New suburbs as FNQ grows
CAIRNS is tipped to grow at a rate requiring a new suburb every couple of years.
Research by demographer Bernard Salt points to an influx of 50,000 people coming to live in Far North Queensland in the coming decade.
“As a rough rule of thumb, I always say that every 10,000 people is roughly a new suburb,” he said.
“So it’s another five suburbs, or probably more because they all won’t nearly add up to (10,000 per suburb).”
BOOT Brisbane co-ordinator Bill Bates says uniting people behind North Queensland as a breakaway state is the only way to achieve seceding from the south.
The campaigner for North Queensland self-government identified infighting and parochialism between major regional cities, such as Mackay, Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns as one reason for the failing of the plan so far.
“You have to create an interest in the population to do it,” he said.
“People have been at this for generations and they still have not been able to capture the public’s imagination in regard to a full public push for it. We really need to educate people that it can be done, how it can be done and what the benefits are.”
Speaking to the Weekend Post, well-known demographer Bernard Salt said the 2040s were shaping up as the most likely decade a “Quexit” could be achieved, based on population growth expected to reach one million between the Torres Strait and midway between Gladstone and Mackay.
Mr Bates, commenting on Mr Salt’s estimated population growth said the demographer’s numbers stacked up but he had failed to consider the “human factor”.
“With all due respect to Mr Salt, he has an idea in regard to demographics and population but he does not know the structure and workings of Central and North Queensland,” he said. “It requires a lot more input than straight out statistics. The human factor in North Queensland is very important.”
In the last 12 months breakaway polls had the Cairns population divided on the issue with 46 per cent in favour, in Townsville an independent North Queensland state was more popular with 50 per cent in favour but in Rockhampton 80 per cent of respondents wanted to break away from Brisbane.
Woree small business owner David Moody spent 50 years living in Rockhampton, the city which many wanted to see the new North Queensland border drawn under.
“It has always been talked about. And it will happen eventually but not in my lifetime,” he said.
“If they do divide it off is there sufficient population to fund a separate state?
“So much money does go into southeast Queensland but that is understandable because that is where the population is, it is hard to buck the system when the majority of your population is (in) the southeast corner.”
Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto threw his support behind the new push for a North Queensland state following backlash from farming bodies in the wake of a decision to hold the only hearing into the Great Barrier Reef’s catchment for the Environmental Protection Bill in Brisbane.
“From the man on the land to regional mayors and local MPs, people are absolutely fed up with the way they are treated by Brisbane when it comes to legislation that will greatly impact our livelihoods,” he said. “We need to give North Queensland a proper voice and the only way to do that is to form a separate state.
“Let’s have local decisions made by locals and not green extremists.”
Boot Brisbane’s latest campaign is calling for a state referendum on North Queensland statehood.