THE Great Barrier Reef narrative desperately needs a reality check to give taxpayers and tourist workers a fair deal. Dodgy science and fake news on the reef were costing taxpayers and tourism operators billions of dollars for the sake of perpetuating an ideological myth.
The reef has been used as a weapon in the extremists’ war against capitalism, democracy and the Australian way of life. They say truth is the first casualty of war and that certainly seems to be the case as highly dubious evidence has been used to attack farmers, industry, and everything socialists hate. That narrative – that mining and farmers have killed the reef – is translating to fewer visitors from interstate and overseas.
I met with leading reef expert, Dr Peter Ridd, in Mackay to discuss what was needed for the future of the reef and North Queensland. Dr Ridd identified two key things we needed to change regarding the reef.
“We need to get the science evidence checked and we need to start telling the people in the south-east corner (of Queensland) that not everything that you’ve heard about the state of the reef is true,” he said. “We’re spending a whole lot of money supposedly on the basis that the reef is badly damaged when all the evidence would seem to indicate that it’s not. I’m just asking for a little bit of money just to check some of that science and also to get the message out to the people in the south-east that in fact the reef is in really good shape. There’s all these people down there who think it’s completely damaged when it’s not. It’s in way better condition (than that), probably in excellent condition.”
Both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk have rejected my call to withdraw the billions of taxpayer dollars being used to fight an ideological war against farmers. Both major parties at both levels of government are throwing money at the reef and in the war against farmers because they think it will win votes in the capital cities. But those billions of dollars won’t make any real difference to the reef. They will just send farmers and regional Queensland broke.
At a time when we need to get our economy going again, the last thing we want to see is taxpayer money being used to kill off our most productive industries in mining and agriculture.
PANDEMIC lockdowns and economic turmoil have reinforced the need for a strong “Buy Local” message. The best thing we can do to boost local jobs and cut down on waste is to buy as much as we can as locally as we can. We have a lot of great producers in our own local area – from fresh fruit and veges to bread, milk, and meat – we even have a local honey producer. It just doesn’t make sense to buy these products from down south or from interstate when they are available right here in our own backyard.
Central and North Queenslanders need to be particularly mindful of local jobs, given the impact of pandemic lockdowns on many businesses. If there’s one thing we are always going to spend money on, it is groceries. If we are spending the money, we might as well spend it where it will benefit our community most.
I met with local growers, Brian and Alan Camilleri, last week, who started a delivery run to rural areas from Sarina out to Nebo and south to St Lawrence and beyond. Local markets have always been a great way to source cheap and fresh local produce but it is harder for those who live in rural areas. Having a delivery service means you can source fresh food from local growers, butchers and bakers and have it delivered almost to your doorstop. If local families take advantage of that kind of service, they are not only putting great food on the table, they are keeping locals in jobs. It also avoids waste, extra transport costs and the impact on produce that those extra road miles can have.
NORTH Queenslanders will be very sceptical when asked to provide input on naming a bridge over the Pioneer River. The Department of Transport and Main Roads had started a “Community Consultation Process for the naming of structures on the Mackay Ring Road project”. When the Queensland Government consults the people before naming four bridges on the Mackay Ring Road, the public has two questions:
- Is Bridgey McBridgeface a valid suggestion
- Has the outcome already been decided?
The public could be forgiven for being sceptical about how far their suggestions will go and doubting the ideas will make it any further than the wastepaper basket. It was the Queensland Labor government that insisted the name of the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital name had to be changed at a cost of $500,000, arguing that it would attract more funding. Except after the name change, millionaire philanthropists Judith and Trevor St Baker vowed to avoid funding the hospital in the future and hospital donations went down by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The real scandal was the rigged poll Labor ran around the name change, where just 74 IP addresses voted Yes in the poll nearly 18,000 times. Just 24 IP addresses voted more than 10,500 times. A large number of the IP addresses were identified as being used by Queensland government entities including Ministerial Services and Queensland Health.
The Crime and Corruption Commission later released a damning statement on the public poll but decided not to launch a full corruption investigation due to the cost and problematic data.
The Queensland government will have to provide greater guarantees around transparency before the public will take them seriously. I welcome the locals having a say in what the bridges are called but I don’t welcome the Brisbane Bureaucrats having not just a say but the final say – especially if they make the decision before the public is even asked.
Submissions can be made at www.tmr.qld.gov.au/MackayRingRoad and Mr Andrew encouraged locals to have their say through www.KickStartQueensland.com.au
NORTH and Central Queenslanders with kids who love sport should ensure they don’t miss out on funding opportunities through the Queensland government. A new round is now open for Fair Play vouchers, which offers $150 vouchers for sports-related costs.
Anyone who holds a Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card and has a child aged five to 17 should check their eligibility for the vouchers. A lot of parents who have lost work due to COVID-19 may not realise that if they are currently receiving JobSeeker payments, they are eligible for a Health Care Card and the Fair Play voucher. As restrictions lift across Queensland, our attention turns to sport and the financial situation for many families will be strained by this added cost. It is important that every family in Central and North Queensland that is eligible for the vouchers applies now.
The vouchers can be used to pay costs associated with sport and active recreation memberships, registrations, and participation fees.
For more information, visit: www.qld.gov.au/fairplayvouchers
THE Liberal National Party is shedding crocodile tears over a vehicle registration hike that is less than the ones they voted for and the same as the policy they put forward when criticising them. The Queensland Labor government last week increased registration fees by 1.8 per cent, sparking outbursts from the LNP in the media about slugging pandemic-hit families with extra costs.
The fact is the LNP, in 2017, not only voted for the budget that set even larger hikes in motion but announced their policy would be to lift registration fees in line with the consumer price index. Personally, I think fees should be reduced and I will argue and vote for a reduction. But the LNP is criticising Labor’s hike of 1.8 % when the consumer price index is 1.8%. According to the LNP’s own plan for government, they would be introducing the very same rego hike they are complaining about now.
It’s clear the LNP was all about politics and their vote in the 2017 State budget was proof of that. In one of the most bizarre votes you will ever see in parliament, the LNP voted against the budget because they thought the cross bench would vote for it and the budget would be passed. But the One Nation and Katter Party representatives voted against the budget, which would have meant the budget failed to pass parliament. In a messy couple of minutes, the LNP changed their vote from a “no” to a “yes” so the budget could be passed. The truth is they wanted the budget to pass but also wanted to play a political game where they could say they opposed the budget, including items like the increase to registration fees.
You either support something or you don’t and your vote should reflect that, as it did for the One Nation representative at the time (Steve Dixon). The major parties are all about playing political games and have forgotten the people they are supposed to represent. One of the great things about representing One Nation in the Queensland parliament is that I have licence to represent the views and opinions of the people of North and Central Queensland. There is no pressure to play politics and that’s the way democracy is supposed to work.
AFTER a decade saying climate change was the greatest danger to the reef to justify killing coal, the Queensland Labor government now focuses on farm run-off to justify attacks on farmers.
I recently called on both the Premier and the Prime Minister to withdraw funds from the Reef 2050 Water Quality program and use the money to support the farmers trying to rebuild the Queensland economy. I was surprised to get a letter from the Premier saying run-off was one of the greatest threats to the reef when we have been told for years the biggest threats all came from climate change caused by coal mining, including warmer seas, higher sea levels, acidic oceans, and (first more and then fewer, but more intense) cyclones. They have changed the scientific “consensus” story because they need to pivot and start attacking a different part of the community.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, in her letter rejecting calls to redirect Reef 2050 funding, said the “Queensland Government accepts the established scientific consensus that land run-off is one of the greatest threats to the GBR”. But last week in Mackay, I met with leading reef scientist, Dr Peter Ridd, who not only rejected the notion of science by consensus but also refuted claims about run-off affecting the reef.
“My group took more measurements of sediment on the reef than any other group, put together, it does not get out to the reef, except for once or twice every decade or so,” Dr Ridd said. “They claim that the fertiliser causes Crown of Thorns starfish outbreaks, but a lot of this evidence is highly dubious. The most distant reefs, which are the Swains Reefs, which are a couple of hundred kilometres off here, that’s the area where there has been the most persistent Crown of Thorns starfish outbreak yet it’s the furthest away from the affected run-off. And in Western Australia, where there is no agriculture, there are Crown of Thorns outbreaks. So this idea that the run-off is killing the reef is just completely ridiculous and, actually, when you look at the data, the coral growth rates have not changed in the last 400 years. We know that because coral grows like tree rings and you can drill holes in them and you can go back with these really great big corals you can find out what they were doing many hundreds of years ago. There has been no change in growth rates since agriculture started on this coast. If farmers were putting all this poison into the water, the growth rate should reduce. They’re not reducing.”
By diverting money to fight an ideological war against a problem that doesn’t exist, the focus was shifted from the real environmental threats faced by farmers and the wider community. The major parties, at both levels of government, are spending taxpayer money on this ideological attack on farmers when they could be funding the fight against real environmental threats such as Giant Rat’s Tail Grass and lantana.
We have a wide variety of feral animals and noxious weeds having a direct impact on the environment, on farmers, production, and our economy, but it seems the socialist agenda of demonising farmers is the vote winner in the south-east corner. The majority of the population and votes is in the south-east corner where people are very insulated from the real world and the economies that drive the state. But if, heaven forbid, the socialist agenda was ultimately successful, there would be no mining royalties to build their tunnels, there would be no food on their tables, and there would be no clothes in their walk-in-robes.