Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The previous member for Morton, the Hon. Gary Hardgrave, called for funding from his coalition government to remove the Coopers Plains rail crossing throughout this time in office. I too have been calling for the removal of this dangerous crossing, the fifth-worst crossing in Queensland. I was pleased to announce, alongside the member for Grayndler, at the last federal election that Labor would provide one-third of the cost to get it done, and to their credit the coalition matched that commitment with $73 million of federal funding. Brisbane City Council has recently pledged $40 million, or about 15 per cent, and now the Palaszczuk Labor government has also committed its share, $73 million, to make sure the project is delivered. So I congratulate my good friend, the state member for Toohey, Peter Russo, and the state member for Miller, Mark Bailey, for their advocacy on behalf of local residents. However, the LNP at the state level are hopeless when it comes to this crossing. Here, we have an LNP senator using taxpayer money to bag Labor for not getting this done, yet his own LNP candidate doesn't even have a commitment to build it. There's nothing from the LNP leader, Deb Frecklington. Typical LNP: there for the stunts and the ads, but nothing when it comes to delivery. It's all muckraking. Locals run the gauntlet of this dangerous crossing every day. They know it needs fixing and it needs fixing now. I give a big shout out to the Deputy Prime Minister, who promised, 454 days ago, that he would visit the Coopers Plains rail crossing so he could see for himself how dangerous the crossing is, yet I'm still waiting, and he has my number.