Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable member could be absolutely correct. Of course, there are state and federal Labor governments and they could be working hand in hand. It is perfectly arguable that the Bligh state Labor government could well take more money from these pensioners who are in fact receiving less. This is totally unacceptable, and I know that honourable members will accept that this, as the member for Herbert has just said, is a double whammy.

Appropriation bills provide one of those few opportunities in the House when one can talk about matters that are of concern to constituents but which are not necessarily related to the particular substance of the bills. I spoke in the parliament earlier about the unusual and untenable situation that the coastal part of the Sunshine Coast has discovered itself in as a result of changes in the budget to the region’s health district classification. The Sunshine Coast is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It is too regional to attract doctors who wish to practise in a metropolitan area, and it is too metropolitan to offer incentives for doctors wishing to work in a regional or rural area—maybe a better way of putting it would be to say that it is too urbanised for that purpose. The Sunshine Coast is one of only two places in Australia that have had their classification changed to ‘metropolitan’ under the new classification scheme. The other place is Gawler, in South Australia.

However, there is another factor that further disadvantages the Sunshine Coast. While Gawler is able to employ overseas trained doctors, the Sunshine Coast is not. This is due to its classification under the district workforce shortages scheme. The Sunshine Coast finds itself alone in Australia as a region that does not fit into either of the government’s health classification pigeonholes. I would urge the Minister for Health and Ageing to look closely into this concern and make the necessary changes as soon as possible to ensure that residents on the Sunshine Coast, a rapidly growing area with a shortage of medical doctors, do not suffer the problems that would come with an even worse shortage of doctors.

The Sunshine Coast unfortunately missed out on funding towards a much needed rail project designed to connect Beerwah, through Caloundra and Kawana, to Maroochydore and on to the Sunshine Coast Airport, at Marcoola. This would help to reduce the traffic on our roads, improve safety and provide a practical and sensible public transport system which would be a major boost to the region. This project, which has been discussed for over a decade by various local councils as well as by the Labor state government, is entirely worthy of support. In fact, the Caboolture to Maroochydore corridor study, also known as CAMCOS, was completed in 2001. Since then, little has been seen to be done, although the state government website states that the state government is acquiring land for the project.

I now turn my attention to the search for the Australian hospital ship Centaur, which was sunk in a Japanese war crime on 14 May 1943 with the loss of 268 lives. I have called on the government and the Prime Minister to fund the effort to find the wreck of the Centaur. I commend the Prime Minister and the government for funding this effort, which will bring closure to the survivors of this tragedy and also to the families of those who were lost. The Centaur was a hospital ship, Madam Deputy Speaker Moylan, and you would be interested to know that it was displaying the Red Cross and was therefore legally immune from attack when it was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine. A memorial to the tragedy is located on the shoreline at King’s Beach at Caloundra in my electorate. Memorial services are held there, as well as in Brisbane and other locations, to mark the tragedy. I commend the government for their decision to assist in ensuring that the ship is found by allocating $2 million of the $4 million budget for the search. I would also like to say that local people much appreciate the fact that at last they will receive closure with respect to this very great tragedy.

On the Thursday after the Treasurer delivered the budget we heard the Leader of the Opposition respond to the budget, and he pointed out how Labor’s reckless spending would bring about a great deal of debt. It now transpires that the debt will be $315 billion at this point in time, and the Treasurer did not even announce the fact that there was a $58 billion deficit that he had created himself. In fact, there was close to a $90 billion turnaround, given the surplus which the current government inherited from the former Howard government at the time of the last election.

Government members talk incessantly about ‘temporary debt’ and how it is okay to go into deficit temporarily—you make surpluses in good times and deficits in bad times and it all balances out. The real problem is that we are now in more debt as a nation—much more debt—than we were at the time the Howard government was elected, in 1996. The honourable member for Herbert would be interested to know that it means $9,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia.

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