Bush needs to find its voice
IT IS A SAD INDICTMENT ON OUR POLITICAL DECISION-MAKERS THAT REGIONAL AND COUNTRY TOWNS ARE SUFFERING DOUBLE DIGIT UNEMPLOYMENT RATES
NOT that long ago, there was a restaurant in Townsville that rightly claimed the title as the city’s best and busiest.
On any given day, especially towards the end of the week, you could go there and the place would be packed.
Lawyers, accountants, developers, star footballers … but their bread and butter clientele was normal folk just wanting a nice feed and good company.
Not anymore. Michel’s, as it is known, has closed its doors, with the owners deciding to concentrate on their catering arm of the business.
Whatever the reason, the bottom line is another restaurant has closed in Townsville, adding to the many businesses that have closed their doors in North Queensland.
And this is not a phenomenon that is purely a North Queensland problem. Throughout regional and country towns throughout Australia, small businesses are closing their doors.
The local Chinese restaurant is the rare exception. They could seemingly survive a meteorite strike.
It is a sad indictment on our political decision-makers that regional and country towns are suffering double digit unemployment rates.
Tenancy vacancies are rife in smaller towns as businesses struggle to make ends meet.
That’s why job creation and innovation is so important for regional communities.
That’s why it’s disappointing that big job creation projects like the Adani Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin must proceed, despite the lukewarm reception it is receiving from the Palaszczuk Government.
Adani has taken out billboards in Brisbane, saying it’s ready when the government is ready.
The latest setback relates to the resettlement plan for the black-throated finch. Adani has overcome more than 100 legal and environmental hurdles since starting on the project in 2010.
Yet anti-Adani protesters – many of them from inner city electorates – continue their campaign to derail the project.
Adani has become the totemic project for the Green movement. The problem, of course, is that these inner city elites – many of them with $100,000 a year jobs – are trying to stop their fellow Australians in country areas from getting work.
What arrogance. What disingenuous rubbish. It’s time bush folk created their very own pro-jobs movement. Imagine if farmers and miners started waving placards at every major press conference, imploring Australians to “stop serving soy lattes to whingers’’.
The loony Left has way too much time on its hands. When it’s firing, regional Australia is an economic powerhouse.
It has been neutered in recent years by politicians – many from the National Party – who have sold them down the gurgler for their 30 pieces of silver.
Regional Australia needs to find its voice again. That’s why Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter resonate so well in the bush.
People see them as fair dinkum, not part of the Canberra bubble. That’s why Donald Trump won the American presidency. He offered hope as a non-politician, promising that he’d honour his election pledges, even if the wall is causing him grief right now.
If Scott Morrison can re-engineer a renaissance in the bush, he will may save some of the furniture heading into the next election.
Gleeso’s News Talk airs weeknights at 5pm (6pm AEDT) on Sky News Live and Sky News on WIN.