Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on behalf of my constituents, especially those who live in the suburbs of Nerang, Highland Park, Carrara, Worongary and Tallai, on the urgent need for direction from this Rudd Labor government on the outcome of $455 million in funding that the coalition announced prior to the last federal election. As a member of the former coalition government I was pleased, together with my colleague the member for Fadden, who joins me in the chamber today, and the member for McPherson, Margaret May, to announce the coalition’s ongoing commitment to the people of the Gold Coast through $455 million in funding to upgrade the M1 from Nerang to Tugun.

I have been alarmed that over the last six months the state Labor government and the Rudd Labor government have both been working in a conspiracy of silence to refuse to determine what will actually happen with the money. Recently I noted media comment in the Gold Coast Sun, as well as some informed sources from Brisbane, indicating that the Queensland Labor government intended to use—or perhaps the more appropriate phrase would be ‘to misuse’—that $455 million to upgrade the M1 in the Logan district rather than on the Gold Coast, where it is so desperately needed. Regrettably, I put a question directly to the minister for infrastructure and some 60 days later received two short sentences of reply, neither of which in any way brought me any confidence or joy that the Rudd Labor government had any regard for the urgent, desperate need that the people in the suburbs of Highland Park, Nerang, Carrara, Worongary and Tallai have to see the M1 widened between Nerang and Tugun. This builds off the weekend’s opening of the Tugun bypass, another project that was funded, to the tune of $120 million, by the Howard government.

Let me make it very clear for all of those in the chamber that the coalition takes its commitment to the Gold Coast, a city of 600,000 people, very seriously. I will continue to be an advocate for those people who live in the western suburbs of my electorate, who so desperately need this road to be widened between Nerang and Tugun, because the state government has walked away from its responsibilities to upgrade arterial roads in the vicinity. I absolutely condemn the infrastructure minister for refusing to honour the coalition’s commitment and for not making sure that this money is not siphoned off and used up the road in Brisbane. A city of 600,000 people deserves investment in infrastructure. The coalition was providing that investment. Now the state Labor government and the Rudd Labor government are turning their backs on the people of the Gold Coast and on the need our city has for infrastructure upgrades and, instead of being open, transparent and honest, are engaged in a conspiracy of silence. (Time expired)