Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Each of us come to this parliament for our own reasons and wanting to make our own contribution to the nation. But every single one of us have something in common—that is, we want to serve those constituents who sent us here. We do that in our own way. For me, in addition to keeping very close to my community, every quarter, once a season, I am out there for a full week under a marquee, meeting and greeting people. But I also, at times, like to pause and take the pulse of the electorate of Fairfax. I did that in the first half of this year through what I referenced as 'the Biggest Survey'. I rise today to talk about some of those key themes, to put them on the record, even though we've been acting on them since those results have come in. Before I mention those themes, I say a very big thank you to the 1,788 people who took the time to fill out the Biggest Survey. These were people from all walks of life, of every possible age, from every corner of the electorate and of every political persuasion.

On some of the key themes that came out: you won't be surprised that the No. 1 issue related to cost of living. Indeed, a staggering 85 per cent of people said that their daily life, their family budget, had gotten so much harder over the 12-month period beforehand—in other words, since this Labor government came to office. In regard to energy prices, we know that, all up, people had probably been paying an extra $1,000 more than they should have been paying over that period of time. A lot of households in my electorate carry mortgages of around $750,000. They are paying an extra $22,000 a year because of mortgages going up. Staple food products, whether that be milk, bread and so forth, have gone up by well over 10 per cent. People are hurting, and they certainly let me know through that survey.

The second big issue that came up was the need for better hospitals and health outcomes. These are typically state issues, and there's no doubt that the Queensland government is failing on those fronts, whether it be on ramping, bed numbers, lack of transparency or hospital data.

The third point was the need to ensure we have a strong economy, not as an end in itself but because a strong economy is the means by which you give opportunities to people and provide vital services. But because we've had an increase in taxes, whether it be the carbon tax, the T-bone tax, the truckie tax or the farmers tax, taxes are making it harder to grow the economy. I'll keep listening, keep fighting and keep acting for the people of the Sunny Coast.