Who will pay for new state?
This week has certainly been a time for politicians to be telling the general public what they think they want to hear.
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In Federal Parliament Pauline Hanson repeated her 20 year old claim, where only the names were changed to protect the guilty.
On the home scene the Member for Mount Isa, obviously desperate for another headline, wanted to divide Queensland into two. The idea has been around for a hundred years but let's look at the reality.
We need to bring people together not divide them. We are Queenslanders and I don't want to see our State divided just to satisfy the political grandstanding of the "Katters". This was obviously the view of the Queensland parliament where 86 members voted against this idea and only three in favour of it.
Already we can see the so called leaders of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay arguing about which City will be the capital of the new state.
A new state will mean a massive duplication of the public service. It will be the North Queensland Department of Health, then Housing, then Transport, then Social Services, then Police, then Prisons, then Main Roads etc. etc. And who will be paying the bill? The greatly reduced number of taxpayers scattered around North Queensland.
We then look at the Aboriginal Communities which are mostly in North Queensland. Who is going to pay for the infra structure and other services which are required. Who is going to pay for the massive roads programme and all the other services and let's not forget the extra politicians, their staff and their offices which again will cost millions of extra dollars.
We have not heard from Mr Katter as to where the money is coming from for the new buildings and new departments.
At one time we could have used the reason that Queensland rides on the back of the sheep but those days have gone. Then we could claim that the revenue from the mining industry in the main comes from North Queensland but again that's changed.
Let's forget the nonsense of dividing Queensland. Let the politicians do their job and concentrate on real issues.
Kendall Santillan
Mount Isa
Kick in the guts for country racing
The racing industry has stalled under the incompetent Palaszczuk Labor Government in what’s another kick in the guts for regional communities across the state.
Racing Queensland appointed members last week to its three industry advisory panels, but alarmingly there is not one representative on any panel who hails north of Bundaberg or west of Toowoomba.
Sorry Rockhampton, Mackay, Longreach, Townsville, Mount Isa, Cairns, and every race club in between, you aren’t that important according to the Palaszczuk Labor Government.
The appointment of these “industry advisory panels” highlights the fact that Labor’s new governance model already isn’t working.
Minister Grace Grace was unaware the appointments had even been made when a media outlet contacted her about them and one of the state’s major turf clubs wasn’t even consulted on the appointments or wasn’t even advised the process was occurring.
The Palaszczuk Labor Government must have a very different definition to “consulting” than the rest of the world.
Minister Grace Grace is giving racing communities across the state lip-service and hollow promises in the hope people don’t join the dots.
It has become clear she is under pressure around the cabinet table to perform, and it looks like racing has been put on the scrapheap while she concentrates on keeping her job and her union mates happy.
Jon Krause
Shadow Racing Minister