Llew O'Brien
Wide Bay · National Party · Australia
“Mal is a relentless optimist, possibly powered entirely by community spirit, and he has built a 26,000-strong following celebrating Gympie and its past and present. As for Sean, if there's an award for helping people, either he has won it, he has been nominated for it or he's too busy volunteering and helping people to even notice it.”
“Two of the Gympie region's hardest workers and biggest advocates, Mal Dodt and Sean Connelly, have been given microphones and a licence to inform and entertain.”
“The show featured a wide range of agricultural displays and entertainment, and, together with the Murgon rodeo, people celebrated local industry and tradition. One of the biggest challenges facing show societies today is a lack of volunteers.”
“The Prime Minister and every Labor member of this parliament went to the last election asking the Australian people to trust them. What has the Albanese Labor government given the Australian people in return? Broken promises and betrayal in the form of tax increases on savings, investments, housing and small business.”
“This is to be achieved by removing some of the red tape around the Fair Work Act to allow the Fair Work Commission to be more efficient, particularly in matters relating to dismissal or unlawful termination disputes, and enabling the commission to dismiss or prevent frivolous, vexatious or unreasonable cases and applications.”
“That also sounds good—too good, actually. The third is to improve fairness to contractors, especially in the road transport sector, by extending protections for unfair termination and contract thresholds. The fourth is intended to modernise the system and remove some of the technical flaws in the existing legislation.”
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“I rise as the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to present the committee's report from the 47th Parliament examining the Australian Federal Police annual report for 2023-24. The report was presented out of session in the Senate in late March 2025, the day before the prorogation of the previous parliament. I'm pleased to report that the committee did not identify any major issues of concern. As Australia's national policing agency, the AFP protects Australians and Australia's interests. Some key achievements in 2023-24 included the seizure of 31.3 tonnes of illicit drugs and precursors at the border or domestically, assisting overseas police to seize 41.8 tonnes of illicit drugs, and charging 318 people with criminal offences—121 people were charged as a result of child exploitation investigations.”
“This reform will modernise not only the commission itself but also its enabling legislation, the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002. The committee also examined a range of other issues relating to the agency's performance, including its staff retention and employee census results. On the latter, the committee commends the ACIC for efforts in the area of staff wellbeing, with the recent census showing that wellbeing initiatives, including a staff counsellor, have been welcomed by staff. I commend the ACIC's officers for their valuable contribution to Australian law enforcement and community safety. I also thank them for their assistance with the committee's oversight process as well as my fellow committee members for their constructive approach to the committee's work. I commend the committee's report to the House.”
“The register is an important measure that will benefit law enforcement outcomes and improve community safety. The committee appreciates this is a complex and multifaceted initiative to provide real-time data which will uplift current state based systems, some of which are paper based. The committee will continue to monitor the progress of the program, which is expected to be operational in mid-2028. The independent review of the ACIC was released in November 2024. The report stated that the ACIC is inhibited from fulfilling its intelligence mandate by a lack of clarity about its role, complicated legislative frameworks and uncertainty about its funding. The review's 29 recommendations provide a blueprint for comprehensive reform to the ACIC.”
“The committee is charged with providing parliamentary oversight of the ACIC, which is especially important given the coercive powers available to the agency. As part of this work, the committee examines each ACIC annual report and raises a range of contemporary issues with its officials at a public hearing. I'm pleased to report that the committee did not identify any major areas of concern. The committee's review highlighted several important areas of work being pursued by the ACIC, including the completion of tranche 1 of the National Criminal Intelligence System; the National Police Checking Service, which processed its largest number of checks since its establishment, with over 7.2 million in 2023-24; the integration of data into the Australian Firearms Information Network; and the creation of a national firearms register.”
“by leave—I present the following reports of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement of the 47th Parliament: Examination of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission a nnual r eport 2023-24 and Examination of the Australian Federal Police a nnual r eport 2023-24 . Reports made parliamentary papers in accordance with standing order 39(e). by leave—I rise as Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to present the committee's report from the 47th Parliament examining the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission's annual report of 2023-24. The report was presented out of session in the Senate in late March 2025 on the day before the prorogation of the previous parliament. The ACIC provides vital intelligence and policing information to protect Australia from serious criminal threats.”
“We also heard from some very brave women who spoke about their lived experience of homelessness and how the safe sleeping space that is run by the Salvation Army has changed their life. Not only has it given them a safe place to sleep but also they've followed on and become volunteers to help others at the same time, which is so tremendous. My thanks and appreciation go to the Noosa-Coolum Salvation Army volunteers, led by Captain Matt Gluyas and fundraising committee members Penelope Lena and Donna Frey, for their commitment to helping others.”
“The Salvation Army have been helping people since their formation in the 19th century and doing tremendous work to improve the lives of others, and that work extends into my electorate of Wide Bay and Noosa, where together Sharon and I and 160 other people attended the Noosa-Coolum Salvation Army breakfast at the Sunshine Beach Surf Life Saving Club. The breakfast theme was Hope Rising, and the $20,000 raised will raise the hopes of many. The event's guest speaker, Olympic medallist Natalie Cook, spoke about the importance of hope and how that connects us all. It could be the hope of winning a gold medal at the Olympics or simply the hope of a night's sleep in a safe place.”
“Just before the start of Queensland Road Safety Week, I caught up with some of the road safety champions involved in RYDA, including Steve Webb, Linda Harris and Lloyd and Anne Maddern, and I thank the local rotary members, police, RYDA volunteers and the facilitators and sponsors for all the work that they do in helping young people to learn to drive safely. So far, there have been 10,000 students who have participated in the RYDA program, but the most significant number remains unknown. That's the number of young lives saved who wouldn't be alive today if they hadn't completed the RYDA course.”
“The Rotary Youth Driver Awareness program, RYDA, saves lives and changes lives. With Australia's road toll on the rise and 60 per cent of fatal accidents occurring on rural and regional roads, we need all drivers to drive safely. Schools are the ideal starting place to give young people road safety skills and knowledge to make responsible decisions behind the wheel. Through the RYDA program, rotary clubs partner with local schools and facilitators, including police and driver instructors, to deliver workshops that teach young people how to critically think about the decisions and actions they take when on the road.”
“He founded the Samuel Griffiths Society and contributed to newspapers and periodicals like the Quadrant and the National Observer . He held firm opinions about government, having too much power in society, about the public service becoming too politicised to give independent advice, and about trade unions having too much power over government. But he felt these concerns could be exposed and combatted by vigorous debate, which he saw as the lifeblood of democracy. In 2022 John's contribution to the parliament and public administration were recognised when he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia, and he has been described as a man of total integrity and considerable wit and mastery of the language. He made an enormous contribution to our nation. John passed away in July at the age of 96. May he rest in peace.”
“After Treasury, John held a number of positions, including as: professor in the Centre of Policy Studies at Monash University; senior fellowship at the Institute of Public Affairs; national paper columnist; public speaker; and founding member of the Council for the National Interest and of the HR Nicholls Society. In 1987 John was elected as a senator for Queensland and became Leader of the National Party in the Senate and shadow minister for finance before resigning from the Senate in 1990 to run for the House of Representatives. John's campaign for the House of Representatives was unsuccessful; however, he continued to contribute to the nation, becoming a member of the committee to inquire into the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian Defence Force in 1996 and 1997.”
“John continued to excel, winning one of Western Australia's select exhibition prizes, the physics and mathematics exhibition, and became the 1951 Rhodes Scholar for Western Australia. He studied economics at Oxford, winning the James Webb Medley Scholarship in economics, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in politics, philosophy and economics. In 1954 John went to work at the Australian Treasury and married a biochemical researcher, Nancy Hardwick. John and Nancy had five children. John held several pivotal Treasury roles before becoming Secretary of the Australian Treasury in 1979 under the Fraser government, a position he held until his departure in 1984.”
“This was just the first of John's many outstanding academic and career achievements. John moved to Perth with his mother and brother and went to the Perth Modern School, where he was a member of the school's first XI cricket team, captained the hockey team and was a member of the state representative hockey team that won the 1948 and 1949 national championships. Although he loved history and languages, John chose to study science and mathematics, achieving high marks and seven distinctions—the maximum number possible—in his leaving certificate examination. After high school, John studied at the University of Western Australia, majoring in mathematical physics and serving as president of the students' association before graduating in 1950 with first-class honours.”
“It's an honour to rise and speak to this motion put forward by the member for Berowra, and I acknowledge the fine contributions before me. In July this year, Australia lost a great statesman with the passing of John Owen Stone OAM. Born in regional Western Australia in 1929, John was the oldest son of a farmer and a schoolteacher, and his early life on the farm during the Great Depression taught him the value of hard work and the importance of good education. John's early schooling was in a small, one-teacher school and then via correspondence, but his intelligence and drive to succeed did not go unnoticed. At the age of 12, his life changed when he earned one of 50 scholarships, which enabled him to attend any state Western Australian high school of his choice.”
“Voting to stop this blind obsession with net zero doesn't mean you don't believe in climate change. It doesn't mean you're a good citizen. It just means that you are reassessing and looking at the world around us, our global environment, that is saying that this is not working. It's saying that you want to make Australia resilient as we go into an uncertain future; that's what it is saying. I commend this bill to the House.”
“It went into voluntary receivership; it's been downscaled, and now it has so many question marks over it that it's a joke. It's an absolute joke! I'll tell you what is real. What is real is the lives of business people who are trying to survive in this country, who are going insolvent at an incredible rate—33,000 of them since this transition to net zero began. It is crippling our productivity. It is seeing our manufacturing go offshore because we're not competitive. We have lost industries like our urea industry that is absolutely fundamental to agriculture. Our plastics industry and our nickel industry have gone offshore. Our heavy metal smeltering is on life support because it is captured in the safeguard mechanism. This is a nightmare that needs to stop.”
“He promised us some sort of renewable energy superpower and that we'd have so much of an abundance of this electricity that we could break through the normal barriers of physics and economics and create an industry of green hydrogen. He promised we'd export this to the world, and it would be so fantastic! But what has happened? It has been a spectacular failure—in Gladstone, in the Hunter and in South Australia, and it's cost the taxpayer an absolute fortune. The Prime Minister stood here in this very chamber when he was giving his second reading speech for the climate change bill and talked about this wonderful SunCable project from the Northern Territory that was going to have such vast amounts of renewable energy that we'd be exporting it to Asia. Well, within 18 months of saying that, what happened?”
“They're pitting community member against community member. Sadly, in some cases, they're pitting family member against family member, and that is tragic. And for what? For the most expensive electricity in the world. A lot of our prime agricultural land is being carpeted with these Chinese solar panels. In the greatest act of hypocrisy our pristine, prime, beautiful forests are being mowed down in the name of environmentalism to construct wind turbines. How did we get into this crazy space? We got into it because we had a prime minister who promised us cheap electricity. He promised us prosperity and jobs, and that has all been a total and utter mistruth.”
“It is mining coal at an unprecedented rate; it is not giving it up. India is also investing heavily in coal, and its targets under this agreement are so far out into the future that they're almost worthless. Russia is at war with Ukraine; its emissions are going up. It's building infrastructure to pipe gas into China. The US has started a formal process to get out of the agreement. Why? Because it's putting its people and its economy first, and that's what we need to do in Australia. But what are we doing in Australia? We have a government in Australia that is engaging in one of the greatest acts of economic self-sabotage in the history of the nation, pursuing 82 per cent wind and solar targets that are destroying rural and regional Australia. They're tearing our communities apart.”
“I rise to speak in support of Repeal Net Zero Bill 2025, brought forward by the member for New England, and I commend him for doing so. At the start, I'll say the obvious: climate change is real. With a global population of over eight billion people, obviously the industries that support them have an effect on climate change, and this is something that we need to manage as a government. But it's how we do that that counts, and I believe that we haven't got those settings right—not even close at the moment. When we signed up to net zero, in 2021, we did so on the premise that the whole world was decarbonising and that the major emitters were going to take it seriously, and, four years on, it's obvious that that's not the case. China, the biggest emitter in the world, last year alone constructed 94 gigawatts of coal-fired power.”
“After Cec passed away in 2003, Peg continued her strong and loyal support for the Liberal Party and the LNP in Queensland, including starring in my first election campaign ad in 2016. Peg was a member of the state council and the women's council. She attended party conventions, donated to campaigns and hosted party functions and fundraisers in her home. Peg continued her voluntary work up until close to the end of her life, and she is remembered as a warm, friendly, engaging lady who was always willing to help others.”
“Mel and Linda have been steadfast friends and strong supporters of the National Party since the 1980s, and then the LNP, having assisted in every election held over the last 40 years. I thank them both for their efforts. Mel was a man of quiet achievements, a generous spirit and a deep love for his family and community. His presence will be deeply missed. Peg Burgin passed away this year. Peg was an amazing person who reached the age of 97 years old. Peg was born in Melbourne and lived with her husband Cecil on a rural property in Victoria before moving to Tewantin after Cec retired from his career as a Liberal member for Polwarth in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1970 to 1985. Peg spent many years actively supporting the Liberal Party and often spoke about handing out how-to-vote cards for Sir Robert Menzies in her younger days.”
“Mel enjoyed working with his hands, and his work went well beyond putting up election signs. He won two Fraser Coast heritage awards for his restoration and renovation work, and he shared his skills and talents with the community. Mel and Linda devoted much of their life to public service. Mel joined Rotary over 50 years ago and was a proud Paul Harris Fellow for his outstanding service and commitment to Rotary's ideals. He was actively involved in the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness program and numerous Rotary fundraisers. Even after their retirement, Mel and Linda's strong commitment to their community and volunteering continued. Mel was bursting with pride when Linda was awarded an OAM in 2023.”
“She authored several books documenting the history of the region, and she was a local legend in her own right. I had the pleasure of meeting Lillian several times in 2020. I presented her with a commemorative medallion marking the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and, in 2023, a certificate of appreciation for her war service. Our last meeting took place at Groundwater Lodge in 2024, where she shared her memories of Wide Bay and her wartime experiences in the Women's Royal Australian Navy. In 2025, the Wide Bay community also farewelled Melville Harris of Tiaro. Mel was married to Linda Harris for 56 years, and, throughout their lives together, they travelled extensively as a family, encouraging their three daughters to learn about different cultures and experience the world around them.”
“I rise to pay tribute to the lives of three people who each, in their own way, served our community and our country. In June this year, one of Wide Bay's last surviving World War II veterans passed away. Lillian Coyne was a much loved and respected family and community matriarch. Lillian was 99 when she passed away, and her kindness, wisdom and sharp wit are sorely missed. Born in Bauple in 1926, Lillian served in the Women's Royal Australian Navy during World War II in a clerical role, mainly as a member of HMAS Moreton . After the war, Lillian returned to Bauple, where she raised her children and became deeply involved in the community. Lillian was one of the residents who helped establish the Bauple Museum. Her knowledge of the history of the Bauple district was immense.”
“The Ration Shed Museum forms part of a cultural precinct that tells the story of Cherbourg's history and celebrates its contemporary achievements. A portion of the sales of the book goes to the Ration Shed Museum. (Time expired)”
“I also had the opportunity to attend a book launch at Cherbourg's Ration Shed Museum, which is the building where, historically, food rations of flour, sugar and tea were distributed to the community. It was a meeting with my friend, Cherbourg elder Eric Law AM, at the Ration Shed Museum that inspired former police officer Tess Merlin to write her historical novel, Red Dirt Blue Lights , which tells the story of a young policewoman working in and around Cherbourg in the 1970s. Eric assisted and advised Tess with cultural input. Red D ir t B lue L ights explores the historical relationship between law enforcement and the Cherbourg community, casting a light on the mistreatment and segregation that Aboriginal people endured.”
“The 2025 NAIDOC theme, 'The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy', was brought to life by the Cherbourg council's Community Services department and Youth Advisory Group, who planned and hosted a wonderful community event. The celebrations at Cherbourg included a flag-raising ceremony, a cultural display from the Wakka Wakka Dancers and announcements of the 2025 NAIDOC community awards. I congratulate community award winners Cathryn Sullivan, Richard Gadd, Julian Saltner Jr, Karen Jacobs, Dorothy Bird, Koby Douglas, Sam Murray, Elizabeth O'Chin and the Cherbourg Wellbeing group, who were all recognised for their outstanding contributions to the Cherbourg community.”
“Recently, Sharon and I grabbed the grandkids and went for a drive out to Cherbourg to participate in the NAIDOC Week celebrations. In 1904, the Barambah Aboriginal settlement was established as a government reserve for Aboriginal people from across Queensland and New South Wales who were forcibly removed from their communities. It was then renamed Cherbourg in 1931. Housed in dormitories and camps, with rationed food, strict rules and harsh punishments that applied, Aboriginal people were incarcerated and alienated from their families, languages and cultures. Self-governance was achieved in 1986, and the community is now the Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council. I acknowledge Mayor Bruce Simpson, his councillors and elders, whom I have worked with since becoming the federal member in 2016.”
“I look forward to working with those people who are heading up industry in the area so that we can bring those opportunities to Wide Bay and Noosa and Maryborough. I look forward to listening to what they need. The world is changing rapidly, and what might have been relevant three or four years ago is not relevant now, so close engagement is important and that's what I intend to do. I want to thank my family, my kids for their support through the campaign. It's not easy being the family of an elected member of parliament sometimes and I appreciate what they do for me. I couldn't do this without my wife, Sharon, or my kids and so I thank them. And, finally, I thank the people of Wide Bay for re-electing me to be their member in this sacred, democratic place.”
“Tony Perrett, now the minister for agriculture, is the member for Gympie. He's another fine member of parliament who stood shoulder to shoulder with me. Deb Frecklington, from Nanango, is another great member and is now the Attorney-General of Queensland. It was great to have her support. I thank them all for their support. Whilst it's good to reminisce about the things that we've achieved and we all promote those things, and that's the right thing to do to promote our community, they are all things in the past. We have to look to the future, and I look forward to working closely with my community and with elected members regardless of their political persuasion. Regardless of their views, I want to work constructively with them.”
“But to put a campaign forward, to execute a campaign properly, you need people around you, and I want to thank some of those people who supported me in my campaign. Ben Ellingsen, my campaign director; my campaign committee; all of the people who handed out fliers for me—as we all know, pre-poll is getting longer and longer and harder and harder to man, and I had very committed volunteers who stood there and did what they had to do to help me—I thank you so much. I want to thank the state members of parliament who helped me. John Barounis is an incredible guy from Maryborough. I'm looking forward to working with John to fight for Maryborough's fair share and fix some of the problems that we have in Maryborough, some of the social issues. He will be relentless in his pursuit of that, and I really look forward to working with him.”
“Whilst we didn't win, and that's an election commitment that I'm going to find very hard to deliver not being in government, I will call on the government to consider delivering that, because we have got a big population of veterans in Gympie, and they deserve the best. As I said, they've put themselves forward; they've put themselves on the line, and we deserve to give them the gold standard when it comes to their life post service. I'll just move onto the election. Elections are tough. They should be; that's a good thing. They are robust. We all feel it. We've all been through the wringer. We've all experienced things that we think are over the top and we've all experienced moments where we've thought: 'Wow! That's great. Democracy's a wonderful thing.' At other times we've felt other feelings.”
“Once again, I've been very privileged and pleased to be able to deliver for our veterans where I can. Before the 2019 election, I made a commitment to fund a nearly half-million dollar veterans drop in centre in Murgon, a place where the veterans could go in and get counselling and the support that they need, as well the camaraderie and all of those things. We delivered that, and in the next election, as a priority and a commitment, I managed to get $1.8 million to upgrade the memorial in Memorial Park in Gympie, where, now, we have an amazing place to honour those people on Anzac Day and those special days that we acknowledge our servicemen and women. These are things that I hold close and are priorities for me. I made another commitment at this election for a veterans welfare centre in Gympie.”
“From Melbourne through to the end of section D, it's four lanes all the way, and it's a world-class highway. But what you find is that at the end of that road, where it ends—and this has happened as it's developed—becomes the next death zone. When people come off the four lanes onto the two lanes, undivided, that's where the fatalities happen, and that's what's happening now. We need to continue that on into an area where the density of traffic is far less than what it is. We have 11,000 movements a day at Tiaro. A big focus for me has been supporting veterans. We only have the lucky country that we have because people have gone to serve this nation in war and have put themselves forward to be prepared to do that. That's an incredible sacrifice and an incredible thing that needs to be honoured.”
“I had millions of dollars of stimulus going into industries that create jobs, whether it be Nolan's meatworks in Gympie, which is the biggest employer in town, or the munitions factory. That is a new industry going into Maryborough with Rheinmetall and Rheinmetall NIOA, which is creating over 100 jobs brand new to the area and much needed. These are the things we did in coalition. Unfortunately, whilst the Labor Party have come to Gympie to cut a few ribbons and do a few things like that, they haven't continued with the delivery that we did and fought for. It's been absent, and that's got to change. That highway going further north, that missing stretch between Gympie and Tiaro, needs to be fixed because that, now, will be the death zone.”
“I've got to acknowledge Michael McCormack and Barnaby Joyce, who really pushed hard and helped me to get that money. There was also the Tiaro Bypass that Michael McCormack dug deep to get me the money for, as well. That's going to be built, and it will also save lives. It's a bottleneck and a barrier to progress, but that will save lives as well. I'm glad that the new LNP state government are taking that seriously. I spoke to the transport minister, and he's taking it seriously. He's taking it as seriously as me, so that's a really good thing. There have been so many things that we achieved in the years of government, our terms of government. I had 19 new mobile black spot towers delivered.”
“When I came to this place, I made it one of my absolute missions, as somebody who had stood on the highway as a policeman and a fatal accident investigator and experienced those horrors, to get that money and that funding to see that 30-kilometre greenfield section of road delivered. In the last term of government, it was finished, and Gympie is now bypassed. Those roads that were killer roads are now world-class roads. I didn't get an invite to the opening of the billion-dollar upgrade that the Morrison government funded, but I don't care about that. I was so proud that that was opened. All that backslapping and ribbon cutting is not for me anyway. I just wanted it finished so people would not get killed. So it was a proud, proud day for me, because I know what went into it.”
“They fought hard. I must say that it was David Crisafulli, who was the local government minister in an LNP government, who separated the Noosa council and gave them their uniqueness back. It's great to see them doing what they do, and I'm looking forward to working with Mayor Frank Wilkie. Gympie is my home town. It's where I've been since I was 15. I've watched it develop over the years, and it's an amazing place. It's changing. It's changing as the creep from the Sunshine Coast goes further north and west. Gympie is particularly changing because of the bypass that was delivered, the $1 billion section D bypass on the Bruce Highway. That was something that was planned but wasn't going to be delivered for quite some years.”
“It's at the other end of the spectrum, when it comes to Cherbourg and Noosa, but they're both as wonderful as each other, and they both appreciate each other. Indeed, quite often the Noosa surf club gets a bus and brings some of the young people from Cherbourg down to the coast to experience the skills and lifestyles of lifesaving, and that's amazing. That's the sort of egalitarian atmosphere that's in Wide Bay. We're also an industrial and economic powerhouse. It doesn't matter where you go in the world, if you say 'Noosa', people know it, and that's because of the incredible tourism and biodiversity there. People come to enjoy the atmosphere and the events that they hold there. They are their own local government area, which was a fight that was taken up by the locals after they were amalgamated with other, larger councils.”
“It's not one of those giants out west like Maranoa or others that are huge, but it's big enough. To the east, I've got the amazing coastline, Fraser Island and the beaches of Rainbow Beach and Noosa down to Peregian and up to the north. I have the amazing manufacturing and services area of Maryborough and the agricultural areas of Murgon and Gympie, and I have the beautiful community of Cherbourg, which is a former Aboriginal mission and a beautiful place. I acknowledge the mayor, Bruce Simpson, who's doing an amazing job there, promoting Cherbourg. I look forward to working with him in the three years to come; there's a lot to do. We need to get him new council chambers. They haven't been delivered for so long. He's doing a good job, and I look forward to supporting him. Noosa is an amazing place.”
“But we all put ourselves forward before our community, and our community make the decision on whether we are the right person to represent them, to serve their interests in the best way we can in this place. It is an amazing place to work. Sometimes it's a bit hard to explain it to the kids in the gallery when they watch question time and see the robust nature of it, but it's a demonstration of free speech and freedom. It's a symbol. In other countries, they just don't have that kind of freedom to speak to the government, to question the government, to hold the government to account, and we can do that here. It's something we need to protect and something I value deeply, and I value my time here, representing the people of Wide Bay. Wide Bay is an incredibly diverse electorate. It's just under 15,000 square kilometres.”
“It's an incredible honour and privilege to be elected to the parliament again to represent the people of Wide Bay, my beautiful electorate that has so much to offer. It's always so humbling to come to this place. I remember the first time I arrived at the parliament, in 2016. I'd come from a little two-man police station—to this. It struck me: what an honour it is and also what an incredible country we live in that this place is available for us—all of us. Some of us come from a background like mine. I didn't finish school. I had to educate myself in my adult years and became a police officer. Some people who arrive here are captains of industry, or incredibly accomplished in academia.”
“I've supported the Hub's application for funding to help them purchase furniture and computer equipment to assist their volunteers and their work, and I was pleased to support their fundraising effort on Saturday night. But much more needs to be done. I call on the government to commit to another round of the Stronger Communities Program to help organisations like the Hub continue their valuable work helping those who need help in our communities.”
“Noosa is a great place to live and work, but, like everywhere, the rising cost-of-living crisis continues to have a big impact on the family budget. Housing in Noosa costs almost double the Queensland average, and a growing number of families need some extra help to make ends meet. This is where the Hub Food Outlet and Op Shop fit in. In a fantastic example of community helping community, Pastor Josh Usher from the Noosa Church, and his team of 100 volunteers, are supporting vulnerable residents through the church's community service arm. The church recently upgraded their Hub Food Outlet and Op Shop where around 800 people every week access free or low-cost food, clothing and homewares and can receive support from a social worker if they need it.”
“We need to get Australia back on track, and I'm working with the coalition to deliver the right policies and the right priorities to deliver for Wide Bay and make Australia prosperous, secure and united again.”
“I'm keen to work with local community and sporting groups to help them get the support they need, including funding for a new clubhouse for the Noosa Dolphins rugby union club. Improving the capacity of other sporting clubs in Wide Bay is a priority for me as well, and I'm working with the Gympie and Maryborough district hockey associations to upgrade their clubs. I'm also working with the Noosa Women's Shed to secure funding for their shed, and with the Gympie Pistol Club to redevelop their clubhouse. So many families and businesses have experienced economic pain caused by the Albanese Labor government. The statistics I outlined at the beginning of my speech tell of the hardship inflicted by this government. We can't afford another three years of Labor's weak leadership and economic incompetence.”
“It's been revealed that the bulk of the recently announced $7.2 billion safety upgrade funding won't be available for many years to come. State and federal Labor have proven that they can't be trusted with our safety on the Bruce Highway, but I won't give up fighting for the safety of my locals. We need to get Australia back on track, and that starts with a government that understands and delivers for our region, not ignores it, as the Albanese Labor government has done. I'm looking to the future to continue my work with the community to deliver for Wide Bay, including fighting to extend mobile coverage across Wide Bay, particularly in areas such as Booubyjan and Teewah Beach.”
“I worked with the community to secure $269 million from the former federal government for the four-lane Tiaro bypass, but state and federal Labor governments put lives at risk by going slow on this vital project. The former Queensland Labor government said the detailed design would be completed by the end of 2023, that tenders would be called in 2024 and that construction would start in February this year. But none of that was true. The detailed design has only just been completed, the tender hasn't been called, and construction has not started. The Albanese Labor government has failed to deliver the new major projects on our stretch of the Bruce Highway, much of which, between Gympie and Maryborough, is rated less than three stars out of five for safety.”
“I also helped a number of sporting groups to access funding, including the Granville Tigers hockey club, Noosa Dolphins, Noosa pickleball and Maryborough district hockey club. Anyone who knows me knows how concerned I am about improving road safety. As a former police officer, I've seen the tragic aftermath of fatal crashes on the Bruce Highway. I fought, with my colleagues in Canberra, the former Queensland government and the Albanese Labor government to make the highway through Wide Bay as safe as it is from Gympie to Melbourne. In 2018 a huge community effort resulted in an $800 million commitment by the former coalition government for the Gympie bypass, transforming one of the deadliest sections of the Bruce Highway into one of the safest.”