Mr HARDGRAVE (9:49 AM) —I rise this morning to advocate for Annerley, a marvellous suburb within my electorate of Moreton. Annerley has a tremendous history in the growth of Brisbane's southern suburbs, out through to the Darling Downs, dating back to the 1840s. Much of Annerley's history parallels that of my own family in south-east Queensland since the same time. In fact, my grandfather went to school at Junction Park State School—a school with a wonderful history which is located in the suburb of Annerley.

Annerley has also been the home of three premiers over the years. Digby Denham, William McCormack and Vince Gair in more recent times have all lived in Annerley. But in recent years the suburb of Annerley has been suffering under the pressure of a Brisbane City Council that has been determined to increase the density of housing. It wants more high-density housing that will choke the local streets and rob the local people of the open space and the sense of history that they should be able to enjoy in their suburb of Annerley. Annerley has had and still has many fine heritage homes, homes of tremendous value to the history of Queensland, but they are being choked by large brick monstrosities being built by the state housing commission as they load more and more people into the streets of Annerley.

At the same time this has been occurring there have been no additional recreational reserves or open spaces created in Annerley. The local shopping centre at the Ipswich Road and Annerley Road intersection has received none of the support that shopping centres in and around Annerley have received. Places like Moorooka, Stones Corner and Mount Gravatt have all received additional upgrades from the Brisbane City Council. The council has spent $19 million on local Shopping Centre Improvement Projects, SCIPs, across the city of Brisbane, but the Annerley business district has been left to slowly die.

People are getting the message. People are not shopping in Annerley the way the local retailers would like. The Commonwealth Bank, other banks and Centrelink have found that the poor bus service into the Annerley Junction area, plus the unfortunate presentation that the centre has because of the lack of funding from the Brisbane City Council and the pressure of Ipswich Road, a major arterial route running right through the centre, have meant fewer and fewer people going into the area and more and more shops becoming vacant.

People in my area believe the Annerley army reserve depot in Dudley Street, which is currently up for sale from the Commonwealth, should also become a local recreational reserve, an area of open space. There is an opportunity also. I call for the Brisbane City Council to return some of the $5 million or $6 million a year in council rates and charges taken from the residents of Annerley back to Annerley. Today it has reached the stage where I have had to launch a petition to petition the Brisbane City Council to allocate some of that SCIP funding to the Annerley shopping centre. I launch that petition regrettably, because of the failure of the local Labor Party councillor to act on this issue.