Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am concerned that so-called 'can do Campbell Newman' is a 'won't do' when it comes to the people of Ipswich. The non-elected leader of the Queensland LNP has travelled all over the state but has not visited Ipswich since July 2011. More concerning, he has not committed to funding important projects in Ipswich. Indeed, the LNP did not support the relocation of Bremer High School. They have made no commitment to the redevelopment of the Ipswich Hospital and opposed the school upgrades under the State Schools of Tomorrow program and the BER projects across Ipswich.

In February 2012, the Bligh Labor government and Racing Queensland announced funding of $6 million for a vital upgrade of the Ipswich Turf Club, an historic club that is a regional icon. The redevelopment is an important step towards the Ipswich Turf Club becoming a hub for three codes of racing. The $6 million would be used to build a tunnel under the course, to provide a sealed float and car park area, a swab stall and 150 tie-up stalls in the infield. Campbell Newman and the Queensland LNP have refused to commit to this important project. The chairman of the Ipswich Turf Club, Wayne Patch, urging a bipartisan approach, said this recently:

Ipswich is a fundamental part of the Queensland racing program and a vital spoke in the thoroughbred racing wheel. We just want the LNP to provide some surety to the members of the turf club, the interested thoroughbred parties in Ipswich and the community that racing in Ipswich will prosper whatever government should be elected later in the month ... The LNP's refusal to commit to it jeopardises the entire project.

This has created a lot of media commentary in Ipswich. On 3 March 2012 the Queensland Times had the headline, 'Racetrack left off funding list'. On 7 March 2012, the Queensland Times had two articles headed 'Racing revamp on ice' and 'Why won't you back us Campbell?' The Queensland LNP does not understand Ipswich and the West Moreton region. It does not understand what makes our community tick.

The Ipswich Turf Club is a proud and historic club, having grown from the first races held in Ipswich in 1848, to the first official race meeting in Queensland in 1859, to the forming of the Ipswich Amateur Turf Club in 1890 to race at the Bundamba Racecourse and to its renaming in 1988 as the Ipswich Turf Club. The track was renamed in 1991 as the Ipswich Racecourse. The club holds 52 race meetings a year. I go to the annual Labor Day race day on a Monday during the Labor Day weekend every year. I am proud and pleased to go there with my Labor Party friends and union comrades and thousands and thousands of people from across Ipswich.

The biggest event of the Ipswich Turf Club is the Ipswich Cup, with a turnover of $5 million alone. The Ipswich Cup has wider economic benefits to the Ipswich region, which include benefits to hospitality, hotels and motels, hairdressers, fashion outlets, taxi drivers and the like. Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale estimates the wider additional benefit to Ipswich to be about $5 million. The Ipswich Cup is the biggest meeting by attendance across the whole of Queensland and is the biggest provincial club meeting in Australia, attracting 21,100 people in 2011. And everything points to it being as successful this year. It has been named in the top 20 meetings in Australia.

The Ipswich Turf Club is a club that gives back to its local community. The turf club gives $150,000 a year to local charities and sporting organisations, including St Mary's Cathedral restoration, the St Edmund's College Foundation, Crime Stoppers and the Ipswich Legacy Club, to name a few. The club hosts a range of community events throughout the year, such as the mayor's Christmas Carols by Candlelight—an incredibly successful and popular event for the past six years; the monthly Handmade Expo; the annual Ipswich City Council Plant Expo; and car shows. The turf club made its facilities available to local football clubs for sign-on days during last year's floods.

I want to draw attention to the great work of the members of the Ipswich Turf Club Management Committee and General Manager Brett Kitching, who I have known for many years. Brett's enthusiasm, professionalism and management style have been a contributing factor in the success of the club over the past year. The club has made an incredible effort to become an integral part of the Ipswich community and has done so successfully.

But the Queensland LNP, and its non-parliamentary leader, Campbell Newman, just do not get that, nor do they understand our community. I call on him to show the same bipartisan commitment, the same determination and commitment to our region, that Premier Anna Bligh has. I call on him—or whoever may be running his party after the election—to commit $6 million, should they win, to the Ipswich Turf Club. To her credit, Premier Bligh recognises that the injection of $6 million will help build a vital and vibrant racing facility in Ipswich. I call on Campbell Newman and the coalition to do the same. (Time expired)