Question without Notice to the Treasurer
Wednesday 12 May, 2021
Amy MacMahon:
My Speaker, my question today is for the Treasurer.
How much money is the Queensland Government spending in sponsoring the Landforces Weapons Expo?
Cameron Dick:
I do not have the figure available to me now. I say to the member for South Brisbane, who was elected on LNP preferences, that every single dollar we are spending on Land Forces is an investment in the future of Queensland...
This is an important investment. This is the premier land defence conference in the nation, and we are proud to have secured it for Queensland. We have a 10-year plan. Our state has always been at the front line of our nation’s defence. It was Queenslanders who fought on the front line during the Second World War to protect this state and nation. We have always been at the front line of defence. Now we want to be at the front line of defence manufacturing. We do not apologise to those tens of thousands of Queenslanders who work in the defence supply chain in our state. The world is a changing place, I say to the member for South Brisbane respectfully. The world is becoming more unstable. There are asymmetric threats to our nation, not just in the traditional military sense but also in the sphere of cyberwarfare, in the threats to cybersecurity, that rain down on our state every single day. We know of the thousands of attempts that are made to hack the Queensland health system. I knew that when I was health minister.
We need an array of defences for our state and nation and we need to create economic opportunity and jobs for Queenslanders. This is a very clear difference in so-called progressive politics in our state. Parties like the Australian Labor Party want to support good manufacturing jobs and jobs in defence and want to create an economic basis to create value in our economy so we have the taxation base to redistribute to those Queenslanders and Australians who need support for public housing, public health, emergency services, community support and disability services. All of that comes from the taxpayers of our state and nation.
The tens of thousands of houses the Greens want to build will not be funded by magical money that appears out of nowhere. We have to strengthen and grow our economy and strengthen and grow jobs. We do not apologise for supporting the defence industry, advanced manufacturing, aerospace, space, the hydrogen industry, renewables and new energy—all of those new frontiers that have only ever been delivered by Labor governments. Queenslanders know that. There is a clear choice: the one progressive force for economic growth, for social reform and for the development and progression of our nation is delivered by governments led by people like our Premier and the Australian Labor Party.