Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to call on the Queensland state government to embrace the Royalties for Regions policy championed by the Western Australian National Party. Queensland has many similarities to Western Australia. Like Western Australia, the majority of the Queensland population is in the state coastal capital city, with regional towns littered across the rest of the large expanse. Western Australia, like its eastern counterpart, enjoys a rich abundance of natural resources and is prospering from the current resources boom. In fact, the Western Australian state government receives more than $2.5 billion in royalties each year from mining and oil and gas producers. The Queensland state government receives some $4.4 billion in royalties each year, yet somehow, despite this massive amount of wealth coming into the government’s coffers, it has managed—through mismanagement—to accumulate a $60 billion public debt, it has not provided essential infrastructure and it has failed to fix the overburdened health system. Meanwhile, rural, remote and regional councils work effectively, efficiently and tirelessly to provide their communities with essential services.

If the Queensland state government were to embrace a policy similar to the Royalties for Regions program, which calls for 25 per cent of royalties to be reinvested in regional areas, local councils would receive a much-needed $1.1 billion boost for roads, local services, amenities and other essential infrastructure for their area. Schools and hospitals in rural areas would receive the funding needed to provide the best education and quality health care. It is imperative that the Queensland government develop such a policy and do so quickly.

In my own electorate of Maranoa, the Surat coal basin is currently in its early stages of development, and already the farming towns in the area are witnessing changes to their local economy and communities. Housing rental prices are starting to increase dramatically, and lonely dirt roads once used by local farming families are carrying trucks laden with mining equipment and coal and gas infrastructure. Direct reinvestment of royalties into regional areas will not only help to address certain social and economic changes in these communities but also assist local councils in implementing policies on housing affordability, population management and infrastructure development.

The opposition in Queensland has been pressuring the Queensland government, as I have, along with local councils and their mayors. It is reassuring to see that the government are belatedly starting to show interest in the welfare of regional communities—and I welcome that—and of course the landholders who have been affected by this resources boom. However, more must certainly be done to provide these communities with the support they need to adequately deal with the profound changes that are occurring as a result of the resources boom in Queensland.