Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A condolence motion for the people of Russell and Macleay Islands: both of those communities live on Moreton Bay islands on almost completely unsealed side roads. There are about 270 communities around Queensland with populations of more than 500 people, but only these two live on unsealed roads.

It's a quirk of history that, back in the seventies, a very smart property developer dropped a flyscreen onto these islands, subdivided them into small lots and managed to flog them off in the open market—mostly to unaware interstate buyers. A lot of these blocks were underwater. It's a convoluted history that brings us to this point, where a relatively small council, Redland City Council, is now responsible for the sealing of hundreds of kilometres of roads on completely unsewered islands. We're not talking about Brisbane, with a population of over a million people; Queensland is famous for big councils, but Redland is not one of them. It bears the entire burden of sealing the roads on these islands, and it's not an easy task.

The current mayor has invested well over $10 million to ensure that that occurs. That has sealed about 42 kilometres of road. It's called green sealing, and it's a very efficient way of ensuring that the silica based materials that are typically used on these sorts of roads are covered up. It has a big role. There are very windy conditions at Moreton Bay, and a lot of the silica basically blows off the top into the gutters, and, ultimately, onto verandahs and into people's homes. We're discovering only now just how concerned we all should be about silica in an occupational sense. Here are people living just metres away from heavy vehicles, like garbage trucks, as well as cars—often speeding—going around corners and covering these houses in silica dust.

Imagine how disappointed I was to learn that, just as the federal government is for the first time making significant investments over and above the payments we give to the local government to seal the roads on those islands, the Redland City Council overruled the mayor and blocked all green sealing on those islands. That's a catastrophe. It's a common stunt, of course: often a councillor for a particular area will vote for something, but the others will collude to ensure it doesn't happen. I suspect that's what happened here. Mainland councillors, all of whom live in leafy surrounds with sealed roads, are basically killing off the green seal program run by the council and the last hope of these residents to live the life that the rest of Australia enjoys—a sealed road, for goodness sake, that doesn't cover their lives in silica dust.

Ross Byrne spoke on radio yesterday; he gave an interview with Steve Austin pointing out the incredible injustice that is being perpetrated on these islands. The state government, which ultimately has these councils as body corporates of its own operation, is not giving a cent to seal the roads. The way we seal these roads will be slow but assiduous, through a level of government funding to make sure the job gets done. There's no point arguing over history; we've just got to get it done, and it's not happening at the moment. I encourage those at state level—Kim Richards, the state Labor MP—to fight hard, work with the mayor and reinstate the green seal program. Currently it's only the coalition government that is sealing the roads on those islands.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 11:00