Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In addition to my other duties as a senator for the whole of Queensland, I find I'm increasingly being drawn into acting as local MP in the other place as well. Certainly, I've performed that role in the electorate of Kennedy for some time. If people want a headline, they go to the current member, Mr Katter, but if they want serious work done, serious submissions to the federal government, they come and see me in my office in Townsville. In Herbert, now, there is a member—whose legitimacy has been questioned, but more about that some other time—who seems to pay little interest, and that is when she is in Australia. She seems to be overseas on various trips quite often, which is strange for a lower house MP on such a small margin of 37 votes.

I'm increasingly having to do work in Townsville that the local federal MP is not doing, and people who want some help from the federal government come to see me in my office. In that context, people in the Townsville area are indicating to me their concern with three major issues. One is unemployment in Townsville, which unfortunately is too high. Another is the parlous state of water in the Townsville region. The third one is the rampant crime that is happening in the Townsville region and other parts of northern Queensland.

It's strange. The Queensland state Labor government, who are the people principally responsible for addressing the crime wave, have been in power for most of the last 25 years and have done nothing about crime in Townsville. But suddenly, on the eve of a state election in Townsville, they find they're going to bring more police in and do lots of other things to address crime. I don't believe them and I'm sure most Townsville people don't. Fortunately, in the Townsville area, we have three candidates from my party, the Liberal National Party of Queensland, who I'm very confident will be elected. They are Casie Scott, Matthew Derlagen and Nick Martinez. They have a real plan to address the rampant crime in the Townsville region. I don't want to go through their policies today, but certainly curfews, real action, real police activity, giving the police some powers are the sorts of things that I know these three wonderful young candidates in the Townsville region are promising, along with their leader, Tim Nicholls. So I'm confident that something will happen.

Water in Townsville has always been an issue. When it rains, it goes away from the front of mind—and it has rained recently—but again Townsville residents are distressed that they can't water their gardens. They've got lovely gardens in Townsville, but for most of the year they can't water them, and the Labor government that deals with water in the state of Queensland has done nothing about it in 20 years. I have to say the Labor city council talk about it a lot, but rarely have they done anything. Now, suddenly, on the eve of a state election we're having all of these promises from the council, the state government and the sitting Labor members in Townsville about what they're going to do about water. But who would believe them after 20 years of doing nothing? By contrast, the LNP candidates I've mentioned—Matthew Derlargen, Casie Scott and Nick Martinez—have a real plan for water, one that is costed and which will actually happen.

The other issue in Townsville, of course, in addition to jobs, is the cost of living and electricity prices. We in Townsville, in the north, are at the end of the line. If there is any glitch in the transmission system, we miss out. There is no real base-load power station in the north, and the Labor government refuses to even consider it. But fortunately Tim Nicholls and his candidates have promised that within 100 days of election, should they be elected as the state government of Queensland, they will facilitate the private commencement of work on a coal-fired power station in the north—at Collinsville, I believe. This will be wonderful for the certainty and affordability of electricity in the Townsville region. Unfortunately the Labor Party for years have had no solution to this. They talk about renewables and say they're cheap forms of power but, as I've just recently pointed out in a letter in today's Townsville Bulletin, the renewable power stations in the Townsville region have been subsidised by the Australian taxpayer to the extent of almost half a billion dollars. So it's not cheap power when it comes from renewable, yet those of us who live in the north all know that we have unlimited reserves of high-quality coal just sitting there waiting to be tapped.

The other big issue in Townsville is jobs. I have to say that on the jobs front I'm hand in hand, step by step with the Townsville Labor city council, who are very keen to promote jobs in the Townsville region with the Adani rail project and the mine project. Unless you know and understand Townsville, you cannot believe what a confidence boost the Adani announcement has been. They've set up their headquarters in Townsville, they've announced Townsville and Rockhampton as the fly-in-fly-out hubs, and jobs are starting to be created. This will be what Townsville needs. I have to say all credit to Jenny Hill, the Labor Mayor of Townsville. She has been, with me, very, very forceful in supporting that particular project. Unfortunately she is not getting much support from the Queensland Labor Premier, who was initially in favour of it but then, because of some things happening in Brisbane with Greens preferences, decided now that she wasn't really in favour of it. The Deputy Premier has never been in favour of it, but she was part of a government that was in favour of it. The Treasurer, who comes from the Cairns area, said the Premier is wrong. The local member for the area involved, the state electorate of Burdekin, which happens to be where I live, is all over the shop. Does he support the coalmine or doesn't he? His party doesn't. What does he do? I'm interested in what the Queensland senators might do. I see Senator Moore and Senator Ketter have at one stage voted in favour of the Adani mine but, interestingly, Senator Watt and the other Queensland senator haven't voted at all on that. So we wonder what their position is. I know that the member for Herbert's position on the Adani coalmine is a bit difficult to work out.

These are things that concern me as an elected representative in that area. I'm certainly hopeful that after the election I will have some colleagues in the state parliament like Jason Costigan, the member for Whitsunday; Dale Last, the current member for Burdekin; the three candidates who I mentioned in Townsville; and Andrew Cripps, who comes from Ingham and takes in the north of Townsville. I'm hoping they'll also be in the state parliament to support me, as I support them in the federal parliament, in promoting those issues of attacking crime, getting a decent water supply for Townsville, providing jobs for Townsville, addressing crime issues and, importantly, getting that Adani railway line and coal line going to provide activity for the unemployed in the Townsville region.

Regrettably, I'm the only senator in the north these days. Once upon a time the Labor Party used to have a senator. Margaret Reynolds was in Townsville, and then Jan McLucas was in Cairns. But the Labor Party, in their wisdom—I don't know what happened to their affirmative action proposals—got rid of Jan McLucas for no reason. I didn't agree with her often, but she was doing a good job for the north. They got rid of her and put in Senator Watt, a union hack from Brisbane, a failed state Labor candidate, so all of the Labor candidates live in Brisbane. In the Senate, no Labor senator has any interest in the north or anywhere outside Brisbane. So I do hope that the Queensland election will give me the support I need in the state parliament to advance issues in the Townsville region.