ADJOURNMENT

Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (19:49): If I'm not mistaken, it would have been about a dozen years ago—I believe it was at the Palmwoods pub—we had an LNP branch meeting. Those branch meetings are pretty action-packed meetings. After that meeting I was on the side of the street and I struck up a conversation with a fellow by the name of Jeff Addison.

Jeff—a local bloke, a terrific fellow—commuted to Brisbane every single day on the rail and he educated me on the dire situation of the North Coast rail line. I thought he was onto something. Rarely have I met somebody with a mind like an encyclopaedia when it comes to rail, but that's Jeff Addison, so I took the time to get fully educated.

I remember sitting down with him. He spread all the documents on the floor, and I got my head around the problems with that rail line. I wanted to back him in on his campaign as a real rail advocate.

If I fast forward, I was fortunate enough to be elected, some time later, as the local federal MP. I was absolutely determined to be good to my word to Jeff Addison that we had to fight to upgrade that North Coast rail line, and fight we did—dog to a bone stuff. Within two or three months, I think, I had a petition of over 5,000 people working together, hand in glove, with the member for Fisher.

We fought for that rail upgrade and we won $390 million in that first term as local MPs. It shows you that, if you're prepared to fight for your local community, you can get stuff done. The member for Fisher, the member for Wide Bay and I have fought and fought to ensure we get money for the Bruce Highway, we get money for the rail line, and we have delivered, because we love getting stuff done.

If you work as a team you can fight. The reason I'm talking about this tonight is that last week I was delighted when the Queensland state LNP government released the detailed design for stage 1 of that upgrade, which is referred to as B2N: the Beerburrum to Nambour rail upgrade. It took a long time to get to where we are, but that was because at the time we were dealing with the Palaszczuk state government in Queensland.

It came down to federal MPs—on a state asset—to fight to secure funding, to force the hand of the state government. Of course, they dragged the chain for many, many years until finally, in October 2024, the Crisafulli government was elected. The mighty fine minister Brent Mickelberg then took over the portfolio, and action then began.

So, last week we saw the release of the stage 1 detailed design, and now we can see the rail being upgraded. Here we're talking about a much-needed duplication between Beerburrum and Beerwah. We're talking about new bridges and removal of crossings.

We are talking about upgrades to park-and-ride areas, including one in Nambour. This is critical, because the Sunshine Coast is probably Australia's largest-growing regional area—outside capital city areas. Much as we debate in this place the enormous growth of Australia's population in recent years due to the migration issue, the Sunshine Coast has exploded in population.

This puts the obligation on us to ensure that we are building infrastructure ahead of the population curve, and that is precisely what we need to continue to do with the money that we have secured. Whether it be the member for Wide Bay, the member for Fisher, me, or us working as a team, we need to keep building infrastructure for our region, because it is bursting at the seams.

As we head to the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we're going to see more and more people come to the Sunshine Coast. They're predicting around 200,000 more residents over the next 20 years, so we have to keep on top of this. I'll end with this.

What we see with this rail project is a 'team Sunshine Coast' effort—not just local federal MPs and a state government but Jeff Addison. I take my hat off to you, mate. Thank you.