Appropriation Bill 2013

8 Aug 2013 11:46 AMMichael Hart

Mr HART (Burleigh—LNP) (5.44 pm): I rise to add to the Appropriation Bill 2013 and in particular the estimates committee meeting of 17 July of the State Development, Infrastructure and Industry Committee. I add to what the member for Mackay just said about our chairman, the member for Gympie, David Gibson. The member for Gympie runs a very efficient committee. As estimates committees are made up of non-government and government members, one might think that there might be a bit of argy-bargy every now and then, and we do have a little bit of that going on. But, in general, we get on very well and a lot of that has to do with the way that the member for Mackay handles himself in our committee meetings. I commend the member for Mackay for his behaviour in those meetings and in particular at estimates. However, I cannot say that about some of the other members from the non-government side who did attend our estimates committee hearing.

I also personally thank the staff of the State Development, Infrastructure and Industry Committee—our research director Erin Pasley, Margaret Telford, Mary Westcott and Dianne Christian. Without them our committee would struggle on a day-to-day basis. I thank the ministers, in particular the Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, the Minister for Energy and Water Supply and my friend the Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games for the way that they handled themselves at estimates. They were very controlled in the way that they dealt with the questions. They had the answers to every question that government and non-government members put to them and they were very concise and controlled with the way that they delivered those answers.

In the brief time available to me, I want to highlight a couple of the things that we discussed at estimates as they relate to my electorate. Of course, the Deputy Premier spoke to us about the Commonwealth Games infrastructure planning and how important that is for the Gold Coast in 2018. The Gold Coast is really looking forward to those couple of weeks. In fact, the months either side of the Commonwealth Games will be vital to the way that the Gold Coast recovers from the global problems we have had over the last couple of years. The Deputy Premier also spoke about the planning laws and the changes that have been made, as well as the timing of the review of the South East Queensland Regional Plan—another very important issue for those on the Gold Coast.

We also heard from the Minister for Energy and Water Supply and the GOCs involved with that department. We talked about some very important issues to do with the cost of living—that is, how the value of both water and electricity assets is causing the cost of electricity and water to rise and rise and rise again. There was also quite a detailed explanation as to how the solar feed-in tariff—the ill-conceived solar feed-in tariff—that the last government put in place is having a major effect on the cost of living of those people in my electorate, those people on the Gold Coast in general and the rest of Queensland. It was a ludicrous idea to be paying a 44c feed-in tariff for something that we were charging out at about 25c. It is obvious that that would certainly have quite an effect on the price of living. The energy and water supply minister also told us about his 30-year electricity strategy and his 30-year water strategy. It was great to hear about those particular issues.

Turning to the Minister for Tourism, we heard about the Commonwealth Games 2018 legacy that will affect the Gold Coast. As the member for Burleigh, I am very concerned about the sorts of issues that we may have on the southern end of the Gold Coast, in particular my electorate. I will be talking more to the minister and other ministers involved about what sort of legacy there can be for my end of the Gold Coast. Also, the airport is located down my end of the Gold Coast. We heard about the wonderful work that the minister is doing to attract airlines to Queensland. I congratulate the minister for that and I hope she keeps up the good work, because we want plenty more of those airlines coming into the Gold Coast. We also heard that the minister has a 20-year plan for tourism moving forward in this state. I commend the report to the House.

View the footage of the speech here