PALMERISMS

CLIVE Palmer spoke in motivating arcs of generality about capitalism and selfdetermination, saying Australia was missing out due to ineffective leadership. “One of the problems in North Queensland now is there’s no senatorial representation,” he said. “The Liberal and the Labor Party have abandoned the region and people are unemployed. “We should have double the amount of economic activity we’ve got here in Cairns but we can’t do it … because the politicians we’ve got are hopeless.” That is true in Townsville where unemployment was at 8.5 per cent for the March quarter. But it is 5.5 per cent in Cairns — about the lowest it has been in a decade.