Focus on the bigticket pledges
Desperately needed healthcare workers and firm details on bigticket pledges will be North Queensland’s focus in Tuesday’s federal budget, the Townsville Enterprise chief executive says.
The group’s chief executive Claudia Brumme-smith said $1.2bn upgrades to Lavarack Barracks and RAAF Base Townsville and $163.4m for the Australian Institute of Marine Science had already been announced.
“We want to see the next phase of those investments committed on paper,” Ms B rum meSmith said.
A delegation including Ms Brumme-smith went to Canberra in March, and raised the issue that the region desperately needed more healthcare workers and medical training placements.
“So we hope to see the Albanese Government commit to this next week,” she said.
Housing investment would be welcome to accommodate the current and projected increased populations, particularly as more houses would be needed for workers on major projects like Copperstring, Ms Brumme-smith said.
Townsville mayor Jenny Hill does not expect funding for any major projects in the budget, but hopes funding for growth at Townsville Hospital and expanding student numbers at JCU is included.
The investment in the marine institute coupled a $150m grant scheme to repair waterways so sediment doesn’t run off on to the Great Barrier Reef, which was announced last month.
“Really that’s a big injection of funding into North Queensland even though they (federal Labor) don’t have a seat north of North Lakes,” Ms Hill said.
Ms Hill said the proposed 1100km Copperstring transmission line dovetailed with the Government’s renewable energy policies.