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RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS - Queensland Parliament ...

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2344 Appropriation (<strong>Parliament</strong>) Bill; Appropriation Bill 31 Oct 2012<br />

circumstance the Minister for Local Government did. Unfortunately, this is another thing that the Premier<br />

is in complete denial about—he just cannot believe that Country has beaten City. To the Minister for<br />

Local Government, I congratulate you on your ball-handling skills.<br />

Hon. SA EMERSON (Indooroopilly—LNP) (Minister for Transport and Main Roads) (11.55 pm): I<br />

rise to make a contribution to the estimates committee report of the Transport, Housing and Local<br />

Government Committee. Before I do so and in response to those comments about that touch football<br />

game, I do note that the member for Mulgrave was on the Country side. I do concede—begrudgingly—<br />

that Country did win and therefore for the only time this year the member for Mulgrave had a win. I thank<br />

not only all members of the committee but also the committee chair for his fine efforts on the day. The<br />

estimates committee looked at this budget and, as I said on the day, this budget has been formed within<br />

the context of very challenging fiscal circumstances. However, significant achievements for <strong>Queensland</strong><br />

are contained in that budget, for example, on roads and QTRIP. Here we saw a program that finally<br />

brought some honesty to this process, because the reality is that under the previous government we<br />

saw a con job on <strong>Queensland</strong>ers—projects that were promised that the previous government knew it<br />

had no dollars for, no money for, nothing on lay-by for. In fact, it promised things knowing that it did not<br />

have one dollar to deliver some of those programs. It promised more than $300 million worth of<br />

programs as opposed to this document—a document that is an honest record of what can be achieved<br />

with dollars that are there.<br />

With regard to the Bruce Highway, it is significant of course that throughout the time of that<br />

hearing I received not one question on the Bruce Highway from the shadow minister for main roads—<br />

not one question. That is significant because we know that the Labor Party has walked away from the<br />

Bruce Highway. In fact, what he heard tonight was weasel words from the shadow minister for main<br />

roads, who now claims that the report in the Cairns Post was wrong and that he was being paraphrased.<br />

Paraphrasing basically means that they are telling him what he said, and that is the reality. What he said<br />

in that document was that state money being spent on the Bruce Highway was misspending of state<br />

money. What a disgraceful situation, because this budget put the Bruce Highway front and centre and<br />

contained details of $200 million over the next four years as the first down payment on our promise of<br />

$1 billion over the next decade on the basis that the federal government will match that 80-20, because<br />

we are committed to the Bruce Highway. Why? Because the RACQ has been very clear that we need to<br />

spend money on the Bruce Highway to avoid 300 to 400 deaths over those years.<br />

Mr Dempsey: Did he ask a question on it? Did he ask a question?<br />

Mr EMERSON: No, not one question was asked about the Bruce Highway by the member for<br />

Mulgrave. That is the reality. Not one question was asked by him during that process.<br />

Mr PITT: I rise to a point of order. Mr Deputy Speaker, he may not be saying the words but I<br />

believe that the minister is reflecting on the fact that I was not in the hearing at that time. There is a<br />

longstanding tradition that you do not refer to a member’s absence from this chamber nor in the<br />

estimates process. I ask him to withdraw that comment. I was on legitimate business in India. It is pretty<br />

hard to be in the chamber when you are in India.<br />

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Berry): Order! Honourable minister, I am not asking you to withdraw<br />

it.<br />

Mr EMERSON: Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you. There is a record budget of $1.6 billion for public<br />

transport. It was extraordinary to see the member for South Brisbane try to manipulate the numbers,<br />

because the reality was that, under the previous government they changed the rules. They changed the<br />

methodology to try to make their numbers look better but the reality was that, under Labor, the annual<br />

reports showed year after year after year after year patronage of public transport falling. It has been only<br />

in the last quarter, with LNP policies on public transport, that we have seen a rise in patronage occur.<br />

Under Labor, it was an appalling situation. <strong>Queensland</strong> was possibly the only state in Australia to see<br />

public transport patronage fall.<br />

Then we saw the omission. There is no way it can be ignored that clearly the shadow minister for<br />

transport had not bothered to read the TransLink annual report. She asked why we had not published<br />

the patronage figures for Q4. The reality was that not only had we published them but also they had<br />

been tabled in parliament. We had to point out to the shadow minister for transport that they had been<br />

tabled in parliament—page 65 of the document. We have a lazy shadow transport minister who does not<br />

even have her own questions to ask; she relies only on repeating tweets off the social networking<br />

service.<br />

Hon. BS FLEGG (Moggill—LNP) (Minister for Housing and Public Works) (12.01 am): I am<br />

delighted to make my contribution to the report of the committee. I will begin by giving my thanks and<br />

congratulations to the member for Warrego, who chaired the committee very even-handedly and very<br />

skilfully, which contributed to the performance of the committee. I would also like to thank the members,<br />

the research officers and the parliamentary staff. In particular, I would like to thank the members of my<br />

own office, my director-general and my departmental staff, who put a lot of time and effort into preparing<br />

for this estimates committee hearing.

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