Causes for separate state
I LOVE you Ewan Jones. The LNP policies that you loudmouth provide the most clear-cut reason to vote KAP.
I quote the Townsville Bulletin August 8: “The new state for NQ is an economic disaster … the new state would have to build some form of energy supply to keep the lights on and at our cost”.
If you had been a good MP, you would have checked out the Hells Gates Scheme. It provides 620MW of base load power.
With a $180 million grant, NQBE at Ingham and Auscane at Ayr will produce another 240MW of base load. They should, and Hells Gates will, generate at $50 per Megawatt hour (mwh), much cheaper than our power now supplied from south Queensland.
The “Big Kennedy” wind (and solar) farm proposal at Hughenden will produce (with Copperstring and HIPCO’S hydro irrigation) 700MW of base load. The Tully Realignment will produce 600MW of, albeit, peak load power.
Last time I looked, North Queensland required 800MW base load and 600MW peak load.
Mr Jones, you’re on record proposing “pump hydro” at Burdekin Falls. And a new coal-fired power station in North Queensland. New coal fired, according to the Finkle Report, would exceed $80 per mwh and your Burdekin Falls pump storage, would be much more costly than this.
Mr Jones, you argue only a fool would believe a Queensland-wide referendum or a Queensland Parliament would agree to separation and 12 senators. I’m sure, Mr Jones, in 1900 you would’ve been calling Hon Alfred Deakin and Sir Samuel Griffith C.J. fools for asking the British for sovereignty and separation.
I’m sure the little band of heroes that wanted statehood for California in the 1850s were fools too. Fancy 100,000 people wanting to become a state (North Queensland’s current population is 900,000).
California is now:
• The biggest food-producing state on Earth;
• Population is now 41 million;
• All telecom systems; your computer, smart phone, ipad, all come out of a place called Silicon Valley (the heartland of California);
• One of the world’s biggest industries – movies – almost entirely based in Hollywood.
Lucky the Mr Joneses weren’t around when the 13 American colonies secured their independence off a government thousands of kilometres away and adding 37 states to the 13, creating the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth.
If North Queensland was a separate state, the hospitals, schools, prisons, public housing would, of course, belong to us. Not, as you claim, the State of Queensland and, rest assured south Queensland will be most anxious to offload these liabilities on to us. What they won’t like to offload is the 10 per cent of the state’s budget which is met entirely off mineral royalties and payroll tax (plus land taxes) levied off we North Queenslanders.
Let me conclude with four points:
• Brisbane has 29km of tunnels – $29,000m: North Queensland – none.
• Brisbane has about 200 overpasses – $70,000m: North Queensland – maybe a dozen – $4000m.
• Along the Brisbane River (South Bank and Lang Park) there are $5000m in “pleasure domes”.
• Brisbane’s population is 1.3 million. Nth Qld’s population is nine million.
Half of Australia’s thermal coal is in the Galilee (never touched).
If we mine even half of this coal, North Queensland would get $20,000m every year.
Hells Gates, with three similar dams on the Mitchell and Gilbert Rivers, will generate for North Queensland $12,000m a year.
The econometric rule says $1 million injected into an economy, creates 10 jobs and 10 “indirect” jobs. Every 20 jobs result in a population increase of 40 people (eg: Ingham).
To quote the legendary, the great Hon Ernie Bridge OAM.
“There are those that can see through the dusty, grimy window panes of ‘what is’ the bright, clear, shining light of ‘what might be’.” Mr Jones, you are not one of them.
BOB KATTER, Member for Kennedy.