Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in the parliament today and very strongly support the state Liberal National Party candidates in the Ryan electorate—the candidates for the state seats of Mount Ommaney, Indooroopilly, Moggill and Mount Coot-tha, who are all going to be fantastic in their efforts to take up the fight to the Bligh-Beattie Labor government. The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, has called the election in Queensland, and I think that all the constituents of those seats of Mount Ommaney, Indooroopilly, Moggill and Mount Coot-tha, which fall within the Ryan federal seat, will know full well that they have a very important decision. The decision is whether to re-elect a government that has been quite incompetent; a government that has been awash in GST revenue; a government that has been awash in the rivers of gold, as the Leader of the Opposition in Queensland, Lawrence Springborg, has said; a government that has had a decade of enormous revenue but unfortunately has wasted, has squandered and has mismanaged the Queensland economy to the extent where today the Queensland government has absolutely no respect in the international marketplace. It has no respect in the financial marketplace. The Government’s ability to govern, its ability to invest in projects of enormous significance off its own bat, is simply not there. Its AAA credit rating has fallen over the cliff and, as Lawrence Springborg said, not even the Premier of New South Wales managed to allow that. So that speaks loud and clear for the state of Queensland Labor Party management skills.

It is time for the Queensland Labor government to go. It is time for the people of Mount Ommaney, Indooroopilly, Moggill and Mount Coot-tha to endorse the LNP candidates very convincingly, because the Labor Party in Queensland has been in power now for nearly two decades, bar a couple of years of the Borbidge government. With all the infrastructure problems in Queensland, with all the mismanagement, with all the lack of investment in schools, it is just untenable that they could possibly be re-endorsed. So I say to all the people of Ryan, who at this coming state election will be voting in their respective state seats: I strongly encourage you to give your LNP candidates the most considered thought, because they will represent you. They will come to the new state parliament with energy, with enthusiasm and with a vision for a new Queensland. We have had two decades, nearly uninterrupted, of Labor politics and Labor government. It is now time for them to walk off into the sunset and to leave the Queensland parliament for a new era of strong administration under the coalition and under the leadership of Lawrence Springborg.