Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a senator for Queensland, it would be remiss of me not to alert people listening to this broadcast and to remind people in Queensland that we have a state election coming up on 25 November, Saturday week. I think it's very important for Queenslanders to understand the significance of what is at stake in that forthcoming election.

It's interesting to note that today we learnt that Queensland is leading Australia when it comes to business confidence. In the NAB survey for the month of October, Queensland was once again the highest-rating state in Australia in terms of business confidence. For 32 of the last 34 months Queensland has been either at the top or second highest for business confidence. It's no wonder this is the case, because the Queensland government has been involved in creating 122,500 jobs since its election in January 2015, and that's of course a reflection of the stability of the Queensland government. When Labor were written off after the 2012 election, nobody gave us much of a chance of getting re-elected in 2015, but, against the odds, Annastacia Palaszczuk led the Labor team to a quite amazing victory. A lot has been achieved in that period of time, and there is therefore a lot at stake.

It is concerning to note that there is an arrangement between the LNP and One Nation in Queensland in relation to preference deals. This was finally admitted on 10 November by Mr Nicholls, the leader of the LNP in Queensland, who many Queenslanders don't know very much about, which is a bit of an unfortunate situation. The LNP finally admitted that they would be giving preferences to One Nation in more than 50 of the state's 93 electorates. This is a very concerning development. This has only happened because Mr Nicholls knows that he can become Premier of Queensland only if he has the support of the One Nation party.

We know that a return of an LNP government would see a return of the savage cuts that were made to jobs and other worthwhile programs under the previous LNP government of Mr Newman and Mr Nicholls. We also know that One Nation has four former LNP MPs standing for election this time. All of those former LNP MPs gave Tim Nicholls glowing on-the-record endorsements when he made those savage cuts across Queensland and also proposed to sell public assets.

We are very concerned about the fact that this alliance that seems to exist now between One Nation and the LNP is going to lead to some changes in the LNP policy. Does this mean that they're going to look at accommodating some of the One Nation approaches when it comes to anti-vaxxers? Does it mean a watering down of domestic violence laws, or perhaps looking at the GST review that Senator Hanson promised when she was in Western Australia? These are all things which would be detrimental to our state. We know that Senator Hanson's voting record in this place is that virtually 85 per cent of the time she supports the LNP, and this has led to the abolition of $2 billion in family payments and the handing of jobs to foreign workers on 457 visas.

With pre-polling having opened yesterday in Queensland, we know that cooperation has continued between the LNP and One Nation, and we know that, in the state seat of Lytton, One Nation volunteers are actually handing out LNP how-to-vote material. This just shows the extent of the alliance that now exists between the LNP and One Nation and the extent of the desperation on the part of the LNP to once again attain office in Queensland. This is something which I am very concerned about, and it puts at risk many of the achievements of the Labor government.

From my own perspective, some of the highlights of the Queensland government's record include, very early on, restoring the rights of injured workers to pursue common-law actions against their employer. This was something which was cruelly removed in Newman-Nicholls era of government. There was legislation for a new public holiday for Easter Sunday. We have recently seen the introduction of industrial manslaughter legislation. There was the introduction of licensing arrangements in respect of labour hire companies to try to address some of the concerns we have in that area. That is only a very small part of the record of the Labor government. Some of the more significant achievements that impact across the whole of the state are in the area of jobs.

One of the areas of the economy which was amazingly neglected by former Premier Newman was the manufacturing sector. It did not rate when it came to the pillars of the economy that former Premier Newman envisaged. He completely neglected the manufacturing industry. I'm glad to say that our government has fixed that issue, and I am so proud of the fact that the government has acted to diversify our economy, to reach out to manufacturing and to strengthen the state's economy in that regard. One thing that was greeted very warmly was the decision that all future rail rolling stock and associated infrastructure—for which we have the manufacturing capacity in Queensland—will be manufactured and maintained by Queenslanders to support jobs in Maryborough and other regional centres. Under the previous, LNP government, the construction of trains was outsourced to India and jobs were lost as a result, and we're still dealing with the ongoing ramifications of that.

There's an eye-wateringly long list of Labor's commitments to manufacturing, which I won't go through, but it's extremely impressive. Some of the things being looked at include up to $30 million to establish manufacturing hubs to drive regional economies, initially in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton, and continuing the 'buy Queensland' procurement policy. I wish I could spend half an hour talking about that. That is a very significant development to ensure that local manufacturers have the best opportunity to win government procurement contracts worth $14 billion. This may well cut across some of our free trade agreements, but the government has made clear its commitment to give priority to Queensland businesses. The Labor government is also looking at Defence jobs and setting up a dedicated agency to build on Queensland's strengths there. Time eludes me in relation to all of those issues, but there is so much at stake in this election that I think people need to be aware of that.

I would like to acknowledge some of the very hardworking Labor candidates who are out there at the moment with whom I have worked: Bart Mellish in Aspley, Chris Whiting in Bancroft, David Kerrigan in Gregory, Shane King in Kurwongbah, Ali King in Maiwar, Corrine McMillan in Mansfield, Steven Miles in Murrumba, Michael Hoogwaerts, who is doing a fantastic job in Pumicestone, Stirling Hinchliffe in Sandgate and Dr Anthony Lynham in Stafford. I am going to be getting around to some of our other candidates, such as Linus Power in Logan and Yvette D'Ath in Redcliffe, over the remaining days of the campaign.

There is a great deal at stake in this forthcoming state election in Queensland. I think a lot of Queenslanders are in danger of not knowing about the track record of Tim Nicholls, a former Treasurer under the Campbell Newman government. They don't understand that Mr Nicholls was there under the Newman approach, standing silently by while all of that was happening, so it is incumbent on me to let people know that. I look forward to working with a re-elected Palaszczuk Labor government. (Time expired)