Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon in the House to talk about my most favourite topic: infrastructure in the Ryan electorate, particularly its delivery. Our newest piece of federally funded infrastructure in the Ryan electorate is the stop, drop and go facility at Indooroopilly State School, which opened just last week at the start of the new school term. For the benefit of the House, this was a $3 million commitment made by the LNP government at the 2016 election. Following the election win, the funding was handed to the Brisbane City Council. I was pleased as the local councillor to shepherd this project through its design, consultation and then construction and to see it completed for our community.

Now that it has been completed, it is an absolutely tremendous result for the local community. It's helping to reduce congestion around the school and it's helping to make our kids safe. As part of the facility, we have extra drop-off room, which ensures that there isn't congestion queuing around onto Moggill Road. There are wider footpaths for the kids. There's more shade and there's more seating to make sure that they wait away from the road. Importantly, there's a separation now between the through traffic, the drop and go traffic and the school traffic, so there are no more illegal U-turns. It is a great example of what I talked about in my maiden speech, where federal funding can be used for great local projects. A small amount of federal funding got this project out of the too-hard basket and got it built.

I'd like to pay tribute to Brisbane City Council. There were two people in particular who helped me see this project through to fruition, and they are Councillor Amanda Cooper, who is the infrastructure chairman, and Jacqui Neill in her office. They both did a tremendous job. Building infrastructure is hard, Mr Speaker, as I'm sure that you know from your local area. Not everybody was happy, but it was an important project to get right. We did a lot of consultation with the school. We consulted with the local community as well. In the end, we got the best result that ensures the safety of our schoolchildren and also a reduction of congestion around this bottleneck which then flows onto Moggill Road.

The project had one more very important benefit. When Scott Morrison made his visit to the Ryan electorate during the recent campaign, I took the Prime Minister to see this project, which was then under construction. Having seen the benefits of this project and seen what the relatively small amount of federal funding—$3 million—had yielded in congestion benefits in the Moggill Road corridor, I think it was no coincidence that, in the 2019-20 budget, further funding was made available to reduce congestion on the Moggill Road corridor. That includes a $25 million commitment for the Indooroopilly roundabout to see its transition into a T-intersection, which will help with reduced congestion on the Coonan Street corridor as well as on the through traffic on the Moggill Road corridor. I look forward to working with Brisbane City Council and Councillor Cooper on that project to get it delivered, having spent some time as the local councillor making sure that we purchased the land that was required as part of this and that we did a lot of design work as well. In the next few months, we will be going out to the local community to consult on those design options. I look forward to having that conversation with my community about how we can implement that structure project.

And then of course there was funding available in the budget—$12.5 million—for the Kenmore roundabout to see an upgrade to bust congestion. I have to work with the state minister, Minister Bailey, to see that project to fruition. I haven't had a lot of success with that in the past, but I'm willing to give him and the state government the benefit of the doubt and assume that they won't look the gift horse of infrastructure funding in the mouth and that they'll work with the federal government and work with the federal minister, Minister Tudge, and myself in order to see this project come to fruition.

At the recent election, I went to the people of Ryan and was elected on the back of protecting our lifestyle. A most important part of protecting our lifestyle is seeing us reduce congestion and undertake these congestion-busting projects. I'd like to again thank the Indooroopilly State School community and congratulate them on a fantastic new facility. It was a great pleasure to be down there just last week, before I came to Canberra, to spend a morning opening the doors for parents and kids alike down at the drop and go and to see the smiles on their faces as they realised that they were able to have a safer and less-congested trip to school. It's the federal government's funding that has allowed that to occur. So thank you very much to the federal government for that and also of course to the Brisbane City Council for their support in building the project.

House adjourned at 17:00

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Zimmerman) took the chair at 10:00.