Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Last night, fellow Queenslander and Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered a budget that delivers for Australians and for our home state. This is a budget that is responsible and responds to the pressures that people are under right now, while reducing spending and banking savings because we know that we need to provide relief while delivering reform to systems that are just not working.

Last night we announced even more tax cuts for working Australians so you can earn more and keep more of what you earn. In addition to tax relief for Australian workers, we're ensuring that we are providing more access to homeownership, particularly for young Australians. This is about levelling the playing field for first home buyers so they can have a crack, because it is our responsibility to make sure that we don't wait two more years to deliver a better housing system for Australians. Our government is choosing to respond to the pressures that we're seeing today, and addressing the pressures of our future, with substantial policy reform.

While the Albanese Labor government is focusing on providing a budget that prioritises resilience and reform, delivering urgency and ambition, at the same time the state Liberal National government in Queensland is busy cutting hospital beds. This budget will deliver $42.3 billion in funding to Queensland. That includes a whopping $4.4 billion of infrastructure funding alone. We're backing Queensland roads, with new funding for the Bruce Highway and new funding for the M1 Pacific Motorway, as well as for the Boundary Road level crossing, the Bowen Basin service link and Glass House Mountains road. In my home town of Cairns I'm proud that we're delivering an additional $166 million for the Cairns Western Arterial Road because we know the critical role that the Bruce Highway plays for Queenslanders, tourists and freight. Over the next 10 years, the state of Queensland will receive from our government more infrastructure funding than any other state. We're providing tax cuts to help with the cost of living for Queenslanders, and the government are increasing our investment in housing, including the Housing Support Program.

The budget is making more investments in Queensland. We're delivering $9 billion in health and hospital funding. This will increase to $11 billion by 2029-30. We will make every single urgent care clinic permanent. That means that, in regional Queensland, the urgent care clinics in Bundaberg and Gladstone and Rockhampton and Mackay and Townsville and Cairns south and Cairns north will now be permanent—because of our budget. That's taking pressure off emergency departments and getting people the care that they need.

We're delivering more funding for education. We're delivering a gas reservation policy that will help manufacturing in Queensland, because we know that Queensland deserves a long-term plan that connects our local, regional and national economies. This budget delivers just that. At the same time, the Crisafulli government is refusing to fund key projects that we have delivered. My message to the Crisafulli government is this: you've got a budget; you can deliver on the projects that we have announced. We know that this budget delivers for Queenslanders, delivers for Australians, delivers for young people and delivers the reform that we desperately need.