George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shane Summers, his wife, Leanne, their 17-year-old son, Brendan, and their four-year-old daughter, Mia—four lives cut tragically short 13 days ago in another crash on Queensland's Bruce Highway. Eighteen-month-old Damien is in a critical condition in hospital, and the remaining 19-year-old sibling, who was not in the car, is left to deal with an unimaginably difficult and heartbreaking situation. Six days ago, a truck driver was killed in a collision with another truck at Pindi Pindi just north of Mackay. Earlier this week, young Anthony Bezzina was killed when his non-motorised tricycle slammed into a truck, again around the area of The Leap. In the last fortnight there has just been tragedy upon tragedy on the Bruce Highway in my region.

The Calen crash 12 days ago just north of Mackay, which claimed almost the entire family that I mentioned, was one of a series of crashes. Earlier in the year, the Leader of the Nationals and shadow transport minister led a convoy of 13 federal and state coalition MPs travelling the entire 1,600-kilometre length of the Bruce Highway. We met locals, councils, local road users, state MPs, truckies, RACQ representatives, police and ambos all up and down the coastline. They showed us problem areas, such as the flood-prone Goorganga Plains and Sandy Gully, and problems with flooding issues in Rockhampton. They were grateful that 13 state and federal members of parliament would take the time and do the hard yards needed to get a real understanding of the highway, and to set the right priorities.

There was another reaction, that of derision, probably inspired by a bit of jealousy which came from a rapidly diminishing section of the community—that is, the Australian Labor Party. But the more that the Labor peanuts, such as the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, attacked our convoy, the more the locals grew interested in what we were doing and saying—and the less interested they were in what the government was saying. Like me, the locals are sick of hearing this government's excuses for inaction on the Bruce Highway, excuses like the old chestnut: 'We spent more on it than you did.' The Howard government spent more on the Bruce Highway than the Hawke and Keating governments, but the difference is this: the Hawke and Keating governments drove Australia into a debt of $96 billion, and the Howard government paid that back and then built up a safety buffer of more than $70 billion, which was immediately squandered by this oniomaniac government—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dawson will withdraw that term.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Onoiomaniac? It means you spend too much! But I will withdraw it, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you want me to.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I let the other one go through to the keeper, but there is a limit to my patience!

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is driving us back into the biggest debt at the country has ever seen. We are now at $241 billion, and who knows how low we can go.

The Liberal-National coalition put money into the bank and, at the same time, they put infrastructure on the agenda for the Bruce Highway. They funded such projects as the Ron Camm bridge duplication and many black spot upgrades in my electorate, and they put $70 billion in the bank. Then, on 10 May 2007, the former deputy prime minister Mark Vaile announced the coalition initiative AusLink 2. He said: '$23.2 billion has been committed over future years to the land transport system in Australia—roads and rail—for which we take responsibility. This is to be added to the $15.8 billion that we are currently spending in AusLink 1, a 41 per cent increase in investment into Australia's land transport system.'

The vast bulk of the money that this government has spent on the Bruce Highway was actually earmarked in then Treasurer Peter Costello's 2007-08 budget, through AusLink 2, which goes right up to now, 2012. And what has this government put into the Bruce Highway that is new? Hardly anything—and today it is nothing. There is no new funding this financial year and no plan for new funding for the Bruce Highway next financial year.

Today, the International Road Assessment Program spokesperson, Rob McInerny, has said that Premier Campbell Newman's crisis management team will find ways to eliminate one- or two-star roads that we have on the Bruce Highway, and that the area we have to start in is Mackay, because that is where people are dying—and I could not agree more. The Leader of the Nationals says that $4 billion is what is required from the federal government to do the job. Mark my words, we in the Liberal-National coalition will get the job done. (Time expired)