State member for Robbie Katter has been out on the road selling the benefits of a new state of North Queensland.
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In June this year the local branch of the Labor party rubbished the idea in their North West Star column saying it would be too costly to set up a new parliament, new public service, new police service and all the other services a state government provides.
But Mr Katter remains undeterred.
He is now saying that if the KAP holds the balance of power at the next election they will immediately take the first step toward the establishment of North Queensland as a separate state.
They will establish a committee of independent experts to develop a ‘roadmap’ to define the steps required to establish the state of North Queensland.
Mr Katter said a logical starting point of a border when splitting Queensland in two, would be the Tropic of Capricorn with Rockhampton north of the line.
He was also on the popular Channel 10 program The Project spruiking the benefits of the idea and while the program content got a bit bogged down in rugby league state of origin, Mr Katter said it was a serious issue with North Queensland responsible for much of the state’s wealth but the vast majority of the spending goes to the south-east corner.
Waleed Aly brought up the issue of North Queensland getting 12 senators, which the rest of the country wouldn’t like, and Mr Katter agreed, though he also pointed out there was only one of out 12 senators based in Northern Queensland at the moment (I presume he means Ian Macdonald in Townsville, though arguably Matt Canavan in Rockhampton makes two).
There is an online petition in front of the Queensland Parliament currently with around 400 signatures calling for a new state. The petition requests a state referendum to allow the people of Queensland living north of the Latitude 26 South to vote on the creation of a new “North Eastern State of Australia”.
The 26th parallel is a lot further south of Rockhampton. It stretches each from the Queensland/ South Australia/ the Northern Territory border (Poeppel Corner) to the coast north of Noosa. North of that line is 1.5 million of Queensland’s five million people. – Derek Barry