Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about an extraordinary regional woman who grew up in the Wandoan region and now lives, with her husband and family, at Kingaroy. I speak of course of Deb Frecklington. Until recently, Deb Frecklington was the leader of the LNP in Queensland. She led the party over days, weeks and months into what proved to be a very difficult election in Queensland.

Deb and Jason have three exceptional daughters, girls that I have got to know over the past couple of years, and I think they have done an amazing job, particularly given the very public role that Deb has taken on. As all of us here know, taking on a role in public office means you give up quite a bit of your personal life. But that is even more so for somebody taking on a leadership role in the way that Deb and, to a large extent, Jason did, because you're subject to all the public scrutiny and discussion that leaders are subjected to. During that time, Deb always maintained the kindness, wisdom and graciousness of a lovely person, and one who was the right person to lead the party through that period.

So I want to thank Deb and I want to thank the candidates for North Queensland whom I had the pleasure and privilege of getting to know: Nipper Brown, in Cook; Linda Cooper, in Barron River; Sam Marino, in Cairns; Gerry Vallianos, in Mulgrave; Nick Cuda, in Hill; Scott Piper, in Hinchinbrook; Marnie Smith, in Traeger; John Hathaway, in Townsville; Natalie Marr, in Thuringowa; Glenn Doyle, in Mundingburra; and of course the ever-energetic Dale Last, in Burdekin. The LNP team worked incredibly hard together. They were very disciplined and they went about the job of presenting a plan for Queensland to come out of the coronavirus crisis. It's been a time when we have seen businesses in terribly difficult circumstances, families whose lives will forever be marked by the liquidation of their business—businesses like pubs and clubs, travel agencies, movie theatres, restaurants, tourist operations. I think daily of those people who've been so affected.

Queenslanders made a decision on 31 October. They decided to move forward with the Labor government. We've had 25 years of the last 30 under Labor in Queensland, and in regional Queensland we have borne the price of that. Now it is time that we not just rebuild Queensland after the coronavirus but move back to a more even playing field for the regions, particularly for North Queensland. So today, as the new cabinet has been approved, I've already written to Meaghan Scanlon, the new environment minister, to ask her that we work together in a collegiate way to ensure that we have proper, outcomes based environmental outcomes for cane farmers and farmers right across the state.

I'll be engaging with Scott Stewart, the new resources minister, to ensure that the North West Minerals Province and its $1 trillion of proven reserves are able to be accessed and utilised in the new minerals that are held in that region, that the CopperString project proceeds and that the great water projects that have already been identified in North Queensland are built—Big Rocks Weir at Charters Towers, Urannah at Mackay, the Hughenden Irrigation Project, the Richmond irrigation scheme, Cave Hill at Cloncurry, Nullinga at Cairns and the water project up at Laura. There are lots of opportunities for North Queensland and it is only for government regulation and the will to support companies that are ready to invest in and build our regions, because it is in our regions that we grow our food and fibre, we mine our minerals and we grow the best families and young people in the state.