House debates
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Personal Explanations
4:06 pm
Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Yes.
Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
During question time the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government suggested that I had done nothing to upgrade the Bruce Highway in my electorate between Cooroy and Curra. That statement is untrue. It was the coalition government that completed the four lanes north to Cooroy. The next section of the highway had not been designed by the state Labor government and so we committed funding to a study that took two years to complete the route choice for the project. During that period we spent at least $250 million on upgrading sections of the highway. We committed to complete the whole 62-kilometre section by 2020 and committed $700 million of funding to start that work. Before the election, the Labor Party indicated it would spend only $200 million, taking $500 million off the project. The money announced by the government last night is to construct a section of the Bruce Highway between Cooroy and Curra which is to be flooded by the Traveston Crossing Dam. In other words, the government has funded a project that the Queensland government had promised to fund; in fact, the government was conned by the Queensland government into funding a project it had already funded.
Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! The member is starting to debate his personal explanation. The Leader of the National Party has explained where he claims to have been misrepresented.