Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection. Mr Entsch did nothing. I have been talking about this for nearly 10 years. All of that time I have been promoting the rights and needs of people of the Torres Strait. It took the election of a Labor government to get a commitment from Minister Wong to do some baseline mapping of where the sea level is in the Torres Strait. We did not even know that: 10 years of Liberal government could at least have done the basic mapping. The second step has been Labor announcing $12 million to build seawalls to protect communities in the Torres Strait. I very much look forward to those seawalls being constructed.

Other RDA projects funded in the north include the ACT for Kids project, investing $4.6 million for the ACT for Kids Child and Family Centre of Excellence in Townsville, which will support abused children not only in the Townsville region but right across the north. There is also funding for the Mackay regional events centre. In regional aviation we have seen the Horn Island airport provided with $5.09 million towards its $9 million upgrade. That airport has been calling for an upgrade for years to allow more seats and more services to and from the Torres Strait. The Mornington Island upgrade has also been delivered. If you look at the global figures on regional aviation, the Labor government has invested $145 million in remote facilities and services in the six years since 2008. Compare that with the $16 million that the Howard government invested in the six years before. These are the facts and they are in the budget papers. This is what has happened and I hope people take the opportunity to make a comparison.

Add to that the work that we have done in health and education. Speaking of health, let's make some observations about what has happened in the north of Queensland. We have seen a bit of a test run, a trial run or a taste of what would occur if Mr Abbott were to assume the prime ministership of this country since the election of the Campbell Newman government in Queensland.