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2336 Appropriation (Parliament) Bill; Appropriation Bill 31 Oct 2012 On behalf of the committee, I wish to thank the Minister for Transport and Main Roads, the Minister for Housing and Public Works, the Minister for Local Government and their departmental officers for their cooperation throughout the process. I would like to thank the other members of my committee who did a fantastic job and particularly the committee secretariat for their hard work and support through that process. I thought they did an exceptional job, and I think the whole committee felt the same way. In summary, Transport and Main Roads had a budget of nearly $7 billion, which certainly is a considerable budget. Some of the highlights of the Transport and Main Roads budget include supporting agriculture, upgrading key rail crossings and improving school safety zones. Some of the issues that were raised by the committee during the process also should be discussed, particularly the provision of overtaking lanes on the highway between Toowoomba and Dalby. The member for Condamine, who is sitting beside me right now, I am sure will appreciate the importance of that for the people out there who have faced a serious increase in traffic in recent years, so this provision will certainly be welcomed. I might point out that these overtaking lanes have been promised by many ministers over a long time and this government is the one who will finally deliver them. One of the other important issues raised was shifting heavy freight from road to rail and related savings in road maintenance and reconstruction. We talked about that. There seems to be a train of thought that there will be significant savings in the budget in the future if we can shift a lot of freight from road to rail. The budget for Housing and Public Works of $647 million is also a significant budget and is a change from the previous budget of public works with machinery-of-government changes. Some of the issues that the committee raised included plans to increase available serviceable public housing, reduce the backlog of housing requests, ensure the maintenance of public housing is of a high standard, and review and renew tenancy agreements. The committee also raised the issue of housing needs in the Torres Strait and Cape York and plans to address housing shortages. There is a real issue up there in that area and we certainly want to make some changes for those people who live in those areas. Also, the removal of the sustainability declaration for real estate sales has certainly been a great improvement. The Local Government budget of $448 million is another significant budget. Budget highlights for the Department of Local Government include reform of the Local Government Act 2009 and the City of Brisbane Act 2010 to increase the autonomy and effectiveness of local governments and to ensure mayors and councillors have the authority and capacity to make good decisions in the best interests of their communities. The issues raised by the committee were varied. One of the issues was the cost of the 2007 local council amalgamations and the estimated financial impact on ratepayers which was significant. I think that council debt has gone from $2 billion at the time of the forced amalgamations to nearly $5 billion or $6 billion in the very near future. So there has been a significant increase there and one of the aspects of that is probably the forced amalgamations. In relation to government plans to assist with the increasing costs of developing, maintaining and replacing infrastructure for local councils, that is another significant issue that all ratepayers are going to have to face. Another issue raised by the committee was the Partners in Government Agreement, which is an agreement that the government has signed with the Local Government Association which will bring together two great levels of government in a cooperative spirit to ensure that we can provide the services that we need for our community. Funding priorities for the $40 million allocated to assist local governments implement recommendations from the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry was also a significant issue, and many other issues were raised. I recommend the committee’s report to the House. (Time expired) Mrs MILLER (Bundamba—ALP) (11.13 pm): It is very good to be here tonight to talk about the Transport, Housing and Local Government Committee portfolio responsibilities, which include Main Roads. Before I talk about the estimates committee report, I thought it would be enlightening for members of this House to have a look at something that was sent to me in the mail by a public housing tenant. It is called ‘Flegg-opoly’. I will table this for the benefit of the House in a minute. The person who sent this to me said that all LNP members of the House should be forced to put ‘Flegg-opoly’ on their desks in the parliament and that they should be forced to play it. So here we have one part of it that says, ‘Sell caravan parks’— Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Member for Bundamba, could you please indicate the relevance of this? Mrs MILLER: Yes. I am talking about the housing portfolio and I am talking about the selling of caravan parks, and they are Monte Carlo, Lazy Acres and Woombye. I am also talking about the defunding of the tenant advocacy services, about the public housing upheaval, about the defunding of
31 Oct 2012 Appropriation (Parliament) Bill; Appropriation Bill 2337 the CAMRA organisation, about the asset sales—which are the sales of the three caravan parks. I am talking about the closure of the department of housing offices and about selling public housing stock, including public housing stock in my electorate. I am also talking about evicting and moving tenants. So I table ‘Flegg-opoly’ for the benefit of members of this House. Tabled paper: Document, undated, titled ‘Flegg-Opoly’ [1470]. In relation to public housing, many people are very concerned about letters that they have received from— Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Bundamba, just take a seat for a moment. There is too much audible noise. I call the member for Bundamba. Mrs MILLER: Thank you so much. I am talking about this letter that has gone around, which I will also table for the benefit of the House. This is why public housing tenants have been upset. It talks about an ‘under-occupancy review of your household’. It talks about people being in four-bedroom homes. This is why people are concerned. In one part of the letter it says— If you do not return your review form by— a certain date— you will be deemed ineligible for the property you live in. You will still remain eligible for continued housing assistance but you will be listed for a transfer to another social housing property that meets your current housing needs and bedroom entitlements. You will also be required to pay a higher rent for the under-occupied property that you currently live in while waiting to be transferred. It is no wonder that people are upset, because if they have been hospitalised or if they have been away or for whatever reason this letter says that the housing department can forcibly put them on a transfer list and can forcibly increase their rent. I table that letter for the benefit of the House as well because I think that is very important. Tabled paper: Redacted Queensland government letter titled ‘Under-occupancy review of your household’ [1471]. The other thing I want to talk about briefly is the meanness in taking away the garden awards for public housing tenants. These particular awards cost very, very little money and they had crosspurposes. The garden awards were there to assist public housing tenants to make sure that their gardens looked nice and also to encourage them to grow their own fruit and vegetables. In conclusion, I would like to talk a little bit about local government, and the Minister for Local Government is here today. I spoke to the minister at the estimates hearing and asked him a question. What has really amazed me since the estimates hearing is the hide and cheek of this state government to tell the federal government what it is supposed to be funding and whatever is supposed to be happening and then to tell local government, ‘You can do basically anything.’ It seems okay for local government to get involved in foreign affairs and to go like Marco Polos all the way around the world on trade missions but you cannot even fulfil your own responsibilities in state government. What— (Time expired) Mr GRANT (Springwood—LNP) (11.19 pm): I would like to speak briefly regarding the budget estimates hearings for the Transport, Housing and Local Government Committee. Before I speak on the areas of responsibility, I would like to inform the House that I have heard a lot of bleating today that this budget is one that has been put forward by ideologically driven thinking and is non-evidence based. My response is this: you had better believe that it is ideologically driven and you had better believe that we have taken into account evidence based considerations. I would like to suggest that every budget the Labor Party brought down was an ideologically driven budget. I am very happy to put our ideologies in fiscal responsibility up against their ideologies every day of the week, every week of the year, and every year over the last 50 years. The Labor Party ideology has driven the state to the position that it is in now. Their ideology was this: keep putting on more staff so they could boast about creating jobs, keep borrowing so they could pay the staff they had just put on and then so cruelly— Honourable members interjected. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Berry): Order! There is far too much audible noise. There has been a fair bit of latitude, but I want to be able to hear the member for Springwood. Mr GRANT: And then they so cruelly wrote to so many of their staff who they claimed they cared for to ask who was willing to take a redundancy package. This is the ideology that drove their budgets in years gone by, and this is an ideology that saw the debt keep climbing and climbing and climbing. It has had its casualties.
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