James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are struggling under Prime Minister Albanese. Under Labor, inflation continues to rise, power prices are out of control, insurance premiums are skyrocketing and the dream of homeownership is dying, if not dead, for young Australians. What is the government doing to address these issues? Nothing. Zip. Instead, Labor now think it is the perfect time to increase the size of parliament and create jobs for more politicians. What has been reported is 40 more politicians at a reported cost of $100 million a year. It is frankly ludicrous that Labor and Prime Minister Albanese are wasting precious taxpayer resources on this fanciful idea.

Labor should instead be focused on fixing their cost-of-living, healthcare and housing crises, which are crippling our economy and crippling the livelihoods of Australians. Sadly, Prime Minister Albanese's Labor Party continues to put politics before people. Rather than lifting Australians up, Labor would prefer to spend hundreds of millions of dollars employing more politicians and continue on with their merry agenda of creating laws that make this country worse. Australians do not want more politicians. It is as simple as that.

This has been made very clear to me on my travels around Queensland. Over the past few weeks, I've been to places like Rocky, Cairns, Nambour, Toowoomba and St George. Do you know what people are saying to me when I raise the issue of whether we should have more politicians? They get pretty cranky about it because they don't want more politicians and they especially don't want more Labor or Greens politicians. We don't need more Labor and Greens politicians; we need better politicians. We need politicians who work hard, like those on the coalition side, and who understand and deliver for the people they represent. My message to the left side of politics is this: please get out of your offices and engage with your constituents. I'll tell you this for free: none of them want to pay for more politicians.

They want real action on the cost of living. They want cheaper electricity. They want affordable groceries. They want better access to education and health care, and they want to be left alone by the government to live their lives on their own terms. Australians are sick of being dictated to by Anthony Albanese and Labor. They want smaller government. They want smaller, effective government—not bigger, bloated government. Labor continues to push Australia in the wrong direction, and adding more politicians to the mix will not turn our country around. I stand firmly against any plans to increase the size of parliament and create more jobs for politicians, because I want our country to be a happy place, and I don't think Australia will be a happy place if you have more politicians cluttering up the joint.

Last week, I visited Rocky, and I met with local state MPs Donna Kirkland, Nigel Hutton and Glen Kelly. Excitement is building in central Queensland because, in Rocky, on the Fitzroy River, rowing is going to be held for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic games. Let me say this clearly as the shadow minister for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic games: rowing belongs in Rockhampton. As Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie likes to say, if it's good enough for Marshall from Moura to row on the Fitzroy River, then it's good enough for Pierre from Paris to row on the Fitzroy River, because the Fitzroy River is one of Australia's great river systems. It offers the length, conditions and community backing required to deliver a world-class regatta.

Local leaders, businesses and volunteers have worked tirelessly to put Rocky on the map as an Olympic city. I want to acknowledge the advocacy of Matt Canavan, the locally based senator in Rocky, and Michelle Landry, the federal member for Capricornia, who have been Olympic champions—like what I did there, Senator Cadell!—in their advocacy for rowing to be held in Rockhampton. That's why it's pretty outrageous to hear suggestions that rowing should be held anywhere else other than Rocky, particularly when those suggestions come from the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who has suggested that rowing should be shifted out of Queensland and into New South Wales. The 2032 Olympic and Paralympic games are Queensland's games. They were secured by Queenslanders and they must be held in Queensland and benefit the people of Queensland first and then Australia second.

As the shadow minister, I'll do everything in my power to ensure that Olympic events, whether rowing or even tennis, stay in Queensland, where they belong, because we've already seen what happens when Labor dithers and delays. Under the former Labor state government, Queensland squandered a considerable head start when it came to planning and preparing for the games. Years were lost to indecision and internal division, and the very future of the games was at risk. When David Crisafulli and his team were elected, at the end of 2024, they moved immediately to conduct a 100-day review and release their 2032 Delivery Plan. This plan has provided certainty to communities, industry and athletes as it ensures that all of Queensland, not just Brisbane, will share in the economic opportunity.

Take Yeppoon, just outside of Rocky, for example. It's home to the Keppel Bay Sailing Club. I visited this club with Nigel Hutton, the member for Keppel, and they were looking towards 2032 and hoping to attract international sailing nations for training camps and lead-up regattas. Out in Roma, the capital of the Maranoa Regional Council, Deputy Mayor Cameron O'Neil and Mayor Wendy Taylor are looking to host swimming teams there with their new 50-metre Olympic swimming pool once it is built. This means all of Queensland can benefit in the Olympic Games and in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. All of us in Queensland should benefit. Rockhampton is ready to go, the Fitzroy River is ready and Central Queensland is ready. I say the Prime Minister should please bear this in mind when he continues to speak out about shifting the rowing from Queensland to New South Wales.

In recent months, Queensland has once again been tested by severe flooding across large parts of the state, from the Far North to the north-west and now into the south-west. Great swathes of water are slowly travelling across Queensland. At the same time, communities along the coast are remaining on flood watch and looking out to sea as a tropical low decides whether or not to form into a cyclone. Over the past few months, homes have been inundated, roads and bridges have been cut, businesses have been disrupted and primary producers have been hit hard. For many families and many Queenslanders, this is the latest in a long line of natural disasters they have endured. But in Queensland we're used to that. We're used to droughts, we're used to cyclones and we're used to picking ourselves up. I want to say thank you, as a Queensland LNP senator, to all those State Emergency Service volunteers, the police, the ambos and all those people who have gone out there and helped their local communities, because their professionalism and courage have saved lives and brought comfort to many. I also want to thank the Queensland state government, in particular the Premier and also Ann Leahy, the Minister for Fire, Disaster Recovery and Volunteers, for the work they have done to ensure communities immediately get the support they need.

In this last week, we have seen the death of an evil man, and I say 'good'. It is good that Ayatollah Khamenei has been killed. That man ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and, while I don't rejoice in the death of anyone, I do pay homage to the victims of his barbarous crimes against humanity. The world is a safer place with his death. I hope that he is in hell, and I hope that he is in the hottest part of hell, and I hope that he stays there for eternity.