Parliament stopover a good start

STATE parliament’s Townsville stopover has been a fruitful experience for the region.

While there was some dusting off of previously announced commitments and announcements that were conveniently delayed until this week, there can be no doubt the week has been a positive one for our city. Judging by feedback from

readers the most exciting announcement was news of a lobster farm to be built at Toomulla.

Any announcement with jobs attached — and this one forecast 1000 — gets the attention of North Queenslanders.

Employment was a common theme with the Government’s announcements this week.

Unemployment remains a hot issue in Townsville and the Labor Government was keen to spruik its attempts to address the problem from when Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk attended a Townsville Enterprise Limited breakfast first thing on Monday up until the “parliamentary circus” packed up its tent and left town late on Thursday.

Ms Palaszczuk indicated she would like to see parliament visit a different region during each term, which will become four years after next October’s state election.

Although the exercise is expensive, the Opposition also seems supportive of the idea.

Townsville has not hosted state parliament for 17 years and that is far too long.

There is no reason that the state cannot be governed from a region once every four years.

And if both sides of politics want to show they really do care about more than the south east corner then a regional parliament every two years should be considered.