Weir to work wonders
AS A representative for the Townsville area ( with the Dawson electorate covering Annandale, Wulguru, Oonoonba, Idalia and southern rural areas), I am well aware that the two big issues concerning Townsville residents are the need for water security and the need for more local jobs.
The Big Rocks Weir project is just about shovel ready and will create almost 400 jobs, 80 per cent of what was lost at Queensland Nickel.
The construction site for that project will be about an hour’s drive from Townsville and therefore the vast bulk of, if not all, jobs for the weir will be going to Townsville jobseekers.
Big Rocks Weir is stage one of the overall Hells Gates Dam project, which will create 12,000 direct jobs.
If the full Hells Gates project is realised, we will go from Townsville having an unemployment problem to Townsville having a labour shortage problem, which is a pretty good problem for locals to have.
That’s why I am strongly supporting the need for federal funding for Big Rocks Weir and Hells Gates Dam and why I am bewildered by the negativity towards the project from Labor luminaries in Townsville.
They have sadly tried to pit that project against the need for an urban water pipeline from the Clare pump station to the Haughton area.
The Clare pump station is more than 100km from Townsville but that doesn’t mean that the pipeline isn’t a worthy project.
I am advised that this pipeline would cost about $ 200 million to build.
The fact is the LNP candidate for Herbert, Phillip Thompson OAM, and I are strongly supportive of both the need for urban water security for Townsville and the hundreds and thousands of local jobs that will be created from the Hells Gates Dam project.
Currently, the only immediately available funding for new projects in Townsville are the remaining funds from the $ 150 million Townsville Eastern Access Rail Corridor ( TEARC) project which the State Labor Government vetoed.
If it hadn’t knocked that project on the head we would have a lot more employment in Townsville right now.
The Federal Government has already earmarked $ 75 million of those TEARC funds to the widening of the Townsville Port access channel, creating hundreds of local jobs.
Therefore the remaining TEARC funds are $ 75 million and, while finances aren’t Labor’s strong suite, I would have thought they would recognise that $ 75 million cannot build a $ 200 million pipeline.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t make such assumptions, as, after all, Labor’s promise ( for what that’s worth) is $ 100 million for a $ 200 million pipeline.
And I’m not so sure that Townsville’s water security will be fixed with a pipeline to nowhere.