Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

City deals are meant to be a partnership between the federal, state and local governments to position Australia's population centres for the future. Yet, the Queensland state Labor government, along with its federal counterpart, have made it their full-time mission to screw the people of Townsville over at every opportunity.

The former coalition government entered the Townsville City Deal in good faith. In 2019, we committed $200 million to the Haughton pipeline, stage 2. That money was eventually rejected by the Labor led state government and local government some 12 months later due to a lie over GST. Today this is one of the biggest disasters of public work in the history of North Queensland. With a cost increase of 133 per cent, to $420 million, as well as a completion blowout, it has not seen a single drop of water flow.

Then we have Reef HQ, a project that was fully funded and ready to go—until the Labor government came to power, rescoped the project to a knockdown and rebuild, without any community consultation, and then failed to fund a replacement facility. The people of Townsville have now been waiting for over two years, with zero clarity on the future of Reef HQ. That is an entire generation of young people who have been failed by this miserable Albanese government.

Because that is not enough screwing by these inept career politicians who call themselves leaders, the people of Townsville have also now waited three years for a business case to be delivered on the Townsville concert hall project, another project funded by the former coalition government. We know from a slip-up by Labor's Townsville MP, Scott Stewart, that this project is all but dead in the water—if his federal and South-East Queensland puppetmasters get their way.

All three of these projects were funded, announced and ready to be delivered to the people of Townsville. Instead, the state and federal Labor governments have put their own cheap political thrills above practical, sensible outcomes. Incredibly, the deception worsens the longer this mess goes on. Since the community outcry following the Reef HQ debacle, the Albanese Labor government has been laying the foundations for a cynical ploy to fill the funding gap. The government is now asking the Townsville City Council whether it's still interested in the $100 million for the concert hall. Can you guess how much funding is needed by Labor to fund a rebuild of Reef HQ? $100 million. It's not one or the other; it's both projects that the people of Townsville deserve. The politicking is disgusting behaviour from people who are elected to do better. I call on them to be better. The future of Townsville depends on it.