Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, Mr Will Neville, Chairman of the Mission Beach Business and Tourism group, raised concerns on ABC radio today that contracts to rebuild their devastated community must give local people a fair go. I quote: ‘We don’t need to get steamrolled over the top.’ Given that the government’s BER school halls program shut out many local contractors, what assurances can you, Prime Minister, give to local builders and tradespeople in flood affected areas that they will get a fair go?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe that the member can be reassured that the rebuilding of Queensland—happening as it will through the Queensland Recovery Authority and through local councils, which is appropriate—will take into account the need for local businesses to be engaged with the rebuilding. If I can pass on a reflection from Victoria, when Victoria rebuilt after the devastating bushfire, one of the things that was discussed in that rebuilding was the need to ensure that the local economy also got the benefits of the money being spent on the rebuild.

Can I suggest to the local member the best thing to do? He will very frequently see in his community Major General Mick Slater, who chairs the Queensland Recovery Authority. I have been in communities with him. He has been everywhere and I suspect he will be everywhere on many, many, many occasions. It is the Queensland Recovery Authority that will deal, as necessary, with direct contracting and his local council, the Mission Beach local council, will also deal with direct contracting. Consequently, I would recommend to the member that he have those discussions with Mick Slater when he is available—he will be around Queensland—and with his local council to ensure money flows in his local community as he would desire to see it flow. I also say to the member that, before we get to that stage, you need to be able to finance the rebuilding. You need to be able to put the dollars in, which is why as a government we have announced a package—$5.6 billion—to rebuild the nation. Of course, we are very likely to see those estimates rise, and we need to also meet the reconstruction costs required after the cyclone, which he refers to, which hit Mission Beach.

Now, we have to fund that rebuilding. So you have to make some choices here—no lazy choices; no three-word slogans; no quick whiz-around with emails looking for suggestions about what to cut that will actually fix this for you. You have to stump up to the responsibility of making choices. I would say to the member opposite that it seems to me that it will be quite difficult for him to go to a community that has been so hard hit and say that he represents a political party that has been prepared to support a levy to fund its election promises but is not prepared to support a levy to rebuild Queensland. That is the essential choice facing members of this parliament.

I believe the member is a person of good will. I would suggest to him that he considers those questions and that he does not follow the Leader of the Opposition blindly down a narrow track of partisan political interests, with the national interest and the interests of Queensland swept to one side.