James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. Perhaps that is a prophecy for you! You never know your luck—just keep wishing! I asked the Parliamentary Library to find out how much coastline I have in the seat of Dawson. The coastal boundary of my electorate runs from Mackay to the Ross River in Townsville. To drive it by road is 400 kilometres. I was most intrigued to find out from the Library that the coastline of Dawson is approximately 977 kilometres long. I am also informed that within the boundaries of my electorate are 144 islands. It is a great seat to represent and obviously there is rich diversity in the electorate, not only in the culture of the people who live there but also in the geographical terrain and, of course, the wonderful Great Barrier Reef itself. If you travel around Dawson you will see publicity that says we have 74 beautiful islands for you to come and visit. I suppose a lot of the other islands are just small islands. We have 74 islands which are key destinations for our international tourists.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you may know that I originally came to Australia in 1991 as a backpacker—and now I am a backbencher, which shows what you can do in this country.

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