Last man standing has no dam idea
I love you Ewan Jones. The LNP policies that you loudmouth provide the most clear-cut reason to vote KAP.
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I quote the Townsville Bulletin 8th August: "The new state for NQ is an economic disaster.....the new state would have to build some form of energy supply to keep the lights on and at our cost".
If you had been a good M.P., you would have checked out the Hell's Gates Scheme. It provides 620 mgwts of baseload power.
With a $180 million grant, NQBE at Ingham and AusCane at Ayr will produce another 240 mgwts of base load. They should, and Hell's Gates will, generate at $50 a mgwt/hr, much cheaper than our power now supplied from Sth Qld.
"Big Kennedy" wind (and solar) farm proposal at Hughenden will produce (with CopperString and HIPCO's hydro irrigation) 700 mgwts of base load. The Tully Realignment will produce 600 mgwts of peak load power. N Qld required 800 mgwts base load and 600 mgwts peak load.
Mr Jones, you're on record proposing 'pump hydro' at Burdekin Falls. And a new coal fired Power Stn. in Nth Qld. New coal fired, according to the Finkle Report, would exceed $80 per mgtw/hr. And your Burdekin Falls pump storage, much more costly than this.
Mr Jones, you argue only a fool would believe a Qld-wide referendum or a Qld Parliament would agree to Separation and 12 senators.
I'm sure, Mr Jones, in 1900 you would've been calling Hon Alfred Deakin and Sir Samuel Griffith C.J. fools for asking the British for sovereignty and separation.
I'm sure the little band of heroes that wanted statehood for California in the 1850's were fools too. Fancy a 100,000 people wanting to become a state (Nth Qld's current pop. is 900,000).
California is now the biggest food producing state on earth, Pop. is now 41m. All telecom systems; your computer, smart phone, iPad, all come out of a place called Silicon Valley (the heartland of California)
One of the world's biggest industries - movies - almost entirely based in Hollywood
Lucky the Mr Jones' weren't around when the 13 American colonies secured their independence off a Government, 1,000's of miles away and adding 37 states to the 13, creating the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.
If Nth Qld was a separate state, the hospitals, schools, prisons, public housing, would of course belong to us. Not as you claim, the State of Qld and, rest assured Sth Qld will be most anxious to offload these liabilities on to us.
What they won't like to offload is the 10% of the state's budget which is met entirely off mineral royalties and payroll tax (plus land taxes) levied off we Nth Qlder's.
Let me conclude with four points:-
- Brisbane has 29km of tunnels - $29,000m: Nth. Qld - none.
- Brisbane has around 200 overpasses - $70,000m: Nth Qld. - maybe a dozen -$4,000m
- Along the Brisbane River (South Bank and Lang Park) there are $5,000m in 'pleasure domes'
- Brisbane's pop. 1.3 million. Nth Qld's pop .9 million.
Half of Australia's thermal coal is in the Galilee (never touched). If we mine even half of this coal, Nth Qld would get $20,000m every yr. Hell's Gates, with three similar dams on the Mitchell and Gilbert Rivers, will generate for Nth Qld $12,000m a yr.
The econometric rule says $1m injected into an economy, creates 10 jobs and 10 "indirect" jobs. Every 20 jobs result in a pop. increase of 40 people (e.g. Ingham).
To quote the Legendary, The Great Hon Ernie Bridge OAM,
"There are those that can see through the dusty, grimy window panes of 'what is' the bright, clear, shining light of 'what might be'."
Mr Jones. You are not one of them.
Bob Katter,
Federal member for Kennedy
