QUEENSLAND ELECTION LNP takes to sky to talk chopper plans
Regional services ‘must be improved’
QUEENSLAND’S would-be deputy premier has taken to the skies to spruik the LNP’s plan to give Cairns a second rescue helicopter without buying one outright.
Deputy opposition leader Deb Frecklington touched down at Trinity Beach yesterday with three of the party’s Far North candidates on her wing to talk up the LNP’s $3 million plan to kit out a privately-owned helicopter with emergency rescue equipment.
The funds would also buy a “block of hours” enabling a Cairns-based operator to perform rescues when the city’s current helicopter was undergoing maintenance or repairs.
“We need to understand that there will always be circumstances where, unfortunately, there may be two or three or four or five instances where people need rescuing,” Ms Frecklington said.
“Of course those are very difficult situations. But what we’re announcing today is relief for the people of North Queensland by actually saying we will do a commonsense, practical outcome by kitting out a second helicopter.
“At the very least, it will be much quicker for a chopper to get out to the Reef from a Cairns base than it will be from Townsville.
“Most importantly, this means two emergency helicopters for Cairns – not one based in Townsville, this is two dedicated to Cairns.”
Labor last month announced it had awarded $47 million worth of contracts for the purchase of two new helicopters and a fixed-wing aeroplane to replace the region’s current ageing rescue fleet.
Those made-to-order Italian helicopters are not expected to be completed for a year.
LNP candidate for Barron River Michael Trout said his party’s proposal would greatly improve reef safety.
“Under the Labor government, we’ve been treated as second-class citizens,” he said.
“Townsville has always had two helicopters and we’ve had one. The flaw in Labor’s plan is some tens of millions of dollars to build new helicopters and they will be still based in Townsville.
“Under this plan, we will have $3 million which will be a block of hours, and that will be enough to service the Far North when the current helicopter is either on maintenance or in use.”
Ms Frecklington said there was no current plan to establish a hyperbaric oxygen chamber in Cairns to help treat divers suffering the effects of decompression illness, meaning they would still need to be transported to Townsville. FUNDING for centres that help young Queenslanders with mental health problems is eroding and preventing them helping those who need the service most.
Queensland’s psychiatrists have called for regional services to be better funded to handle complex mental health cases.
The call comes as an editorial in the Medical Journal of Australia says stagnant funding for Headspace means the program would struggle to provide needed services into the future.
As part of the Fair Go For Our Kids campaign, this paper revealed how rates of youth suicide in regional Queensland were significantly higher than in Brisbane.
Experts say this is often because of a lack of access to mental health services such as those Headspace provides.
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Queensland chairman Brett Emmerson said funding had stagnated under multiple governments.
“For the past decade, Queensland’s core community mental health services have seen no growth in funding and the system is under intense strain as it treats the mental health issues of a growing population with increasingly complex problems,” he said.
Headspace board director Patrick McGorry said the decision to set up “one-shop stops” for young people needing mental health treatment had helped young people who otherwise might not have sought treatment.
He said the state health system’s delineation between juvenile and adult mental health came at the worst time for struggling young adults.
“That’s especially the case in regional centres,” he said.