Last Tuesday there was an extraordinary coming together of the greater Queensland GPS community, as Mr David Scott Bell was laid to rest at a very moving ceremony at Brisbane Boys College. Since the late eighties, Mr Bell has been a much-loved teacher and colleague at no less than five GPS schools: BBC, Churchie, and…
Restraint is a big word. Until yesterday I didn’t know how big, but after the budget we can put an exact figure on restraint. Apparently you can increase spending by $185 billion in less than 12 months and still call it restraint. Laughable as that sounds, it’s exactly what the Treasurer did when he delivered…
I find myself outnumbered here, but we’ll have a go anyway! I will take up a point from the previous speaker, the member for Adelaide. Groom must be a very different place. We saw tremendous investment in our energy sector across coal, gas and solar. Just outside wind, we’re energy agnostic; we’ll take whatever works,…
Price caps simply do not work. This is a longstanding truism in politics and economics. It was true in recent times in South America, as it was true back in Roman times. The edict on maximum prices led to a period of chaos. It’s true because it tries to defy the laws of supply and…
I love my home town of Toowoomba. It’s a wonderful place to live, to work, to raise a family. It’s a great place in and of itself—a wonderful city, a wonderful lifestyle—and it’s been a hub for so much of south-west Queensland and northern New South Wales for years. Growing up, this is where we…
On Monday I will introduce my private member’s bill to the parliament that seeks to explicitly expand the powers of the eSafety Commissioner to deal with the promotion of crimes committed repeatedly in Queensland’s youth crime crisis. It’s a bill born of our local community, and I want to thank two local groups for their…
On Monday I will introduce my private member’s bill to the parliament that seeks to explicitly expand the powers of the eSafety Commissioner to deal with the promotion of crimes committed repeatedly in Queensland’s youth crime crisis. It’s a bill born of our local community, and I want to thank two local groups for their…
It’s a great joy to have the member for Spence back on the rotation. I always make an effort to try and find one point I can agree with the last speaker on. I’m wholeheartedly all-in on the line, ‘It’s not going to get too much better.’ I think that’s very much the situation Australia…
It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to talk about the government’s failure to reduce cost-of-living pressures at this time, I can assure you. It’s right to talk about the impact that mortgage costs going up is having on families, and what it’s like growing up in that situation. Labor certainly does have a mortgage on…
It’s always a pleasure to talk on manufacturing in this place. I’m probably one of the few here who has stood, worked and maybe even sometimes sweated on a shop floor. I’m very happy to say I was the worst welder on that shop floor. I’m probably the best in this House, though. Times have…