Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member at the table might dispute that, but I have to be partisan and support Beenleigh Rum. Beenleigh Rum has also made an enormous investment, over recent times, in a new visitor information centre and conference centre. All of this investment by private enterprise is actually what drives jobs and growth in our economy. That is the value of what we are seeking to do as a government.

What we are seeking to do as a government is to free our business community from the shackles of red tape and regulation, an inheritance left by six years of those opposite, who introduced some 21,000 new regulations. Yet, when they came to power in 2007, they promised that they would remove one regulation for every new regulation introduced. As you are well aware, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, when you came in in 2010 we heard that ad nauseam, but it did not happen. I think they repealed some 1,000 regulations but they introduced 21,000. So the ratio was actually: for every one they repealed, they introduced 20 new ones. Not only that; they introduced the world's biggest carbon tax, which was a hammer blow to our economy. They introduced a mining tax which did not work. Those opposite were waxing lyrical earlier today about the Henry tax review. The member for Fraser spoke about it. The Henry tax review was this wonderful document that had 135 recommendations, of which they took two and completely stuffed up one of them. They introduced a new tax that raised no revenue, yet they spent billions of dollars in relation to it. Those are the issues that we are dealing with in this budget.

But also it is important to recognise the many achievements of this government to date. If I look at some of the achievements locally in the electorate of Forde, we can see over the last past couple of years some $40 million in Roads to Recovery funding for the Logan and Gold Coast city councils. Logan and Gold Coast city councils are two of the fastest-growing councils in Queensland. It is the growth corridor halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. That Roads to Recovery funding is enormously important to those councils, to ensure that they can fund the upgrades to the local road infrastructure that are required as a result of this continuing growth of population.

We have also provided some $29 million in financial assistance grants to the Logan and Gold Coast city councils. Importantly, we provided $10 million for the upgrading of Exit 54 at Upper Coomera, an interchange that had ground to a halt through the sheer volume of traffic going through it. The Queensland government also contributed to that project, as did private enterprise. That is the value of governments working together, along with private enterprise, to build key community infrastructure requirements. That project is now about halfway to completion. Whilst, as we all know, there come some frustrations at times with roadworks, the community is extraordinarily pleased that this project is actually proceeding. Not only will it create jobs locally during the construction phase; it will also facilitate a significant new large investment by Westfield and QIC in building the Coomera Town Centre, which will be a large new retail space that will create even more job opportunities for local young people, in particular, to gain part-time or casual jobs, and, more importantly, for older people in the community to gain full-time work.

In Beenleigh, through the National Stronger Regions Fund, some $3 million was funded by the federal government to the upgrade of the Beenleigh town square. That has been a fantastic success. With the Eats & Beats festival already there, and a number of other community activities, it has been extraordinarily well received. And currently in the square we have a mobile food van teaching people how to eat and cook healthily, and certainly that is a key issue in my community. Also I want to commend the current state government for the $1.2 million they have put in to upgrade the facade of the Beenleigh courthouse to better link it into the Beenleigh town square.

There are many things that this government has been doing not only on the national level but also in our local communities. I would also like to touch on the $1 million that we have contributed to the local community for the CCTV cameras for the Safer Streets program. That program has been extraordinarily well received. As part of that rollout, Logan City Council invested a very significant amount of money upgrading their CCTV monitoring room so that they can monitor all of the CCTV cameras.

This government is focused on creating the framework and the opportunities for our businesses and communities to grow. Through our innovation strategy announced prior to Christmas we have seen innovative businesses in the electorate of Forde, particularly in the Yatala Enterprise Area where we have a number of terrific innovative businesses, building on their already existing exporting activities to the world. And in that process, as they build their businesses, they are partnering with our local schools to train school based apprentices in the skills they require for their businesses specifically.

This creates the opportunity for these grade 11 and 12 students at our local schools, when they leave school, to have the opportunity to get a job straight off the bat. There is nothing more important than our youth, who are the future business owners and leaders in our communities. It is important that, as they go through the education system and leave school, they have the opportunity to go to university. If they are not inclined towards academic study, it is equally important that those who have a propensity and a love for the trades, whose eyes light up when they have a hammer or a screwdriver in their hand, have their talents recognised. They are equally as important as those that seek to go to university, because the university lecturer or university professor cannot lecture in a lecture hall if we do not have the tradespeople in our community to build those lecture theatres. They build our roads, our infrastructure and our houses, and often we do overlook the value and importance of our tradespeople. It is our tradespeople who actually build this country, and we should recognise and honour their work as much as we recognise and honour the work of our great professors and scientists and others who have been through the university system, our great academics. They too are wonderful people, but it is our tradespeople who actually build this country and build the opportunities for others to do what they are so successful in doing.

It is always a pleasure to speak on appropriation bills and reflect on the importance of ensuring that we have a budget that is sustainable and manageable for the long term for the future benefit of all people in this country, not just for select groups. I commend this bill to the House.

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