ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT - PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - Queensland: Beef Industry

Beef roads are so very important. I can remember when I was the Deputy Prime Minister—in the golden age of Australian democracy!—going to a press conference with the erstwhile Minister Matthew Canavan and the then member for Flynn, Kenny O'Dowd. We were announcing significant funding for an upgrade—a $30 million project. We were contributing $20 million, because that's what we did when we were in government—we actually provided the lion's share of the funding. This mob, Labor, have reduced it to a fifty-fifty arrangement with the states. So many roads and so much infrastructure has not been built because the states don't want to stump up the additional money. But it was 80-20 when we were in government. Anyway, Ken O'Dowd, Matt Canavan and I were announcing, as part of the $400 million beef corridors road program, the sealing of 457 kilometres of roads in that great state of Queensland—cattle country, Member for Wright. There we were at the press conference, and it was Ken O'Dowd's turn to speak. He said, in true Kenny style, 'This is going to be so great, not only for the farmers, not only for the community, not only for the abattoirs but also for the cattle, because they're going to get to the meatworks quicker.' Only Ken could say something like that. But, in Ken's laconic fashion, he was right, because it was actually going to lead to the cattle getting to the processing plant faster and in a less bruised state than they would have otherwise on a rocky gravel road. Certainly for the truck drivers this was going to be good, if not for the cattle, who were going to be processed sooner.

Mayor Kerry Hayes of the Central Highlands Regional Council said that delays to this beef roads program—which is what those opposite are putting in place—were just wrong. When Kerry Hayes speaks, people should listen. He's one of those laid-back mayors, but, I tell you what, he's the salt of the earth and a pillar of his community. He said it showed Labor's lack of understanding on delivering infrastructure for regional Queensland, and he was right.

The roads that will be sealed under the funding are the Clermont to Alpha Road, May Downs Road, Kilcummin to Diamond Downs Road, Alpha to Tambo Road, Dawson Developmental Road and Fitzroy Developmental Road. Whilst they might not resonate—they might not be household words, names, projects or roads in Canberra—rest assured they make an absolute world of difference to those people in Central Queensland and in northern Queensland, where cattle are so very important to the local economy for food. Rest assured it is cattle country.

The coalition government got on with the job of supporting major Queensland road investments. Now Labor is putting vital road upgrades at risk and therefore putting lives at risk. I have to give a shout-out here. The member for Wright, if he has a dictionary handy, might throw it at me, but I worked well with Mark Bailey. Mark Bailey was a good minister. He was certainly a good minister to projects that needed upgrading. I know he was minister for main roads for nearly nine years. For six years and five days he was Minister for Transport, until 17 December 2023. He and I worked well because we put the politics aside. We put the national interest and Queensland's interests first and foremost. I pay credit to Minister Bailey for getting things done. It's a shame Minister King can't do the same and have the same spirit of cooperation with Queensland and with the national interest.