our economy, creating jobs and economic opportunity.

In addition, I would like to touch on Rivergate, which I know is in your electorate, Deputy Speaker Vasta. They are proposing to spend $200 million on the redevelopment of that marina and facilities to build the largest superyacht refit and maintenance hub in the Asia-Pacific. Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, you and I have visited there a number of times. Currently they have 21 tenants, 320 contractors across 20 trades and a 105-berth marina. But what they are planning to do with this $200 million investment will more than double that. I know from the last time we were there visiting some of those small businesses that many of those tenants and contractors are in their own right small-business owners, and they do a fabulous job each and every day servicing our marine industry.

The other part of this which we haven't touched on yet—and I know from the discussions that we've had with Rivergate and also with the Boat Works—is when these superyachts are in town to be refitted the crew has to be housed and accommodated. So our hotels in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast are benefiting from these refit facilities because the crews from those boats are accommodated in our hotels. They go out shopping, go to our restaurants, have some entertainment, go on tours and take up the fabulous tourism opportunities that we have around the south-east of Queensland. All of those flow-on benefits reflect in our economy. Some of those crews might be there for three to six months depending on the size of the refit of the particular superyacht. These are business opportunities that, prior to this legislation in 2019, very rarely existed. It was mainly Australian superyachts that were serviced at Rivergate, and certainly the Boat Works didn't have those facilities back then.

We can see a simple change in legislation by this government in 2019 is now being extended through these amendments. I hope, in all honesty, it's made permanent so we don't have to revisit this every few years, because, as the member for Dawson well articulated, I think the strictures that were put on this by those opposite don't stand up to the realities of what actually goes on in this industry in the cold, hard light of day. But that's not unusual for those opposite, because they don't understand business in the first place. I'm proud to say that it is this government that is leading now through the legislation we have passed, which is now leading to multimillion-dollar investments in our economy.

If we look at the build of these superyacht and refit facilities, it's not just now the shipwrights, the upholsterers, the sandblasters and all the tradesmen that operate in those facilities that benefit; it's also all of the contractors that have to build these new facilities—the concreters, the people that make the sheds, the sparkys, the carpenters. All of these tradespeople as well as all of those employed to work on maintaining these boats live in all of our electorates across the south-east. Right across South-East Queensland, across all of our electorates, everybody benefits.

As I spoke about last night on a separate subject, defence procurement, the supply chain across this industry is enormous. Many of the raw materials and products that are required to refit these boats are sourced locally across South-East Queensland and are not available more generally in Australia. So our Australian economy benefits right across the board, whether it is, as the member for Dawson has outlined, that they are in port in the Whitsundays, going and visiting local tourist attractions, restocking their pantries, restocking their cellars, filling up with fuel and all of those sorts of things—that specific spend in those communities where they actually stop to do the tours—or in communities like ours, where they're actually stopping for the boats to be refitted and upgraded. Right across the board, as a direct result of the decisions this government made back in 2019, we are seeing hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on upgrading facilities to service these yachts because of the opportunities this government has created. We're seeing hundreds of jobs created and we're seeing wealth created in this country. I commend this bill in its original form to the House. It's just another example of this government continuing to deliver for our local communities and for Australia.

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