Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about the Townsville City Deal today. To be honest, it is a mess. This city deal has been nothing but trouble since its inception. The Australian government are trying to get on with the job of funding under the city deal, and this includes projects like the new concert hall, a business case for water recycling, green hydrogen production and major redevelopments for Reef HQ. However, currently there is $27 million of funding for projects which are being blocked by the Queensland state Labor government. These are projects that the state Labor government themselves are supporting or have been begging for. They are a new hub for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Townsville and a matched funding commitment of $12 million for the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct.

It wasn't long ago that the Deputy Premier of Queensland was in Townsville at a business breakfast. He was asking, pleading and begging for these projects to go ahead and for the Australian government to commit to these projects, and we did. Now he's the minister who is not allowing these very payments, which he asked for from the Australian government, to flow through the state to the council, as required by the Constitution. It's the exact same situation for the Royal Flying Doctor Service hub, which the Premier herself included on the dot point wish list of projects she'd like funded under the Townsville City Deal.

The very understandable question that needs to be asked is: why is the state Labor government blocking passage of funding for these two very important, very valuable projects that they themselves support? If you ask me, I would say that I don't know. I have no idea why they'd want to do this—why they'd want to play politics and why they'd reject funding that has been handed to them on a silver platter. They keep putting politics before the people of Townsville. If you ask them, the answer would be that they will lose 80 per cent of the funding of their GST allocation. But that is a complete farce.

I went to the independent Commonwealth Grants Commission and asked if it was possible to calculate that any one project would result in a reduction in GST allocation to the value of 80 per cent. The answer was no. But don't take my word for it; here is what the Commonwealth Grants Commission told me: 'Queensland is just one of eight states receiving Commonwealth payments. When another state receives a grant from the Commonwealth, Queensland's GST share will increase by about 20 per cent of the value of that grant. Therefore, the final effect on GST distribution cannot be determined without considering all Commonwealth payments to Queensland together with all Commonwealth payments to other states.'