Welcome to my first column for 2025 and I hope everyone was able to enjoy a great Christmas and New Year holiday season with family and friends.
I also pay tribute to those who had to work over the busy holiday season. As a former police officer who served over the traditional break, I know how essential the work of our first responders, emergency services, doctors and nurses is and given the importance of tourism to Noosa, I particularly recognise tourism and hospitality operators and employees who help keep the wheels of Noosa’s economy turning.
In the first half of this year Australians will head to the polls to decide who will lead our country for the next three years.
The question that all Australians need to ask themselves ahead of the 2025 federal election is are you better off now under Labor compared to three years ago?
Australians are suffering through the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. Our living standards have plummeted, real disposable income has fallen by 8.7 per cent on a per capita basis, we are enduring the longest per capital recession on record, and the weakest annual GDP growth since 1991.
When governments get their priorities wrong, policies go wrong, and things go very wrong for the Australian people.
Under the Albanese Government interest rates have gone up twelve times, with mortgage payments almost tripling in some cases. Our electricity bills have increased dramatically, and government fuelled inflation has driven up the cost of groceries, fuel, health, insurance, education, and other essential household items.
A Coalition Government lead by Peter Dutton will fight cost of living pressures to ease inflation to restore our standard of living.
A Dutton Coalition Government will rein in the wasteful spending that has fuelled inflation and interest rate hikes and deliver cheaper power through a balanced energy plan that includes renewables, gas, and nuclear.
We will also boost housing supply and help young Australians into the property market, protect retirement savings from unfair new taxes, and increase the amount veterans and older Australians can work without reducing their pension payments.
Your safety on the road remains a top priority for me and I continue to press the Federal and State Government to make our roads safer.
Tragically, less than a fortnight into 2025 there have already been two fatalities on the Bruce Highway in Wide Bay.
In November 2023 I lodged a Right to Information request with the former Queensland Labor Government that revealed the shocking state of the Bruce Highway, and that much of the highway through Wide Bay is rated just two stars out of five for safety.
Anyone who travelled north from Noosa between Gympie and Maryborough over the Christmas and New Year period or looked at social media would have experienced or seen reports of long traffic queues and congestion on our section of the Highway.
In the time since it was elected in 2022, the Albanese Labor Government has not funded any significant projects to upgrade the section of the Bruce Highway through Wide Bay, and it’s done nothing but dither and delay by subjecting the four lane Tiaro bypass to a bureaucratic 90 day review that ended up blowing out to 200 days.
In September 2024 I moved a motion in the Parliament calling on the Albanese Labor Government to reverse its thirty per cent funding cut to projects to upgrade the Bruce Highway and restore the Coalition’s 80:20 Federal / State funding formula.
I welcome the Prime Minister’s recent announcement of $7.2 billion to upgrade dangerous sections of the Bruce Highway. But the funding profile for this spend hasn’t been revealed and his Finance Minister has suggested the funding may not be available until beyond the forward estimates. This funding is long overdue and the projects to upgrade the Bruce Highway through Wide Bay, including the Tiaro bypass must be expedited.
Parliament is expected to resume for the first two weeks of February, but before then I’ll be in Pomona, Cooroy, Tewantin, and Rainbow Beach to meet with local residents. If you would like an appointment, please contact my office on 4121 2936 and my team and I will do our best to help you.
