PRIORITIES FOR GROOM LOCALS
Toowoomba candidates make final pitch to voters as 2022 federal election reaches final days
THE federal election is just five days away — and one of these eight people will represent our city and region in the next parliament.
With well over 60 per cent of Groom residents having yet to cast their ballots ahead of May 21, party candidates and independents have been busy trying to secure undecided voters in the final few days.
While this electorate has remained one of the safest conservative seats in Australia, incumbent LNP member Garth Hamilton faces stiff opposition from Labor, the Greens, two high-profile independents and several minor party candidates boasting members of Toowoomba’s “freedom movement”.
The Chronicle invited all candidates last week to sit down and answer a variety of questions around their policies, priorities and vision for this region.
One Nation’s Grant Abraham declined the invitation.
Here is every candidate’s answer to what their top priority will be in the next term of government.
For full interviews, featuring personalised questions, and videos on each candidate, head to thechronicle.com.au.
GARTH HAMILTON (LIBERAL NATIONAL PARTY)
I’ve spoken on three things all the way through, and I think they work together. They speak to the growth I want to see.
I want to see our area become a place that doesn’t just have what you need but everything you want.
What’s right on the table we have to deliver is Inland Rail. I think it changes our future for the better, becoming that inland port, so all of southeast Queensland’s growth drives our growth.
I see that as being side-byside with my desire to double our local defence industry. That’s not just about the bases, but the skilled pathways for kids coming through with a whole range of avenues.
That’s about creating an ability for people to have not just their primary and secondary educations here but their tertiary and careers here.
The ability for new skills, new jobs and new manufacturing opportunities, to stimulate that economy and drive more opportunities, that’s when you start to look at the localised stuff of what I want to see in Toowoomba’s CBD.
I want to see it continue to grow and be a vibrant and thriving place, so we have a centre for our region that is worthy of those ambitions.
That’s why the Railway Parklands fits right into it.
I have quite a broad vision for our region and I don’t think there’s a single silver bullet, rather a lot of work we need to do.
GEN ALLPASS (LABOR)
My top priority is to make sure our electorate is seen and heard and we have a true representative that represents all of us.
If you’re talking about funding, it’s obviously our hospitals and urgent care clinics to bring (down) that ramping in the hospital system.
Across the board, there have been a lot of issues we’ve had, so we can look at things like our local manufacturing and making sure we’re building things here and buying and building Australian.
MELISSA BANNISTER (UNITED AUSTRALIA PARTY)
For us, it’s addressing the cost of living, because it’s just a major issue affecting every Australian at the moment.
It’s important we look after our elderly, which is why we want to increase the pension by $180 a fortnight.
Many of them are living below the poverty line and that’s not right.
We’re certainly making it easier for people to buy and own their own homes by making the first $30,000 paid on a home loan tax deductible every year – that’ll make a big difference to people.
We’ll also make it easier for people to do business – there is so much red tape and bureaucracy is what I’m hearing from small businesses now.
Even just ensuring that provisional tax is made payable at the end of the year rather than quarterly and in advance will be a big benefit for business.
MICKEY BERRY (GREENS)
Climate action is a really big deal this time.
So much work has already been done to get us to the point where we are, but we need to do so much more.
We need stop opening new coal and coal seam gas mines and also in that process make sure that the people who work in those mines that will close are transitioned into other jobs and are getting the same level of income as before, which we have a policy in place for.
We just need to be making sure that cost of living is going down and big issues like climate change are being talked about and resolved, not by 2050 targets, which are about
20 years too late, but by 2030 or 2035.
RYAN OTTO (AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION PARTY)
My top priority, along with the AFP, is actually proposing and bringing to Canberra our drafted bill of rights.
This is actually available on our website, we’ve published it.
Everyone is able to read it and what we’ll be doing is initiating a referendum in order to secure our basic human rights in Australia, because we do not have a bill of rights.
Our few rights we do have are afforded by the constitution and are often trampled anyway and I’d like to see the mandates and the Covid-19 response undergo a review and the people who were pushing those policies be held accountable for the damage they’ve done to the average person and small businesses.
I was a teacher, I studied education for four years and I’ve been stood down because of these mandates.
I’m still technically employed, so I can’t get a new job without resigning and I don’t want to.
Albanese is saying that they’ll pay teachers to study education and become teachers.
We’ve got a teacher shortage, that much is clear and the government is really desperate for teachers so why are they standing down people like myself who have genuine medical reasons for not taking the vaccine?
SUZIE HOLT (INDEPENDENT)
One, we need a healthcare precinct now – we can’t wait.
Two, I want to work collaboratively to fix the Inland Rail, and three we’re promoting and looking after our prime agricultural land.
With health, we have been working for a long time to look at ways to see if we can
bring healthcare services now to the region.
I’ve already been building relationships with members of the state and federal governments to see how we can implement them now and our local business community.
One of the things we’ve been thinking about and working through has been to look at a private-public partnership.
I became aware that the current proposal at Baillie Henderson was not on the radar, and it really upset me because it should.
Health in our region is not just for our region – we want to have a regional healthcare precinct.
We cover 600,000 people and when I was working as a social worker, that’s what we did.
We had incredible services that went out to the regions and we want to bring that back.
I’m pushing for a 50-50 funding split from the state and the federal governments, so I’m following the AMA’s policy that we need an equal funding arrangement, which would bring funding back to our region. It would probably help get our hospital up and running.
Since we have been having those conversations around the PPP, we have heard that the proposal for Baillie Henderson has come back on the radar, which is exciting because it means we’ve done our jobs.
I understand and am curious that if elected, I will review that process because one of the concerns is the plan is quite expensive and there are ways we could get that service now and reduce the cost of it.
KIRSTIE SMOLENSKI (INDEPENDENT)
That’s a tough question, because there are just so many pressing issues.
The funding and the recognition we deserve – safe seats like ours receive 3.5 times less funding for infrastructure than marginal seats.
In real terms, that means our hospital, our old base hospital that needed to be rebuilt at least 20 years ago, and we’re still waiting for that.
It’s a state issue under their constitution, but it’s a fact that almost half of the money for health comes from the federal government.
We need someone here to stand up and fight for it and put it on the table.
Nearly every other region has had their major hospital built and we’re still waiting, and I don’t think it’s going to come any time soon if we don’t do something about getting good local representation here.
On top of that, passenger rail. We’ve been promised that for 40 years.
Joh Bjelke-Petersen promised that for us in 1982 for the Commonwealth Games.
It’s not going to happen. At the moment there are different options on the table, there are case studies and business studies but they’ve just been pushed back to 2025.
Nothing is going to happen before the Olympics, but I would love to explore that private-public partnership that will mean we can get that built in a more cost-effective manner.