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

The Sunshine Coast is one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia. Data suggests we're growing by about 8,000 new residents every single year. The population of the Sunshine Coast at the moment is about 350,000 people. By 2041, it will have reached half a million people. We can look at these statistics and we can take pride in the fact that we are a lifestyle capital. We can take pride in the fact we are such an attractive region that other people want to come and join us. However, we have to also recognise that there are growing pains here. When a region grows at such a pace, it is absolutely critical that we have infrastructure being built ahead of the population curve, and this is a massive challenge on the Sunshine Coast.

It also explains why I've been working so closely with my colleagues—in particular Llew O'Brien to my north and Andrew Wallace to my south—to ensure that, as a team, we go in to bat for our broader region to make sure that we unlock the capital required to ensure infrastructure keeps up with that population growth. It is why we have successfully achieved an outcome of $3.2 billion for upgrades to the Bruce Highway. It is how we were able to unlock a $181 million concessional loan to ensure the Sunshine Coast Airport could be turned into an international airport. It also explains why we were able to achieve a $390 million contribution from the former coalition government for an upgrade to the rail line, the B2N line, with upgrades through to Nambour.

It also explains why we were successful in ensuring that we had money put aside for rail through to the coastal strip. For the first time ever, we now have rail funding allocated, with the rail going on to the coastal strip of our region. We have $2.75 billion now allocated from the federal government towards that $5.5 billion total envelope of funding when you add the state government's contribution. It's a reminder, too, of what it means to be a federal MP, to be given the honour to serve your local community. Down here in parliament, there's always a lot of talk, chatter, and words that are said. Ultimately, we are judged by our performance and what we do. I'm proud to say that working as a team with my colleagues on the Sunshine Coast, we have gotten stuff done. Indeed, between getting elected in 2016 and the end of the coalition government in 2022, I can't find a region in Australia that received as much federal government funding for infrastructure as we did on the Sunshine Coast. This is all about ensuring we work as a team and go after what the Sunshine Coast needs most.

This leads me to talk about the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This will certainly be one of the greatest events Australia has ever hosted. Indeed, it will be the greatest of all time. When it comes to the Sunshine Coast's role in the 2032 Games, there are a string of sports that we will be hosting on the coast, including the marathon, road cycling, mountain biking, kiteboarding and the football and basketball preliminaries, as well as the marathon and road cycling for the Paralympics.

I remember very well that, in the former government, I played that role as the Prime Minister's representative and leader of the negotiations on behalf of the federal government to secure that 2032 bid. I remember being very proud of those sports that we were able to carve out for the Sunshine Coast. So much as I'm a sports fanatic, as much as any person is in Australia—we Australians love our sport—we can't lose sight of why we went after the Games in the first place. It wasn't to host the Games per se. It wasn't about our love of sport. In truth, we went after the opportunity to host the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games because it provided South-East Queensland with an opportunity to unlock capital to build infrastructure for our future. That wasn't a secret plan. In fact, we were very upfront with the Olympic movement at the time. The IOC embraced that. Under their 'new norms', as they call it, their vision for future Olympic and Paralympic Games is not that the host region change its area so that it can fit the Games but rather that the Games change what it does to fit the future vision of that area; in other words, a vision where the local community is empowered to leverage the Games to create the future they envisage for their own residents, for their own nation. It's with that spirit that we decided to bid for the 2032 Games, and we won that bid.

This takes me to the importance of ensuring the Sunshine Coast wins regarding infrastructure for our future as we prepare for the Games. There are two particular projects I want to point to: (1) I believe the single greatest game-changing infrastructure we can have on the Sunshine Coast is heavy passenger rail running along the CAMCOS corridor along the coastal strip; and (2) I believe it's high time the Sunshine Coast had a multipurpose convention centre. Both of these things are not new ideas for the Sunshine Coast, but what we've been lacking up until only a few years ago was the catalyst to bring these projects on to accelerate the delivery of projects we need for our future. Therein lay the key to the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It allowed us to secure funding that otherwise would not be available.

A multipurpose convention centre should be based on the grounds of the new CBD in Maroochydore. That is why the basketball preliminaries were so important to the Sunshine Coast when we secured the games. Now there are two options: either you hold the basketball preliminaries at Kawana, or you hold them in Maroochydore. I recognise that the former council of the Sunshine Coast wanted them to be held at Kawana. I disagreed with them then, and I still disagree now with those who insist that it should be held at Kawana.

There are good reasons why we need to ensure that we don't just have all basketball courts consolidated at Kawana, but the real reason I want it at Maroochydore is because, by hosting the basketball preliminaries at Maroochydore, we have the opportunity to leverage public funding together with private capital to build that multipurpose convention centre as a lasting legacy for generations to come. And so, as the state government now reviews what should happen with managing the games after really going in the slow lane under the former Palaszczuk-Miles government, I am unashamedly still out there, putting forward the very case I put forward when we put our bid on the table for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the first place—basketball preliminaries at Maroochydore. Why? Because our region deserves a multipurpose convention centre.

Secondly, it's rail. The basic thinking about having an Olympic sport at Maroochydore was a provided rationale for bringing rail off the existing line along the coastal strip all the way up to Maroochydore to ensure that, as people attended the games from around the world, they could get to those preliminaries. At the very least, they also needed to get to the games very early in the morning to watch the marathon. Of course, despite the fact we carved out money for the rail, both the Albanese government and the Palaszczuk-Miles government stalled the project for three years, amidst a hyperinflationary environment, so of course the price tag has gone up. The former Labor state government suggested it could be as high as $12 billion. We need to unite as a region and continue to advocate for that rail line as part of an integrated system with a mass transit solution.