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Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Page: 3613

Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (16:07): After the coalition failed to send a shadow minister to my electorate during the last federal campaign and made no funding commitments for my electorate at the last federal campaign and opposed the upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway for three elections in a row and failed to fund the Blacksoil Interchange—which we have with $54 million under the Regional Infrastructure Fund matched by the Bligh Labor government's $16 million for the Blacksoil Interchange—the coalition has once again neglected my electorate and the city of Ipswich in this state campaign. Whether it is the Blacksoil Interchange, which they have not agreed to fund, or the upgrade of the Ipswich hospital—which is underway—or the Ipswich police station and courthouse or the new Springfield Lakes police station or upgrades to Goodna station or police beats in the suburbs of Ipswich or the Springfield rail line and extra trains on the Ipswich line, the coalition have refused to actually support any of these. They are silent on these issues.

Then, of course, we have State Schools of Tomorrow and the new Bremer high school, which my children have both attended and is the biggest school in my constituency. It was relocated and a new one built at a cost of $73 million, a wonderful facility in Ipswich, in my electorate. The coalition opposed it at a state level fiercely and ferociously at every campaign in the past. Take the three new primary schools and a recent new high school in the Bundamba electorate—again the coalition are silent and are not supporting those, or even the BER in my electorate. The coalition have done this time and time again.

I am a political junkie and, as an old campaign director, I collect material from both sides of politics. As a constituent in the state electorate of Ipswich, I received a letter from the LNP candidate, a Mr Ian Berry, a lawyer who has shown the same degree of lethargy in politics that he showed in the many cases I had against him as a lawyer. He actually sent a letter to me telling me about the fact that I should not be supporting my local MP and he did not mention Rachel Nolan, the member for Ipswich, but actually Margaret Keech, who happens to be the member for Albert. He actually refers to the fact that he is running in the seat of Albert in fact instead of the seat of Ipswich. He tells me in my letter from him:

Every vote will count and if you want Campbell Newman as Premier we need you to support Mark Boothman—

in Albert, when Mr Berry is actually the LNP candidate in Ipswich. That is the only bit of correspondence that I know of that he has sent to the people of Ipswich in the state seat. He refers to the seat of Albert and he gets it wrong. He is a great LNP candidate, isn't he! It goes to show the degree of contempt the LNP has for the people of Ipswich, across all the Labor-held electorates, and the electorate of Blair. I urge the people of Ipswich to vote Labor next Saturday.