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

The golden age. We offered $160 million. That was scrapped altogether as a result of the 90-day review. It was scrapped, gone. But guess what? Not only is this the Sunshine Coast's most dangerous intersection, where you've got lanes coming in all over the place and merging—it is a really dangerous intersection—but we offered to fix it. We offered to pay half of it. They scrapped it. But it gets worse, because the state government—same party—about a week after the announcement was made to withdraw $160 million, sent the bulldozers in and demolished 100 houses in the middle of the worst housing crisis that I have seen in my 56 years. They bulldozed 100 houses to make way for an Mooloolah River interchange upgrade that now is not going to happen. Can anybody explain to me the wisdom of governments where the federal government not only cut that $160 million but also, the very next week, sent the bulldozers in to demolish houses? Those people, those families that lived in those houses, would have been dislocated on the Sunshine Coast, because trying to find a house on the Sunshine Coast is like to find a needle in a haystack. It's almost impossible.

I'll give you another example: the $7 million that we contributed to Third Avenue access into Caloundra—cut through the 90 day review. That wouldn't be a rounding error for the federal government, and yet Labor cut it. It just makes no sense. The railway line that we committed to when we were in government from Beerwah to Maroochydore—this government and the state Labor government have cut it into a third. We are getting a third of the railway line for twice the price. That's what's happening to infrastructure under this federal government.

Finally, just to top off why this Labor government has no concept about regions, I had a ginger grower ask me to come to his farm the other day—a ginger grower in the Glass House Mountains, Jacques is his name—and he was telling me about the biosecurity tax that those members opposite wanted to introduce to require local growers to pay a tax on the protection of bringing other goods into this country. (Time expired)

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