Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's an incredible honour and privilege to be elected to the parliament again to represent the people of Wide Bay, my beautiful electorate that has so much to offer. It's always so humbling to come to this place. I remember the first time I arrived at the parliament, in 2016. I'd come from a little two-man police station—to this. It struck me: what an honour it is and also what an incredible country we live in that this place is available for us—all of us. Some of us come from a background like mine. I didn't finish school. I had to educate myself in my adult years and became a police officer. Some people who arrive here are captains of industry, or incredibly accomplished in academia. But we all put ourselves forward before our community, and our community make the decision on whether we are the right person to represent them, to serve their interests in the best way we can in this place. It is an amazing place to work. Sometimes it's a bit hard to explain it to the kids in the gallery when they watch question time and see the robust nature of it, but it's a demonstration of free speech and freedom. It's a symbol. In other countries, they just don't have that kind of freedom to speak to the government, to question the government, to hold the government to account, and we can do that here. It's something we need to protect and something I value deeply, and I value my time here, representing the people of Wide Bay.

Wide Bay is an incredibly diverse electorate. It's just under 15,000 square kilometres. It's not one of those giants out west like Maranoa or others that are huge, but it's big enough. To the east, I've got the amazing coastline, Fraser Island and the beaches of Rainbow Beach and Noosa down to Peregian and up to the north. I have the amazing manufacturing and services area of Maryborough and the agricultural areas of Murgon and Gympie, and I have the beautiful community of Cherbourg, which is a former Aboriginal mission and a beautiful place. I acknowledge the mayor, Bruce Simpson, who's doing an amazing job there, promoting Cherbourg. I look forward to working with him in the three years to come; there's a lot to do. We need to get him new council chambers. They haven't been delivered for so long. He's doing a good job, and I look forward to supporting him.

Noosa is an amazing place. It's at the other end of the spectrum, when it comes to Cherbourg and Noosa, but they're both as wonderful as each other, and they both appreciate each other. Indeed, quite often the Noosa surf club gets a bus and brings some of the young people from Cherbourg down to the coast to experience the skills and lifestyles of lifesaving, and that's amazing. That's the sort of egalitarian atmosphere that's in Wide Bay.

We're also an industrial and economic powerhouse. It doesn't matter where you go in the world, if you say 'Noosa', people know it, and that's because of the incredible tourism and biodiversity there. People come to enjoy the atmosphere and the events that they hold there. They are their own local government area, which was a fight that was taken up by the locals after they were amalgamated with other, larger councils. They fought hard. I must say that it was David Crisafulli, who was the local government minister in an LNP government, who separated the Noosa council and gave them their uniqueness back. It's great to see them doing what they do, and I'm looking forward to working with Mayor Frank Wilkie.

Gympie is my home town. It's where I've been since I was 15. I've watched it develop over the years, and it's an amazing place. It's changing. It's changing as the creep from the Sunshine Coast goes further north and west. Gympie is particularly changing because of the bypass that was delivered, the $1 billion section D bypass on the Bruce Highway. That was something that was planned but wasn't going to be delivered for quite some years. When I came to this place, I made it one of my absolute missions, as somebody who had stood on the highway as a policeman and a fatal accident investigator and experienced those horrors, to get that money and that funding to see that 30-kilometre greenfield section of road delivered. In the last term of government, it was finished, and Gympie is now bypassed. Those roads that were killer roads are now world-class roads.

I didn't get an invite to the opening of the billion-dollar upgrade that the Morrison government funded, but I don't care about that. I was so proud that that was opened. All that backslapping and ribbon cutting is not for me anyway. I just wanted it finished so people would not get killed. So it was a proud, proud day for me, because I know what went into it. I've got to acknowledge Michael McCormack and Barnaby Joyce, who really pushed hard and helped me to get that money. There was also the Tiaro Bypass that Michael McCormack dug deep to get me the money for, as well. That's going to be built, and it will also save lives. It's a bottleneck and a barrier to progress, but that will save lives as well. I'm glad that the new LNP state government are taking that seriously. I spoke to the transport minister, and he's taking it seriously. He's taking it as seriously as me, so that's a really good thing.

There have been so many things that we achieved in the years of government, our terms of government. I had 19 new mobile black spot towers delivered. I had millions of dollars of stimulus going into industries that create jobs, whether it be Nolan's meatworks in Gympie, which is the biggest employer in town, or the munitions factory. That is a new industry going into Maryborough with Rheinmetall and Rheinmetall NIOA, which is creating over 100 jobs brand new to the area and much needed. These are the things we did in coalition.

Unfortunately, whilst the Labor Party have come to Gympie to cut a few ribbons and do a few things like that, they haven't continued with the delivery that we did and fought for. It's been absent, and that's got to change. That highway going further north, that missing stretch between Gympie and Tiaro, needs to be fixed because that, now, will be the death zone. From Melbourne through to the end of section D, it's four lanes all the way, and it's a world-class highway. But what you find is that at the end of that road, where it ends—and this has happened as it's developed—becomes the next death zone. When people come off the four lanes onto the two lanes, undivided, that's where the fatalities happen, and that's what's happening now. We need to continue that on into an area where the density of traffic is far less than what it is. We have 11,000 movements a day at Tiaro.

A big focus for me has been supporting veterans. We only have the lucky country that we have because people have gone to serve this nation in war and have put themselves forward to be prepared to do that. That's an incredible sacrifice and an incredible thing that needs to be honoured. Once again, I've been very privileged and pleased to be able to deliver for our veterans where I can. Before the 2019 election, I made a commitment to fund a nearly half-million dollar veterans drop in centre in Murgon, a place where the veterans could go in and get counselling and the support that they need, as well the camaraderie and all of those things. We delivered that, and in the next election, as a priority and a commitment, I managed to get $1.8 million to upgrade the memorial in Memorial Park in Gympie, where, now, we have an amazing place to honour those people on Anzac Day and those special days that we acknowledge our servicemen and women. These are things that I hold close and are priorities for me. I made another commitment at this election for a veterans welfare centre in Gympie. Whilst we didn't win, and that's an election commitment that I'm going to find very hard to deliver not being in government, I will call on the government to consider delivering that, because we have got a big population of veterans in Gympie, and they deserve the best. As I said, they've put themselves forward; they've put themselves on the line, and we deserve to give them the gold standard when it comes to their life post service.

I'll just move onto the election. Elections are tough. They should be; that's a good thing. They are robust. We all feel it. We've all been through the wringer. We've all experienced things that we think are over the top and we've all experienced moments where we've thought: 'Wow! That's great. Democracy's a wonderful thing.' At other times we've felt other feelings. But to put a campaign forward, to execute a campaign properly, you need people around you, and I want to thank some of those people who supported me in my campaign. Ben Ellingsen, my campaign director; my campaign committee; all of the people who handed out fliers for me—as we all know, pre-poll is getting longer and longer and harder and harder to man, and I had very committed volunteers who stood there and did what they had to do to help me—I thank you so much.

I want to thank the state members of parliament who helped me. John Barounis is an incredible guy from Maryborough. I'm looking forward to working with John to fight for Maryborough's fair share and fix some of the problems that we have in Maryborough, some of the social issues. He will be relentless in his pursuit of that, and I really look forward to working with him. Tony Perrett, now the minister for agriculture, is the member for Gympie. He's another fine member of parliament who stood shoulder to shoulder with me. Deb Frecklington, from Nanango, is another great member and is now the Attorney-General of Queensland. It was great to have her support. I thank them all for their support.

Whilst it's good to reminisce about the things that we've achieved and we all promote those things, and that's the right thing to do to promote our community, they are all things in the past. We have to look to the future, and I look forward to working closely with my community and with elected members regardless of their political persuasion. Regardless of their views, I want to work constructively with them. I look forward to working with those people who are heading up industry in the area so that we can bring those opportunities to Wide Bay and Noosa and Maryborough. I look forward to listening to what they need. The world is changing rapidly, and what might have been relevant three or four years ago is not relevant now, so close engagement is important and that's what I intend to do.

I want to thank my family, my kids for their support through the campaign. It's not easy being the family of an elected member of parliament sometimes and I appreciate what they do for me. I couldn't do this without my wife, Sharon, or my kids and so I thank them. And, finally, I thank the people of Wide Bay for re-electing me to be their member in this sacred, democratic place.

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