TROPICAL BREAKAWAY

Your Say survey reveals north’s direction towards state split

A NEWS Corp survey has revealed the Far North’s mood on a breakaway North Queensland state and a growing expectation that it will happen one day.

About 31 per cent of Your Say 2020 respondents in the Far North thought the split would happen in the next 30 years with another 10.5 per cent expecting borders would change in the next five decades.

QUEENSLAND is in desperate need of a bold plan for the future, the state’s biggest sentiment survey, Your Say 2020, has revealed.

While the survey’s 8000plus respondents listed “beautiful”, “sunny”, “safe” and “friendly” as the top words to describe Queensland, next up was “broke”.

Creating jobs and driving down crime were overwhelmingly the top priorities across Queensland and the biggest issues the state government needed to address.

More than 86 per cent of respondents agreed “Queensland needs a bold plan for the future” – even the majority of those who backed the incumbent Labor government.

Creating jobs for Queenslanders was the top priority across the state (40.4 per cent), followed by cutting state debt (20.5 per cent) then tackling youth crime (15.1 per cent).

Less significant were driving down energy prices (8.2 per cent) and reducing surgery time waiting lists (5.2 per cent).

In the Far North, 30.6 per cent wanted an end to the juvenile crime wave, compared to 26.4 per cent chasing jobs.

Statewide, Queenslanders are almost evenly split on the question of whether borders should remain shut to states with community COVID transmission – 49.9 per cent say open, 50.1 per cent shut.

Business groups echoed the call for a bold plan to lift Queensland out of COVID and beyond.

The “Unite and Recover” plan – that state ministers have been holding almost as a totem in public – lacked detail and much that addressed the COVID need.

Property Council Queensland boss Chris Mountford said business wanted to see more detail. “One of the frustrations across our membership at the moment is a sense there isn’t a bold vision with that strong economic focus coming from the state government at the moment,” Mr Mountford said.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland general manager of policy and advocacy Amanda Rohan said the state needed a clear plan for where it was going and what it was spending public money on in the face of looming tight budgets.

“Even pre-COVID, our thoughts were that we really need a vision for the future,” Ms Rohan said. “Let’s transform Queensland’s economy, building on where we are now, building on our resource sector, building on agriculture.”

A state government spokesperson said it had put in place measures that would keep 334,000 Queenslanders in jobs.