Matt Smith (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I rise to speak on this motion from the member for Mallee, I'm really excited that we get to speak about the regions, because it is one of my favourite things. Don't let how quickly I speak fool you. I am a country boy. I drive country roads. Often they take me home, to a place—I'm going to stop there.

In the far north, I have roads like you would not believe. I have the PDR, the Bloomfield Track, the Daintree River ferry, the Jardine River ferry: places that people want to spend their entire lives thinking about driving. They come to the far north to do that.

I know that a lot of our local councils have been hurting from the natural disasters, particularly Cyclone Jasper, hurting our road infrastructure, making things harder. I say to those opposite, climate change is real. Climate change is impacting our road infrastructure. It's why things have been damaged more often. The substrate is going. The Port Douglas Road and the Kuranda Range road are still being repaired. The slips, the washaways, will not be finished for another year. We've invested extra money into this to build back better, to improve the drainage so the next time that we are faced with a climate change-induced disaster, our roads stay safe.

Our roads, our councils deserve better. Those of us in the Albanese Labor government are committed to investing in our regional areas. So after a decade of neglect from the former coalition government, denial on climate action which has been hurting our road infrastructure, the Albanese Labor government is delivering record investment into regional infrastructure and our regional roads. Our investment means improved safety on our roads; across the country, more efficient freight rates, stronger local economies under funding programs that are open, fair and properly costed.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to a 10-year infrastructure investment pipeline exceeding $120 billion that will support a sustainable program of nationally significant transport infrastructure projects across Australia including the Bruce Highway, the artery of the great state of Queensland. This the largest and most sustainable infrastructure investment in our nation's history and it builds on the foundations laid by the Albanese Labor government in its first term, and it builds on the work done by our Prime Minister when he was infrastructure minister—the man loves roads!

The Albanese Labor government is doubling the funding going to our local roads through the Roads to Recovery Program, something that's very important in my area. Over the period 2024-25 to 2028-29 the Albanese Labor government will invest $4.4 billion through the program. In Queensland, this will mean $895 million over five years for Queensland councils, an increase of $353 million. The government has increased annual funding for the Black Spot Program from $110 million to $150 million supporting more life-saving road improvements across the country. We have allocated at least $200 million per unit for improved safety and productivity of our local roads under the Safer Local Roads and Infrastructure Program, an increase of over $50 million over our previous programs, and we have increased financial assistance grants to local governments each year. This is $3.4 billion tied to the funding of grants.

For Leichhardt, my community, I'm happy to tell you—brace yourself because there is a lot of numbers here—we are delivering $245 million towards replacing the Barron River bridge on Kennedy Highway; $24 million for the Cairns Western Arterial Road; $210 million for the Kuranda Range Road upgrades; $38 million for Cape York community access roads; $180 million for the Bruce Highway Cairns southern access stage 5; $5.8 million for the Bruce Highway Babinda intersection upgrade; $850,000 for the major events precinct master plan in Cairns; $101,000 in Black Spot funding for the Kenny Road and Dutton Street intersections of Fort Smith; $150,000 for Black Spot funding treatments in the Barrier Street and Reef Street intersections in Port Douglas; an additional $24.6 million over five years under the Roads to Recovery Program.

I know that, as long as I'm in this place, I will fight for my region and for its roads, because you can for drive three days across my electorate on all sorts of roads to get to all sorts of places, and I thoroughly recommend you do it because Far North Queensland is the best place in Australia.

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