FORGET YOU NOT
STATING HIS CASE: LNP leader Tim Nicholls delivers his campaign launch speech yesterday. QUEENSLAND’S “forgotten people” have been heavily featured in LNP leader Tim Nicholls’ official pitch to voters as he scrambles to claw back votes leaking to One Nation.
In a half- hour speech to party faithful, Mr Nicholls framed his newest policy – $ 20.25 million to help matureage job seekers retrain and find employment – around the state’s disempowered.
Borrowing a phrase from US President Donald Trump, he said he wanted to ensure Queensland did not end up with “a group of forgotten people”.
He said technology and automation were confronting issues and it was often regional communities which were affected by a mill closing, a factory relocating or a foundry shutting up shop.
“I know that change can be scary,” he said.
“But we can’t afford for a generation of middle- aged men and women not to be given a hand up to retrain or re- skill as job opportunities shift. We can’t afford to lose them – economically, socially and emotionally. I believe we must do more to avoid a forgotten generation crisis.”
He also repeated a line he’s made a campaign favourite, telling the audience he was “not a fan of political correctness or the nanny state” and he had heard people’s concerns.
“I say to those who are frustrated: I hear you, I really do,” he said.
“Our policies are the answers to your frustration.”
Claiming votes for One Nation would only return Labor, he took his fight straight to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and branded her a “donothing” premier seven times.
He listed her “litany” of failures that included escalating wholesale power prices, cuts to infrastructure spending, the “worst rail fail in Queensland’s history” and a shrunk domestic economy.
And he reiterated some of his biggest commitments made on the campaign so far, including plans to increase the payroll tax threshold by $ 25,000, decrease energy prices for households and business, build the Rookwood Weir near Rockhampton and build roads such as a second M1.
Mr Nicholls paid tribute to his family and choked up when he thanked wife Mary and said he could never do the job without her. “I am sure Mary feels like a single mum sometimes and the kids have to make do with phone calls and miss out on hugs,” he said.
“I’m not going to gloss over that. It hurts. Mary, I could never do this job without you and I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your love and without your wisdom.”
In a warm- up speech, Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk took aim at what many consider to be Ms Palaszczuk’s greatest strength – her popular appeal with everyday people.
“People say to me, ‘ the premier is nice’,” he said.
“Well lots of people are nice. Nice is good. But nice alone does not get the job done.”
He hoped people thought he was nice too, but expected voters to rate him on his performance, not his personality.
In his first appearance on the campaign, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull highlighted his and Mr Nicholls’ shared commitment to build infrastructure, and accused Ms Palaszczuk of thumbing her nose at hundreds of millions of dollars of Commonwealth money on offer for new dams and water infrastructure.