I rise to speak on the estimates report for the Transport and Public Works Committee. I think we could have saved everyone a bit of time this week, given the
pre-empted opposition responses in their addresses and also in their statements of reservation. As the
member for Macalister pointed out yesterday, about one-half to two-thirds—depending on the
committee—of their statements of reservation are identical. It is the copy-and-paste opposition. It is sad
to see that they have put the same effort into their statements of reservation as they did into their
contributions to the estimates hearings.
It was interesting to see the member for Burleigh, who just spoke, trot out the same documents
that he tried to table during the estimates hearing. During the estimates session he was not able to work
out how to make them relevant so that he could table them, but we have them tabled now so that is all
good. I recall that during the estimates hearing there was a bunch of draft or early-stage briefing notes
that he was trying to flag as completed or signed briefing notes. The opposition really were not getting
anywhere with a lot of their questions in a few of the sessions.
I thank all who attended the hearing from both our side and the other side. I thank the committee
secretariat and the staff who put in a lot of work. In particular, I thank the two ministers and their staff,
as well as the department staff, for all their work in preparing for estimates. A lot of preparatory work
goes into an estimates hearing that is not seen on the day. It is a very arduous process. For all the pain
that goes into it, it is very useful for government and the relevant departments to do a stocktake of the
vast swathe of projects and processes that they have underway.
On the transport front, my community will get more train services more often, which was great to
hear from the minister on the day. We have seen a return to the full train timetable, well ahead of the
LNP’s 36-year prediction. It is much in advance of what they were saying. A few questions were asked
about whether those are returned services or extra services. There was a lot of semantics. However,
the people of Aspley do not care about semantics. When they have to catch trains to the city, they are
just happy to have more services running more often. I cannot help thinking about what things would
have been like under a re-elected LNP government considering their track record of derailing our rail
network with botched plan after botched plan, not hiring enough drivers and leaving us to deal with the
fallout of that.
On the infrastructure front, the LNP do like to have a go at Cross River Rail, although a little less
than they used to. Finally they are coming around to seeing it as the solution to the rail network that it
is. Nowadays they are pretty quiet about the BaT tunnel, which was their made-up alternative to Cross
River Rail.
Mr Bailey: It was batty.
Mr MELLISH: It was batty; I take that interjection from the minister. What madness that was.
Busses over train tunnels—a world first. As soon as the 2015 election was underway, they madly issued
briefs stating that it was Campbell Newman’s idea and that no-one else had had anything to do with it.
It was concocted in a hazy smoke filled room, but after it was exposed to the light of day it was very
quickly dropped. As I said, it is good to see that at least they are slowly coming around to Cross River
Rail.
It is great to see the local benefits that will come from the massive QTRIP investment throughout
the state. We are contributing to the Linkfield Road project, which will be jointly funded with the federal
government. It would be great if the federal government brought their money forward, but those
discussions will go on. It is great to see money for the business case for the level crossing on Beams
Road. It is great to see $15 million for the Strathpine Road-Gympie Arterial Road interchange where a
diverging diamond interchange will provide a very innovative solution. It takes a bit to explain to locals
how it will work, but once they get their heads around it—as I had to get my head around it—they will
see that it is a very real solution to a congestion bottleneck on the north side at Bald Hills.
Through the committee hearing we heard a bit about local projects, but we heard a lot of
semantics about new or additional services. It would have been great if a bit more thought had been
put into a few topics during the estimates session.
On the sport and public works front, as I said before, there was a bit of discussion about the
tabling of documents and we went nowhere for about half an hour. However, we heard some great
things from the minister, specifically around the new Sport and Active Recreation Strategy, which will
be great for our area of the north side. From that strategy the Aspley Hornets will receive funds to
upgrade their lights. It is a great sporting club and will put that to good use. I am sure plenty more will
come out of that strategy in future years.
I commend the earlier comments of the member for Kurwongbah when he thanked people. I
support the recommendations of the committee to pass the proposed expenditure.