State Labor’s ‘job-creating’ COVID-recovery plan will actually delay 200 jobs
The State Labor Government’s ‘Recovery Action Plan’ which is supposed to create jobs will actually delay 200 of them by funding another business case for a major project that already has one, Member for Herbert Phillip Thompson has said.
Mr Thompson said the Labor Premier’s announcement yesterday that she would only fund Big Rocks Weir if her own additional business case stacked up showed she doesn’t have the money and doesn’t trust Townsville Enterprise, who administered the first business case, funded by the Federal Government.
“We’ve put $30 million up, if they put $30 million up we get on with the job,” Mr Thompson said.
“But at the moment we’ve put $30 million up and they’ve put $2 million up for yet another business case. Why do we need a study into a study?
“Does the Premier not think that Townsville Enterprise can do a good enough job? Does the Premier think we’re mugs here in the North? Because I can tell you that’s how we’re feeling.
“This will only delay the project by months and potentially even years which is the height of irony when the State Labor Government says it wants to create as many jobs as possible to help recover from COVID-19.”
“It’s rubbish and it’s because they don’t have the money to do it.”
Mr Thompson said the State Labor Government’s lack of transparency around how they would pay for their plan showed they shouldn’t be trusted.
“We would be able to go through the budget and see where it is, but the budget’s not going to be delivered until after the election. And that’s a bit sneaky because we know that they don’t have any money, and this will go on another credit card that they’ll find somewhere,” he said.
“We know that the Labor-Greens Government that we have here in Queensland right now can’t manage a budget and the Labor Party here in Townsville is Greens-bred, Greens-fed and Greens-led.
“They don’t care about the regions, they don’t want to build dams, they don’t support the resource sector.”
The Federal Government’s $30 million commitment to build Big Rocks Weir has been in place since 2018, and will support up to 5,000 hectares of high-value agriculture, including avocados, macadamias and citrus, through supplying a minimum of 10,000 megalitres of water.
ENDS