Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In a pre-election preference deal Premier Anna Bligh elected to wipe out sandmining on Stradbroke Island by 2027 and with it liquid-papering away 250 mining jobs and another 350 indirect jobs. This threatens to bring to an end the Stradbroke Island economy as we know it. It leaves families owning properties that they can potentially never sell, the risk of large and wholesale sale of real estate on that island and plummeting property values wiping out the small businesses that support that island at this current time. Of course the fakery of the Bligh government was to promise that there would  be an ecotourism industry to replace mining. We know that it flagrantly wrong. The prospect of there being 50 high-paid Indigenous jobs created by an environmental and ecotourism sector is ridiculous. There is not a single national park in Australia that has that many jobs. This is the final act of a state government losing popularity. Yes, it is a dying carcass of a state government. Yes, I can see the maggot meiosis, I can hear the blowflies, but before they go they will make some appalling decisions about the management of the North Stradbroke Island economy. It is a disgrace that they are wiping out sandmining and not looking to the future of that island and its families.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 10.30 pm, the debate is interrupted.