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

Firstly, I just want to acknowledge the presence of the minister in the chamber this afternoon. I've been fighting for heavy passenger rail to come into the Sunshine Coast since I was elected to this place in 2016. I should say also that the member for Fairfax and I have been working assiduously on this. When the Sunshine Coast was first developed over a hundred years ago, people settled inland, in what is now the hinterland. The rail line was built in the hinterland. That rail line is now well over a hundred years old. From Beerburrum, it is only a single track going north, and it's interesting that that same single track going north—I want to acknowledge the former minister for infrastructure and cities, who has just walked into the chamber and who the member for Fairfax and I worked very closely with when we were in government.

The people of the Sunshine Coast have been absolutely screaming out for this project. We are the ninth-largest city in the country. We are growing exponentially. When I move around the electorate, as I often do, and hold my listening posts, infrastructure, road and rail are very constant issues that are brought up by my electorate, because at the moment there is no rail actually on the coast, unlike, say on the Gold Coast. If someone who lives on the Sunshine Coast, right on the coast, wants to jump on the train and go to Brisbane, they have to travel more than 25 minutes inland to catch a train. Over 100 years ago, that's where the settlement was. Nobody wanted to live on the coast. Everyone wanted to live in the hinterland. That's obviously changed, and we've got more than 80 per cent of our population living on the coast rather than in the hinterland, so there is a misalignment there with public transport.

One of the major problems that we have in my electorate is the lack of public transport. I also want to acknowledge the member for Fairfax, who's just walked into the chamber. It seems that everybody who's had something to do with this project is in the chamber. You know what they say: success has many parents, and failure is an orphan. But I do want to acknowledge the member for Fairfax and the work that he has done, and, of course, I acknowledge the former infrastructure minister. But do you know what? I'm going to give credit where credit is due, because the current infrastructure minister—and I hope she's not the current infrastructure minister for too long; no offence, Minister, but we'll be doing everything we can to take the job off you—has retained the $1.6 billion that the former infrastructure minister worked so hard with the Treasurer and the Prime Minister to get in the budget.

I think that for as long as I am on my two feet I'll remember where I was. I was actually having a shave, and I had a phone call from the former infrastructure minister. There I am, looking in the mirror and having a shave, and he says, 'Congratulations, Andrew: you've just got $1.6 billion in the March budget.' I think I cut myself at that point when he said that, and I said, 'Paul, did you say "billion" with a b? ' and he said, 'Andrew, that's "billion" with a b.' I knew that our hard work with the member for Fairfax had paid off, and I want to thank him and thank all those who were involved in that project, because this is a project that has been such a long time in the making.

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