Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about a brochure called Community 2020that I have just sent to my electorate. There is a lot happening in my electorate with different infrastructure projects and, obviously, the future of not only the country but also individual communities is very much in the hands of the people of those communities because we have a lot of say in what we do want and what we do not want to see in different areas.

There is an amazing amount of infrastructure happening right now all over my electorate. In the southern end, in the Clarence Valley, we have the Pacific Highway dual duplication between Woolgoolga in the south and Ballina in the north, for which the tender has just been announced. That is a $5 billion project that will have 3,000 to 4,000 direct jobs. When you count indirect jobs there will be over 10,000 created just with that project. We also have a new bridge being built in Grafton. There are a lot of hospital upgrades happening: Bonalbo in the west, Lismore, Ballina and, again, Grafton. They are just some of a lot of the infrastructure projects that are happening. Obviously, those upgrades will all come to an end, and they bring great opportunity with them about what types of commerce—whether it be tourism-related or manufacturing-related—we want to attract to our region after these infrastructure upgrades.

In this brochure I have asked questions for the electorate to give me feedback on. These are about things like the different issues that are important to them, whether they be roads, jobs or coal seam gas—this is a contentious issue in my electorate and I am asking people for their opinions on that. I am also asking open-ended questions. What do they think is the best thing in our region? What are our greatest advantages? If there were one thing they could change what would that be for them? What are the types of things they want government to act on? What ideas do they have about creating more jobs or lowering the cost of living? What infrastructure projects do they want to see happen after the ones that I have just mentioned? There is a website—www.community2020.com.au—that is open for people in my electorate to give feedback to me on all of these issues.

Going back to infrastructure, it was great to come straight here from the mobile black spot funding that we announced today. There are 91 identified black spots in my community that we are going to fix. In the first round of our mobile black spot program we are going to build 11 base stations around the whole electorate. Two are at Bonalbo—I have been to all of these communities, and Bonalbo certainly has an issue with mobile phone access, as a lot of communities do. When I am in Bonalbo I have to go up the hill, away from the shops and the centre of town, to get mobile phone reception. But now Bonalbo, along with 91 other communities in my electorate, is going to have much better mobile phone access after today's announcement. That was a great thing to be part of. In relation to what the previous speaker, the member for Greenway, was saying about the NBN rollout, it is pleasing to note that some of our more remote communities are now getting great access to NBN with the wireless system that is being developed.

Besides wanting everyone's opinions and ideas on the direction they want us to head, there is also a report card in the brochure about what we have done in the electorate in the first 20 months or so of our governance. I have split it into the five different local council areas. There is obviously far too much to mention. At the risk of using a prop, here is one! There is a lot here—again, hospital upgrades. There is a lot of money being given to local councils for roadworks. There have been a lot of grants given out to different community and charity organisations, which are very important for the ongoing maintenance of our community in lots of different ways. There are also things like the Casino Drill Hall, which is a historically and culturally important building in Casino. I had the sale of that stopped because the community did not want that to fall into private hands. There are many other things. I encourage the community to have a look at this brochure and to also give me feedback on where they would like us to go.