Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am afraid the blinkers have been on for this debate for some time. We have heard a lot about house prices in Sydney, but there is a big, brown, wide land out there. It is not just about one capital city in this country. I am about to speak about some good activity in Queensland. I note my friend and colleague the member for Rankin has slid around on the front bench here. It is only a little bit further, Jim, and you will be in the big chair! It is not far away.

Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you are a passionate Queenslander. The Housing Industry Association report on 10 February 2016 said that the number of Queensland home building approvals was the highest it has been in 21 years. In 2015, 48,000 new residential buildings were approved in Queensland—the highest since 1994, according to the Housing Industry Association. When you are out in the regions, housing is much cheaper. They have also said the level of home building approvals are now double the rate reached during the post-GFC trough in industry activity—that information is from Warwick Temby. Multiunit developments have been the main driver behind the growth in activity in 2015. The detached housing market has also shown solid growth. This is good news for Queensland, where, of course, the downturn in the mining industry has had a detrimental effect, particularly on Central Queensland. In Central Queensland, there are tens of thousands of highly skilled people who want a job. The issue for them is that they want a job. Those are the things that we need to be focused on. The Housing Industry Association also said that the home building industry in Queensland can look forward to about $10 billion worth of work in 2016 and starting the construction of around 42,000 new homes. This continues to be good news.

Once again, I acknowledge that, clearly, house prices in Sydney certainly appear to be very high and very difficult to meet. But there are real opportunities in regional Australia, and I would encourage people who are out there listening to this broadcast: if you own a company, if you own a business, if you are out there on the ground and you want good opportunities for your people, shift to regional Australia; move your company somewhere else where housing is affordable. We have the infrastructure, we have the connecting links, we have the roads, we certainly have the telecommunications and, of course, we have airports with direct links to Sydney. Look at Harvey Bay in my electorate of Hinkler. There are direct flights to Sydney every single day. It is a beautiful part of the world to live in, and that is certainly why many Australians choose to retire there.

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