Candidate’s bid to be ‘Mr Wright’
HINTERLAND tourism identity Innes Larkin, who owns and runs the Mt Barney Lodge with wife Tracey, has a new mountain to climb – federal politics.
Mr Larkin is contesting the seat of Wright as an independent, taking on LNP MP Scott Buchholz, who has held the seat since it was created in 2010.
Fresh from winning the Scenic Rim Business Award for excellence in tourism, accommodation and hospitality, Mr Larkin also has a significant profile in the region through other tourism roles.
He was president of Scenic Rim Escapes for three years, and built a reputation for activism when spokesman for the community group Keep The Scenic Rim Scenic, which joined with farmers in the Kerry Valley to campaign successfully to keep the area free of coal and gas seam developers.
This was in 2012 when, he said, “council, state and federal members of parliament did not represent the region’’.
Mr Larkin and his father John were awarded the 2016 Australian National Search and Rescue Council Award for their roles in more than 400 search and rescue operations in the Mt Barney wilderness area, conducted since 1989.
Mr Buchholz holds the seat with a 9.6 per cent margin.