Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Far North Queensland is facing a housing crisis. People are sleeping in cars. They're unable to get rental properties. We've got single parents unable to get homes to live in. We know that overcrowding in Indigenous housing is getting worse. But, instead of doing anything to fix this crisis, the member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, told the ABC recently that he doesn't hold a building licence. That's what he said—that he doesn't hold a building licence. It sounds an awful lot like, 'I don't hold a hose.' It was clear that the member for Leichhardt didn't like being asked why the promise he made to deliver $105 million of remote housing to Far North Queensland hadn't been delivered on. It is one election promise not delivered on, but there are so many more. Not one single house has been built with that $105 million, and people are still living in overcrowded housing in Leichhardt.

Mr Entsch has a knack for promising big and failing to deliver, and then blaming everybody else for his failures. We have seen the same thing with insurance in North Queensland. For years, people in North Queensland have been facing skyrocketing insurance premiums. Some people have given up, choosing to risk having no insurance at all in a cyclone prone region because they cannot afford the cost of rising insurance. Many people are underinsured because that is all they can afford. For so long the member for Leichhardt has been promising to fix this problem, and the government has had eight long years to do it. But, after eight years and numerous inquiries, reports, discussions, speeches and press conferences from the government, we have got a budget handed down that has promised to make an intention to have a reinsurance pool—so not an actual commitment but a commitment to intend to do something.

There are people right now who can't afford insurance, and this government is telling them that they need to wait even longer for this commitment to be delivered—again, lots of photos and headlines but scant on the detail. There are no guarantees of reduced premiums, and there is no clear idea as to how to ensure any savings are going to be passed on to consumers. And it won't even start until the next election. We know that Mr Entsch and the Prime Minister like to come to Cairns and make big promises. But, when the details come out, that's when Far North Queenslanders understand that this is a government that takes them for granted.

Then there's the promise to fix congestion on the Captain Cook Highway and to build the Cairns Western Arterial Road. Before the last election the member for Leichhardt stood on the Captain Cook Highway and said that he would bust congestion. This is a stretch of road that all Cairns residents know about—especially the residents of the north side of Cairns, who sit in their cars every morning for an hour driving at snail's pace just to make the short journey to the CBD. The member for Leichhardt announced to the community in early 2019, before the election, that this was a game-changer infrastructure project. There were lots of photos, lots of headlines and lots of promises, but how far have we come on this important election promise? Of this congestion-busting promise on the Captain Cook Highway, construction has not started and congestion has not been busted. While you're sitting in your cars in traffic in Cairns, Mr Entsch is asleep at the wheel.

When it comes to the CWAR funding in the latest budget, what we know is this: it's another election and another roads announcement. When we asked officials during the Senate estimates process how long it would take for this funding to be delivered in Cairns, we found out that it is several years away. Most of the funding will not be delivered until 2025-26. You will have to vote for this government twice before that road is even built. This is another classic example of the member for Leichhardt talking big but glossing over the details and the actual delivery—always there for the photo op but never there for delivery.

And these are just the local issues. In the past few weeks, on national issues alone, Mr Entsch has supported the government watering down ARENA so it will no longer be investing only in renewable energy. He stood by and said nothing when Minister Pitt vetoed a windfarm in Far North Queensland that would have created 250 local jobs. And he failed to support the Biloela family—two girls born in regional Queensland. He's failed to back them and instead blames the lawyers and the parents. This is a government that is lazy, plumped up from the pandemic— (Time expired)