Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. I have a point I want to make known to those people in Townsville and Townsville Enterprise Ltd, of whom I am a great supporter. Clearly Senator Brown—and the Labor Party who voted for him—have absolutely no idea of what Townsville Enter­prise does, what it has done in this report and what it generally does in a very positive way for the City of Townsville.

The amendment as it has been now carried talks about reducing housing supply pressur­es in Townsville through the redevelopment of the Lavarack Barracks. They may be reducing housing supply pressures but not through the redevelopment of Lavarack Barracks. Lavarack Barracks was extended, I might say, on an initiative of the Howard government in bringing the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment to Townsville and providing accommodation for them, and a lot of the activity relates to general positive development works not just in housing but right across the vein in Townsville, some $53 billion worth of development.

The amendment moved is simply nonsensical. It was done, obviously, by Senator Brown with his mates in the Labor Party to try and get some credit for the Labor Party putting some money in the 2011-12 budget. As I mentioned, these were initia­tives of the Howard government. I would not expect the Greens ever to acknowledge any­thing positive the Howard government did, like bringing the 3rd Battalion to Townsville and providing the initial stages of funding to facilitate that and the housing and other development which we needed in Townsville.