New ALP candidate for Traeger Danielle Slade has hit the ground running, meeting with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the weekend’s Townsville meeting of State Labor Party leaders.
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Attending the Labor Party State Conference on Saturday, Ms Slade said she left the conference with an optimistic outlook for the future of Queensland.
“Issues facing regional Queensland including living affordability and workforce wages and agreements were not only discussed, but met head on,” Ms Slade said.
“They also discussed investing in our health and education frontlines, not only investing in infrastructure, but in people, youth programs and youth crime, Back to Work programs, housing affordability and support for our elderly.”
Ms Slade said they were not only aware of our issues in the North West, but were already taking the necessary steps to resolve a lot of the key issues we are currently facing.
“The Queensland Government’s ‘Buy Queensland’ policy has given me a lot of hope for the future of the North West,” she said.
Ms Slade said the policy would change the way the government bought or hired the $14 billion it spend every year on supplies and services and would require at least one local or regional supplier, and one other Queensland based business, to be invited to quote or tender for every procurement opportunity offered.
She said that from September 1, the government’s new policy would define a local supplier as a business that maintains a workforce within a 125klm radius of where the goods or workers are needed and businesses tendering for government procurement contracts would need to have a permanent workforce in Queensland.
Ms Slade said she had talked to Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, urging for cost relief.
“I informed Mr Shorten that our local mine had recently written to Malcolm Turnbull, asking for relief with energy and transport costs,” she said.
“I asked if there were to be negotiations to assist Glencore with these issues, could the mine’s ‘re-establishing the Apprenticeship Program’ be put on the table as part of the deal,” she said.
Ms Slade said the number of Australians in apprenticeship is now at its lowest level since 2001, apprentice numbers have fallen by more than 120,000 since the last election.
She said Labor had a plan to boost apprenticeships numbers across the country, ensuring a proportion of the jobs on major federally funded-projects were delivered as apprenticeships.
“The new State and Territories Procurement rules for apprentices will create tens of thousands more apprenticeship places in the years to come,” she said.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
