As the Federal Member for Capricornia, I am proud to serve the whole community whether they voted for me or not.
That is part of being a politician.
But I am also proud to represent Central Queensland as a member of the National Party.
The leader of the National Party David Littleproud said in a speech on the weekend ‘It is an honour and privilege along with my federal colleagues to represent the people of regional Australia.
We are the movement for regional Australia.
We are a movement that makes sure that their voice is heard and that their common sense is put into practice.
We are given the honour to unlock the potential of regional and rural Australia for the next generation of young people to stay and thrive.
We have lost generations of young people that have gone to the city because of the lack of opportunity.
Our job is to bring them home and to keep them home.
David Littleproud also spoke about Federal Labor’s Energy Policy saying ‘We currently have a government that is on a reckless pathway to 82 percent renewables by 2030.
We are not against renewables, but there is a place for them.
And we are seeing across regional Australia now that cost is being born by us, it is being born by us with wind towers and solar panels taking up productive agricultural land, knocking
down remnant vegetation habitat with a complimentary 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines to plug them in.
That is a cost you are all going to bear, a cost that you will pay in your energy bill.
We think the time is now to pause and plan properly. We have until 2050 to get this right and when we have the sovereignty of our resources, why wouldn’t we stop?
Why wouldn’t we get this right?
And why should regional Australia have to foot the bill?
There are common sense solutions through this.
It is not big, pumped hydro at Eungella, destroying remnant vegetation.
$26 billion for old technology where the place for solar panels is not on prime agricultural land or knocking down remnant vegetation, it should be concentrated to rooftops to where the powers needed, which is in capital cities.
Put them on their rooftops and you also alleviate the need for transmission lines.
I spoke last week of the issues regional Australia has in the aged care space.
There is an organisation that is bucking the trend on this, Benevolent Living.
Benevolent Living is an aged care provider who employs 180 staff across all designations including, clinical, care, catering, cleaning, administration, lifestyle, and the arts.
Their team of aged care experts care for a total of 138 residents on their West St campus.
Benevolent Living are now also diversifying their product and accommodation option with the construction of Rockhampton’s first vertical retirement village, Benevolent on West.
This forty-seven million project has created numerous jobs for the region and will soon provide accommodation in home care and services for up to sixty new residents.
They also ensure that people from all walks of life can access care onsite by reserving 40 percent of their aged care placements for people from lower socio-economic means.
I wish to congratulate CEO Alison Moss and her staff for their incredible work in the Aged Care space and what they are doing for the elderly in Central Queensland.
