Groom federal election candidates answer big questions, give their vision for undecided voters
EXCLUSIVE: What are the priorities, promises and visions that Groom’s candidates at the upcoming federal election? In this special feature, we sat down with seven of them and grilled them on a number of topics:
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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 for long-form interviews and answer a variety of questions around their policies, priorities and vision for this region.
One Nation’s Grant Abraham declined the invitation. You can find a link to his profile here.
Here is every candidate’s answers to virtually every question asked, in full:
GARTH HAMILTON MP (LIBERAL NATIONAL PARTY)
1. Tell us about your background and what has shaped your views?
My earliest working experiences were sitting alongside my father in an old ute, going around doing concreting jobs in southeast Queensland. I loved that time of my life, some of my favourite work experiences were working beside my father and watching him run a small business and the challenges of that.
That construction side has always been with me, it drove me into engineering, and mining engineering was a great pathway for me to get out and see the world, enjoy life and get some experiences that I wouldn’t have got. I started running projects that were significantly different, from train stations to airports to flood works.
What influenced me most was working with foreign governments and watching them make some very smart decisions and looking back to Australia and thinking that we should be making some of those smart investments ourselves. That’s what drove me more and more into politics, to get Australia to make those same sort of decisions.
2. What sort of decisions?
Watching investment in large-scale infrastructure that is there to drive productivity and innovation – those are the sort of investments which are future-thinking. The ability to stimulate the economy in the immediate term but the long-term benefits is something Australia can learn and is equipped to do so. That’s an important thing for us.
3. What is your top priority for the next term of government, if elected?
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-by-side 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 but their tertiary education 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.
4. On the Inland rail, there are a number of landholders who are still unhappy about that process. How do you go about meeting their concerns?
I don’t think there’s anything that separates supporting the project from making sure that landholders who are affected get the best service and response they can get from ARTC. When people have reached out and asked me to see them, I’ve done that and will continue to do that. What’s clear though is the overwhelming support from our community to make sure it gets delivered. I think that’s a clear imperative for the foreseeable future. The calls came from Labor’s senate report to put it through its eighth review, I have no faith whatsoever having delivered major projects like this that an eighth review will be of any benefit whatsoever. What it will do is bring in further uncertainty, further risk to this project and that for me is completely unacceptable. We must get the benefits out of this project, it’s absolutely vital we deliver it.
5. Do you think those landholders are adding uncertainty and risk to the project?
No, none whatsoever. Landholders deserve to be treated fairly and equally by ARTC and as their representative, I’ve been making sure they are.
6. There is a strong possibility that you could be elected in Groom but the Labor Party takes power. If that was to occur, how could you convince voters Toowoomba would not be forgotten?
I can’t promise good governance from the Labor Party, in fact that would be wrong of me to do so. What I can promise is I’ll continue to give my best efforts as our local member to ensure I stand up and fight for them, as I did on Inland Rail, as I have on issues like the quarantine facility.
7. In terms of your working relationship with Labor ministers and members, do you believe you have strong enough relationships with them to advocate properly as the LNP member for Groom?
On important issues like the economy, like defence and foreign issues, the big issues, I’ve been put on the house joint committee for economics. I’ve been put on the house joint committee for foreign affairs, defence and trade. I’ve been put on there for a reason – to have those relationships and I’ll continue to have them.
My enduring faith and belief is I’ll be having them in government, but either side, that’s what those committees are there to do and that ensures Groom gets representation on some of the most important committees that there are.
8. Toowoomba residents have indicated the major projects they want to see actioned include passenger/fast rail to Brisbane, a new hospital and a new dam to boost water security. Which of these do you support, what have you done so far in your position to help achieve federal funding?
My firm belief is the strongest avenue for passenger is via Inland Rail. Getting that tunnel built, I can’t see how they could economically viable as a start-up for passenger. it’s absolutely crucial that we back that off Inland Rail. I know there has been provision made for that, we have put $15m to the state government to complete that business case. That’s a simple, obvious pathway that we should be pressing. Once we can get Inland Rail, I think passenger rail falls very quickly off the back of that. If you want to have a conversation over light rail they can follow off the back of that. Without that tunnel in place, the ability to catch a train directly from the Toowoomba CBD into Brisbane becomes much more difficult. I’m very supportive of that, it’s just what I see for that is we need to push for Inland Rail very quickly for that.
I’m a big advocate for us to continue our funding of Queensland public hospitals. We’ve more than doubled funding to the Queensland Government to public hospitals, $6.2bn this year, going to Queensland just for building hospitals. That’s up from $2.7bn when Labor were last in Government. We’re putting the money there, we’re committing to it, I want to see us get it. But I’m not going to pretend for the purposes of this election, that the decision is anything other than the responsibility of the state. I will continue to advocate for that with my local members and community groups.
I have been very supportive and spent a lot of time with the mayor and various councillors regarding the broader plan they’ve been trying to work with a number of other council groups. I do believe from my experience delivering major water infrastructure that a catchment-wide view is the best thing we can do, to make sure we’re not just increasing our water storage but using our water in the best way that we can.
I’ve been very supportive of that, it is great to see council progress Emu Creek Dam, it may well be called the Sommerfield Dam one day and I think Nancy’s advocacy for that is to be commended. I’m very supportive of that, I want to get it to the point where it can have federal funding.
9. I want to talk about your previous articles in the Spectator, particularly one that was deleted around the rates of absentee Indigenous and African-American fathers. Do you stand by those comments still and is there anything about your previous columns that you take back?
No, I think nothing has changed from my view. It is very important that we put family at the heart of every discussion that we have, and I think that’s something that remains key to me. I think it’s a core value and a view that many in my community hold. We should be focusing on families.
10. What is your 20-year vision for Groom and Toowoomba – what does it look like and how do we get there?
I spoke about this earlier on. I think the vision I have is of a place that has everything that you want. I think we have completely outgrown the idea of a small country town that’s built up to a city. We become a thriving place, a place that has a reputation around Australia as the regional capital. I think we’re well and truly on that pathway. Continuing long-term investments, like with the bypass and the Inland Rail, that’s having a view to the future, the idea we cannot just grow as we are, but grow into new things. Being a major defence hub is fantastic and I think continuing the ag-tech excellence that we’ve seen in our region already is incredibly important. Continuing the traditional strengths in terms of education hub, in terms of a health hub, those things must always underline us. Also, one of the things that drive us very well is we have a local financial sector, having Heritage Bank, which if they merge will become a top-10 bank in Australia, right here in Toowoomba. Building upon those traditional strengths but finding these new avenues that allow us to be self-sufficient in giving the people of Groom something they want, not just what they need.
GEN ALLPASS (LABOR)
1. Tell us about your background and what has shaped your views?
I’ve come from immigrant working class backgrounds and I’ve been involved in politics my whole life through my family. I’m very interested in what decisions are made and who makes those decisions and how they affect everybody.
2. Who had influenced your connection with Labor?
Politically, influences would be amazing women like Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong. Obviously it’s been 50 years since the “It’s Time” campaign, and he was a change-maker for all of us, if you think of bringing the troops home and the beautiful things he brought in. Given it’s now my 50th year as well, I’d say maybe that whole campaign and what Gough Whitlam did for social justice.
3. What is your top priority for the next term of government, if elected?
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 our local manufacturing and making sure we’re building things here and buying and building Australian.
4. There has been a distinct lack of local policy announcements from Labor for Groom, and by your own admission the party gave you very little support to run your campaign. How can you convince voters that an Albanese Government will listen to our concerns and needs on a Groom-specific level?
The fact that I’ve had 15 members here, including Albanese and Bill Shorten, proves they are standing up and listening to me. Once they come here, they can see exactly what we can do.
5. So you think that proves you can have sway within the party?
Absolutely, we’ve never had those amounts of people before and we’ve never had those people in such high positions before. I can prove that, and in fact we’ve got three schools we’re funding after the election if we’re able to get in. They were grants I was able to ask Tanya Plibersek about, and I fought for them and we have them. They are small state schools struggling and they needed things done that they haven’t been able to do themselves and they’ve struggled with funding and getting local members to listen. So they wrote to me and I wrote to Tanya Plibersek and we have three full funding commitments to those.
6. Do you have any idea about the amount?
It goes up to about $40,000, it funds things like laptops for the whole class, laptops for the school, shade clothes and playgrounds. We have school renovations for classrooms so really important things these schools have been wanting for a long time. We’ve been able to do that for them instead.
7. Toowoomba residents have indicated the major local projects they want to see actioned include passenger/fast rail to Brisbane, a new hospital and a new dam to boost water security. Which of these do you support and how do we achieve federal funding for them?
I absolutely support all of those. We do need fast rail, that will be an absolute game-changer between here and Brisbane. I also think we need to look at Inland Rail, it needs to be assessed as to all of the problems and issues and the mismanagement that’s happened, including not listening to our local farming areas.
With our dams, that’s where we can work along the three levels of government and I’ve been able to work with all three levels and know them personally. When you see this sort of weather here, it’s heartbreaking to see it’s not running off and going into more dams when we need it.
8. Labor has yet to commit to the AMA’s request to restore federal-state health funding to 50-50. This region desperately needs a new hospital. If elected, will you be fighting to restore that ratio?
I’ll be fighting to restore any funding that we need to build this hospital because it needs to be done straight away. I will be lobbying my own government, I will be making sure we have that funding here, because it’s obvious that we need it.
9. So even if that puts you at odds with leadership, if you’re elected you’ll be saying that we need our fair share of federal funding?
Absolutely, I’ve been at odds with leadership whenever it comes to our community and I will continue to be, including in my very first interviews to be endorsed in this position. I made it aware I would be fighting for this community regardless of politics.
10. What is your 20-year vision for Groom and Toowoomba – what does it look like and how do we get there?
How do we get there? True local representation, of someone who can actually work hard and is actually smart enough to get the things done. My 20-year vision will make sure we have entertainment and reasons for people to be here, to live here and stay here. We are open to change and innovation. 20 years would be beautiful hospitals and the upgrading of our existing facilities so we can have wonderful education and health facilities. 20 years would be a woman prime minister, a woman premier and a woman mayor.
MELISSA BANNISTER (UNITED AUSTRALIA PARTY)
1. Tell us about your background and what has shaped your political views?
I’m 34, I grew up here, all of my family is here including my parents and my brothers. I think it was the past two years, a lot of people have become quite disillusioned with politics so it’s important we get genuine people in there who are advocating for the people and leaving politics out of it.
2. Is that to say you weren’t as politically engaged earlier in your life?
I’ve definitely become a lot more interested in politics over the past few years. A lot of young people I’ve spoken to in their 20s didn’t take voting very seriously, a lot of people still now don’t pay a lot of attention to what’s going on. I think we don’t realise how much it affects us when we choose a leader who doesn’t take the time to spend with the community and find out exactly what’s going on.
3. What is your top priority for the next government if you’re elected into the seat of Groom?
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 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 benefits for business.
4. Your party’s promise to cap home interest rates at three per cent has been branded “irresponsible” by economists and banking experts and at the Toowoomba Chamber forum, you said the UAP would help reduce the debt by wiping all HECS debts. Do you stand by these policies and how do you justify to them that they’re economically sound?
Luckily, the people who are in charge of our economic policies are very experienced. We’ve got a very experienced team of commerce, finance and legal experts. They wouldn’t be putting forward these policies if they hadn’t been costed – it’s just smart business sense. By addressing the national debt with our 15 per cent export license on iron ore, we can pay off the national debt within 20 years. By addressing that, we’ll be able to have the money to support people, to cap interest rates over five years while we get on top of the national debt. In terms of education, that is a great policy, because it gives a lot more opportunities for our young people, and having a massive HECS debt is a huge burden even when it comes to buying a home – it holds a lot of people back and affects their borrowing capacity. It won’t be a free-for-all, there will be parameters around it – we can’t have people just being full-time students on government money, that would be irresponsible. But this is not irresponsible at all, we’re just trying to look after the Australian people so they can keep their homes. We don’t want to co-own a home with them, I don’t think that’s right for the government to be co-owning them. We want to make it so everybody can afford to buy and own their home if that’s what they want to do.
5. Out of curiosity, do you still have HECS debt?
I will actually be paying it off this year. I’ve paid mine off, but I’m quite happy for it to be wiped and I’ve got a lot of friends working really hard and they have huge HECS debt and it is a massive burden and I think we can relieve some of that pressure to allow people to get on with life. It will make a big difference.
6. You’ve been a vocal part of the Toowoomba freedom movement, attending rallies against the mandates or “pro-choice”, however you want to frame it. This issue has dropped off the national agenda currently, do you Groom voters will still care about this on May 21?
Yes, they definitely do. I’m still having people contact me – I just met someone today who has just lost their job because there are still businesses mandating vaccinations and they don’t feel comfortable with it. It’s still a massive issue for people regardless of whether they think it’s dropped off. We had one candidate who said that the mandates are done – they’re not done, people are still losing their jobs and are unable to work when we have a massive workforce shortage. People won’t forget – there are a lot of my colleagues in Queensland Health who did not want to have the vaccination and they won’t forget how they’ve been treated come election time.
8. With that in mind, how does the nation move forward with this issue, considering they are state-based issues? What can you do about that if you’re elected?
Federally, Craig Kelly already has a bill ready to go that he actually tabled in parliament and didn’t get the support he needed. Obviously we’ll have a lot more people and we’ll have at least a hung parliament, there will be a lot more people in there ready to back and support that bill so we can end these mandates and get them back to work.
9. Toowoomba residents have indicated the major projects they want to see actioned include passenger/fast rail to Brisbane, a new hospital and a new dam to boost water security. Which of these do you support, what have you done so far in your position to help achieve federal funding?
I certainly do support all three in principle. Coming from a health background, I can see the need for a new hospital and I was quite involved in that project during my time at Darling Downs Health. We’ll be injecting $40bn in healthcare, but we won’t be giving that to the state governments to manage – we’ll be putting that directly into the hospitals. I’ll be fighting for a chunk of that to get this hospital built. I think it’s quite ridiculous that we were expecting an announcement for the funding of the new hospital early last year and nothing has happened. So I’d like to find out what’s happening with that.
In terms of the passenger rail I think it is really necessary. It would give a lot of people who are regularly commuting back time with their families. Also, it would increase road safety. The only concern I’d have is we’d need to have proper community consultation, not just a box-ticking exercise because I know people are concerned about the impacts it would have on their properties. I’m supportive of that in principle, provided we do the correct consultation and anyone impacted negatively is worked with and we need to compromise. We have people who have lived in these areas for years and they’ve tried to warn these experts about potential issues and they don’t get listened to, and then we get problems like homes being flooded.
I agree water security is a massive issue. I know they’re pushing a dam up north at the moment, which I 100 per cent agree with, we definitely to build a dam in this area if that’s what is going to be the best way to address water security. I’d like to speak to more experts in that field and see collaboratively what we can come up with. We need to address that at all three levels of government.
10. Just on the $40bn for hospitals but not through the states – are you sure that’s constitutional? Wouldn’t you face a fight from the states regarding that?
I don’t think so, the hospitals are going to be open to that and there are always ways to do things, so if that’s what the plan is, I don’t see why we can’t make that happen.
11. What is your 20-year vision for Groom and Toowoomba – what does it look like and how do we get there?
We’re seeing a lot of expansion here, so many people have moved to our amazing community, so we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the infrastructure that people need. Obviously, the entertainment precinct has been coming up a lot – whether or not that needs to be built at Wellcamp or somewhere else I think we need to have discussions around that. We are a little bit of a hub here for regional towns that sit on the outskirts, so I think by expanding (or) having entertainment precincts here would be wonderful. We do need to address the water security as a major issue if we are going to keep expanding. I would just like to see more opportunity for people here, to be honest, to support more local businesses to grow and flourish. It would be great, with our policy around education, we’d be able to be a hub as well. We’ve got USQ to have more students here and really support people to chase their dreams. I’d love to see our zonal taxation policy put into place, where if you live 200km or more from a capital city, you’ll pay 20 per cent less tax, so that will be wonderful to have in place for these rural towns. We’ll be able to have people living out of town and we’ll have our passenger rail by then as well.
MICKEY BERRY (GREENS)
1. Tell us about your background and what has shaped your political views?
I grew up pretty poor actually. My mum’s family, she was probably from the first generation to be called middle class, they were always pretty poor growing up. I grew up hearing about stories about that. I’ve always been pretty aware of how money works and what it’s like to live in poverty. She was a single parent, so it was a one-income household and she did the best for us, but s--- happens and sometimes you just know.
Once I got to high school, I started working with a youth group and progressively I became a leader there for most of high school. I worked with them for quite some time, but I left there in 2017 due to some differences. After the last federal election, where Scott Morrison got voted in, I decided to get more involved in politics. I have always been very interested but that made me realise If I want to make a difference, I need to be involved with that and get involved, so I joined the Greens.
I volunteered with them for a while, I volunteered on Thomas Coyne’s campaign and I knew him for a very long time before he passed away and he sort of encouraged me to get more involved and after his passing I decided to run.
2. What is your top priority for the next term of government, if you are elected into the seat?
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.
3. The Greens have promised to build 3000 social housing dwellings in Toowoomba if elected, at a time when we are experiencing a housing crisis. But housing and its planning is mostly a local and state issue. How do you plan to influence our current situation from Canberra?
I’m very lucky to be a member of a party that actively listens to all of its members and utilises us when making these policies. It’s very important that those houses do get built. Our housing availability is sitting at 0.03 per cent right now, which is absolutely ridiculous. I just had to move house and I know how hard it was to find a house, we were lucky to find one as quickly as we did.
We need to be actively making those communications and pathways to make sure these things are actively happening by talking to those people and making sure the policies we’re promising are actually coming into play. We can do that if we get our second senator.
4. Garth Hamilton says this region is “energy agnostic” and there is still significant support for fossil fuels projects in Groom. How do you convince voters that a fully renewable energy approach is the most effective proposal without hurting the economy and job security?
One of our main industries is actually agriculture within our region and our mining companies are negatively impacting that farming land. It’s not as big of an industry as people would like you to believe, especially considering other countries are moving away from coal seam gas and coal. It’s not a viable export anymore and it’s not producing as much money to the local economy as it used to. We need to be moving into renewables and manufacturing for renewables, so we can export and bringing funding into our region.
5. Toowoomba residents have indicated the major local projects they want to see actioned include passenger/fast rail to Brisbane, a new hospital and a new dam to boost water security. Which of these do you support and how do we achieve federal funding for them?
Passenger rail, especially to Brisbane, could be a fantastic thing as long as it’s not impacting residents and their homes. I have grandparents who live on Mort Street, directly across the road from the rail and several rail projects proposed over the years actually impacted their specific house. As long as these projects aren’t negatively impacting other people and destroying their homes, I think they are fantastic and could be a good resource. We already have those rail tracks in place, use the ones that are there. We can have this up and running a lot faster than building whole new tracks for these things, especially if we’re doing the Inland Rail, which is fast rail from Brisbane to Melbourne. If we’re on that route, it could be fantastic for lessening the amount of cars on the road, which could then reduce carbon emissions.
A new (fully public) hospital is so important for our region – my mother is a nurse so I know how overrun our hospital and aged care systems are, I see them every day. We have had a lot of issues with the emergency department at the Toowoomba Hospital being overpacked and waiting hours being ridiculously long. We’ve had a new hospital proposal for years now and we need to have that happen sooner rather than later.
(Regarding a new dam), we definitely need more water security. Our water supply in Toowoomba is only guaranteed for another 20 years, which is mainly due to climate change factors. If we have the space for it, I think a dam would be a fantastic project to make happen, as long as we’re not destroying valuable farming land or clear trees to make that project go ahead.
6. What is your 20-year vision for Groom and Toowoomba – what does it look like and how do we get there?
I haven’t thought about that one before. I would love to see more accessible for housing for disabled people. We have a large disabled community here and not enough resources to help support them. More accessibility everywhere – shopping centres, pubs so everyone has the chance to go and do the things they enjoy. I would love to see high-speed rail to Brisbane, given the right circumstances for that. A new hospital, fully viable and public to ease our healthcare system. I want to see more safe spaces for LGBT people, we don’t have a lot of those right now.
RYAN OTTO (AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION PARTY)
1. Tell us about your background and what has shaped your views?
Well, I’m a nobody. I come from an agricultural background, my parents have a macadamia farm up on the Sunshine Coast. I came here to go to university and work about eight years ago. I suppose, like a lot of other young people, I’ve become disinterested in politics because it doesn’t seem like we get enough of a voice or say to participate in our democracy in a meaningful way. When I was approached to run for the AFP and I saw their platform was about community communication and engagement, I thought that was a fantastic initiative to be pushing. Getting some of my opinionated and closely-held beliefs in the conversation as well.
2. What are some of those beliefs?
Well, I think the climate change debate is too centred around carbon and not enough on industrial and agricultural pollution, like micro-plastics in our waterways and the oceans. There are so many other things with our environment that are wrong than just carbon and there appears to be a carefully constructed debate, with one side being the fossil fuel industry and the other being the renewable industry and both profit massively from it. The renewables being promoted like solar and wind are not green, they’re not renewable and they’re not recyclable because they’re used from non-recyclable components and they end up as toxic landfill in half a century. What I would like to see is more long-term planning and passionate engagement so we’re making sure people are on-board with some of the decisions made. A lot of the people are very angry and fed-up with the way we’ve been represented.
2. What is your top priority for the next term of government, if elected?
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?
3. You said the people who have been pushing for mandates should be held accountable.
Yes, Annastacia Palaszczuk just made coercive control illegal in Queensland and listed all these different things like access to money or using coercion to do things they don’t want to do, like intimidation. All these tactics that the Queensland Government has been putting on their own citizens. I think it’s a bit ironic that in a domestic violence situation this kind of coercive control should be illegal and people should be prosecuted, but she’s been doing that for the past two years, so I’d like to hear her answer whether she’s been using coercive control as part of her pandemic response plan.
4. You have been a vocal player in the Toowoomba freedom movement, rallying against vaccine mandates and other government measures. This issue has dropped right off the national agenda, so why do you think Groom voters will still care about this on May 21?
They’re only temporarily shut down so that they can look good for their elections. It’s the electoral cycle propagandising, they will still continue with the mandates. They’ll still continue with the Covid hysteria, but they’re just on pause for the moment because they don’t want to lose voters to the minor parties and independents who are pushing back against these poorly managed decisions.
5. So do you think after May 21 they’ll come back?
Not necessarily on May 21, but coming up into winter, we’ll go through another wave and we’re seeing huge spikes in schools and other communities. WA has tens of thousands of cases, so they’ll bring the lockdowns back – of that I’m confident. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. A lot of people have been saying that it’s over and the lockdowns are finished, but I don’t believe that for a split second. And we don’t have any legal promise of that. The AFP would be promising that as part of their primary platform.
6. The AFP advocates for a decentralised model that allows individual MPs to poll their constituents on key issues to formulate their agendas in Canberra. In a country where political literacy leaves a lot to be desired, what makes you think this is the best model?
This is better because it allows the individual candidate to actually represent the community of constituents, instead of toeing the party line. However, the candidates have been selected to make sure that we do have a uniting ethos and banner under which we can all agree with. The idea of having the AFP as a network of support for independent candidates is to hold those candidates accountable. There are a lot of independents that are running in this election, but there’s nothing holding them to their promises or holding them under a common banner like the AFP is proposing, that would allow voters who are maybe unfamiliar with these independents, to see what they stand for. It’s all the benefits of independents and a party, and bringing them together and I think that’s a really refreshing take that the AFP is bringing to this election.
7. Do you think people will be responsive to that sort of model? It requires a great deal more political involvement than a lot of people are willing to engage in at this point.
That’s OK, I’m willing to fight for that and I’m very happy with our six-part community pact, which would have me as a representative hold a monthly town hall meeting, as they did before the modern era. People would be able to have a conversation with their representative and it would be an open agenda and they could come to me with any concerns or questions and have a more involved process. There isn’t enough education around the electoral process and there isn’t enough involvement. The second part is we’d be holding democracy education seminars on how to vote, what is the difference between the two houses and all these different rules with the voting. A lot of people still believe the parties provide the preferences and they take their votes and throw them to other parties, and they don’t. All they do is provide how-to-vote cards, which are suggestions to their voters and supporters of how they would like them to vote. The voter then numbers their preferences and chooses where their second vote goes to. Most people don’t know this. Pauline Hanson’s political cartoons have been doing a pretty good job in trying to get a message out there with this election, but that needs to be an ongoing process, not just for the electoral cycle. It should be taught in our schools.
8. What is your 20-year vision for Groom and Toowoomba – what does it look like and how do we get there?
That’s a very long way into the future and I think it is important to look at that, because most politicians only have a three-year plan ahead for their electoral cycles. I would like to see some of the invasive exotic species placed with native species, which could support people struggling with the rising cost of living, or even our native wildlife that can’t eat a lot of these decorative plants, that’s what I would look at. Expanding the community gardens as well, I think we have a community gardens which are quite amazing but people don’t even know it’s there. It we could expand it into one of our major parks, just a small section and then grow from out there, that would be fantastic. I’d like to see what the Netherlands or New Zealand where they have community farming and everyone has their own vegie garden they do a harvest swap. They don’t need to go to Coles or Woolies or any of their multinational conglomerates to get their food, they could grow it for themselves. That would be a massive benefit for mental health and community spirit. There is a lot of animosity and strangeness from people not even know who their neighbours are and I’d like to host more community events. We used to have community country dances where people would go and do line dancing, and that was fantastic because everyone would get to know each other and there would be more trust and more helping out. It’s sad that we’ve lost that and replaced it with social media, which is quite a shallow form of networking.
SUZIE HOLT (INDEPENDENT)
1. Tell us about your background and what has shaped your views?
I’m a social worker, I graduated in 1993 and I come from a small town in the western suburbs of Brisbane. My family were hardworking, my parents both worked really hard to send us through school. I went to a local state school and to Ipswich Girls Grammar School. In my final year of high school I was involved in a severe car accident and was in hospital for a long time in intensive care. I think partly that has probably. I was very close to my grandparents and they come from the country, and we always had that country feel to our family. Family is really important to me, so I went and did social work. In my final prac, I came up to Toowoomba and worked at Baillie Henderson in mental health because I had a love of the country and wanted to come back to my roots, so to speak. I think that sense of regional and health and disability and working with communities is probably where my own politics has stemmed from. My father was also a member for the LNP and promoted his local branch, so I grew up in that community. That community in that time, we were in a new area, they were actually very supportive. We’d do barbecues and they’d look after you because it was a new area of Brisbane. My grandfather was very involved in politics, never a member but he was certainly connected to the Country Party. Politics has been a big part of that drive in our family. I was interested in it in university and certainly met with people from both sides of politics, Liberal and Labor. That drive in social policy has been the thing I’ve been committed to.
2. What is your top priority for the next term of government, if elected?
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.
3. You have been accused of running a campaign featuring plenty of fluffy comments but little detail, and those have come from both major party candidates. How can you convince voters that you have a plan to secure funding for our region?
One of the advantages of being an independent candidate is when we get down to Canberra and we’re on the crossbench, we immediately attract attention from both sides of government, whether it’s the opposition or the current government. History has demonstrated that an independent will attract funding. That’s what we’ve been saying to people. We’ve actually been getting boots on the ground and talking to communities. During the week, I went out and had a forum with people in Pittsworth to talk about the Inland Rail and fixing it. During that conversation, I made a commitment to actually addressing the Inland Rail should I be elected and that’s how we’ve been selling it to the community. I have made a commitment to set up a task-force and address the Inland Rail the minute I’m elected.
4. In response to that, Garth Hamilton says any reviews into the Inland Rail will cause confusion, uncertainty and delay. What’s your response to that?
What we’ve got now is confusion, uncertainty and delay. The biggest issue for the Inland Rail is the section to Toowoomba. It has blown out of budget, it’s on its third budget blowout. It hasn’t been costed properly and people have not been consulted. So you’ve got a whole group of people, whether it’s up our end all the way down to Brisbane, that have not been heard and they have to be brought into the conversation. Whichever government is brought in on May 21, it will have to be done to address the budget blowout for starters. The other issue around it is there are a number of concerns around the routes and they need to be heard and assessed. The issue with coming down the Toowoomba path and down to Brisbane is it hasn’t been finalised. There are a number of organised groups who have major concerns, including down at Gatton – that local council needs to be heard. We need to bring these people together, with the options of looking at alternative routes going to Gladstone. Also, I understand the possibility of the path going through to Bundaberg is also on the table. There is still a lot of uncertainty and questions need to be answered and we need to make that happen. I’m all for major infrastructure building projects like Inland Rail, it’s a national priority that should happen. It’s exciting and it’s been around since federation. It needs to be done collaboratively and I’m going to work hard to fix it.
5. You are one of two independents running for Groom. Why should voters go with an unaligned candidate when they could elect someone who could be part of a majority government?
Do you know one of the biggest things we’ve heard from our consultations with Cathy McGowan and also it’s reflected in government. Those candidates that are independents have been demonstrated to show they will actually represent their communities. We’re not interested in party politics, we’re actually interested in listening and hearing our communities and taking our communities to Canberra. One of the things we’ve heard is we need a hospital – we need healthcare services and I also want to grow our own workforce around health. These are things we can take down and lobby for strongly. We know from listening to our community is there are issues with Inland Rail. We can go down and advocate for it. It’s shown an independent who represents a community brings much more funding, partly because the big parties want that seat next time, so they’ll give you funding. The other that it does is it actually brings a place like Groom, which is what we’ve shown during this campaign, that we’ve put Groom on the national stage. Automatically, people are interested in Groom. I know of two other national journalists in town now, that’s exciting. We’re giving it a national platform so naturally we’ll get more funding for our region.
6. Toowoomba residents have indicated the major local projects they want to see actioned include passenger/fast rail to Brisbane, a new hospital and a new dam to boost water security. Which of these do you support and how do we achieve federal funding for them?
I support the hospital and I’ve explained that one. Water security has been the major issue that came up during the Voices movement and it’s continued through the whole campaign. Because we are a community campaign, what we have behind us is a group of experts, so we’ve been working with those experts to develop a really prominent water plan that will come through and if elected we will follow that through. Certainly issues around damming and looking at ways to improve water security will come up. We’d have to work collaboratively with local government and state to make sure that happens. The passenger rail is what everyone is talking about. It’s really interesting, in all of our surveys and all our data we did, and we did over 200 in that first round, it never came up. I find it fascinating that all of a sudden, people think we might get funding and it’s on the agenda. That is great, it means people are thinking about it and we can open up a conversation and people are participating. People are now thinking about what they want for the region. I’m really keen to see our region be the region of choice, but passenger rail, if that’s something that people really want, we’ll go hard and lobby for it to make sure there’s a budget and proposal to get that on the agenda. First of all, we will get the state government to let us see the proposal. Because we’ve been building those relationships with the state government, we can make that happen. That’s the beauty of not representing a party, we can go down and see those things happen. We’d also have to work with that alliance of councils to work and progress that project, which is possible. The beauty of that is it’s in line with the Olympics. The Olympics is about connectivity and actually bringing forward and connecting the major regions for those games. Passenger rail would be one exciting thing for us. In terms of the Olympics, because it would open us up to tourism and that’s certainly an avenue that we can choose to look at.
7. What is your 20-year vision for Groom and Toowoomba – what does it look like and how do we get there?
I want to make the region the region of choice. I’d love to see our regional become a healthcare precinct, I’d love to see our region have a healthcare university attached to that. I’d love to see our region become one of choice for manufacturing, food, fibre and beverages and a major transport and logistics hub.
I’d love to see Groom put on the map as the regional focus and lead the way in developing a national regional strategy.
KIRSTIE SMOLENSKI (INDEPENDENT)
1. Tell us about your background and what has shaped your views?
I grew up in a small country town in Victoria, moved up here. My parents always had that problem of customers, everything surrounding that big city, we were near Shepparton. That gave me a really good insight into the regions that I am still hearing now, that they feel a little neglected. I came up here when I was 22 years old, I started working at the base hospital when they were desperate for staff. That was in the 1990s, so we’re talking 32 years ago, and I loved it. I loved the people and the climate, and I new I wasn’t a Victorian, I was a Queenslander. I met my husband here at the Irish Club, as many people did on a Friday night. I had five children, after three kids I stopped nursing. At my last job I was clinical teaching out at USQ, which was fantastic.
I’ve always been interested in politics and how that all works, especially with the three different levels. I’ve always been involved with different community groups and charities and worked with all levels. It was actually in that early 2000s with the children overboard incident that really tweaked my interest. I felt that we were being lied to by our federal government as to what was happening with the refugees and people on boats and that really tweaked my interest – I thought it was blatant lies and it was really damaging to this country. Then the water debate happened here in Toowoomba and I got incredibly involved, and I was adamant we were going to hear the truth, and that was so difficult. I just felt then that we’ve got this party politics that is toxic and we need to somehow break through that. All that research showed that we’re the second-safest seat in the country, so we get neglected. All of that part me on this path to independent politics and knowing that’s what we needed to work hard for Groom, to get what we need and to work with all levels and all sides of government.
2. What is your top priority for the next term of government, if elected?
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. Jo 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.
3. You are one of two independents running for Groom. Why should voters go with an unaligned candidate when they could elect someone who could be part of a majority government?
That’s actually the point. If you’re part of a majority government, you have to toe that line. Our member here has voted with the party, along the line 100 per cent of the time. To me, that is not good representation, that is not representing the people of Groom, that is representing the party. What we need is someone here to represent the people of Groom, and only an independent can do that. I can go and talk to the people when I want, when parliament is not sitting, and I can ask them the questions and do my own research. I can come up with those solutions, and I can put that to parliament. That is true representation.
4. You recently introduced your affordable housing policy, which seeks to create a pilot program similar to a community titles scheme. People inside the development industry have questioned whether this will be supported by the banks and will attract buyers who want to get finance for a house but no land. What evidence do you have that this could be successful?
The evidence we have is based on conversations we’ve had with financial planners and bankers who have said if the tenure to the land is secure, on 99-year leases – and part of our plan is government bonds will be used to buy that land – then the banks would be supportive of this issue. Of course it’s got to go under similar regulations and rules as other applicants, with your job, your income and record. As far as evidence goes, we do have documentation but most of that is us speaking with banks and them telling us they’d be happy to look at this.
5. Toowoomba residents have indicated the major local projects they want to see actioned include passenger/fast rail to Brisbane, a new hospital and a new dam to boost water security. Which of these do you support and how do we achieve federal funding for them?
With the hospital, yes, and there are a number of models to get a new hospital built. There is what we’ve got at the moment, that the hospital is in the public realm. It’s government-owned, and then there are other models that are a public-private partnership. My research has shown that it would be a public model I’d be pushing as number one. There are significant issues with the public and private model, when you get private investment involved – significant issues. There are examples of that in Adelaide and other places. I would be pushing a fully public model. It starts off with state funding – they’ve got to get the plans on the table, they’ve got the land but it is not on a budget anywhere. The State Government simply can’t afford it, and like all these major infrastructure items, it needs federal funding backing to support the state plans. At the moment, as we’ve all seen recently, they don’t even talk to each other. You’ve got state Labor at the moment that are not even coming up here to talk to our federal Liberal member. This is not the way to get funding together for such a major important project like the hospital. I think we need first of all someone who is going to stand up here and advocate for it federally, but also be able to talk reasonably and respectfully and cohesively with the other levels of government.
6. But as was pointed out, you’re not on Labor’s team either, so how could you argue it will make a difference?
As an independent, I would have the ability to take this toxic party politics out of the equation. We’ve seen that recently with Wellcamp, where we had state Labor coming up here and our other levels of government didn’t know anything about it – I think that’s appalling and the people of Groom were absolutely appalled at the level we’ve fallen to with the cohesiveness of local, state and federal government. What I’m proposing is as an independent and someone with a good track record of being a good communicator and advocate and who’s been able to fight to get things done in a reasonable, timely manner, that’s giving us our best shot. I can’t promise anything honestly, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what we’ve got.
7. And fast or passenger rail, as well as a new dam?
Yes we’ve got the government-owned model that’s being costed and they’re doing a business plan. A lot of research I’ve done, there is a case for public-private ownership here and that’s something we’ve got private enterprise that is willing and ready to talk to the Federal Government about joint-funding, and putting a business case on the table. It’s just been neglected, the Federal Government is not ready to talk but I’m ready. We need to if we’re going to get action.
With a dam, there are two sides of an equation when you’re getting things done in government. One is doing what’s best for the people, and two is having all the information to make those decisions. You say the people want a new dam, I would say that I want water security. We can’t move ahead with rail, hospital, housing, entertainment or anything if we don’t have water security – that’s a truth and it’s not on the table. We don’t have water security, we don’t have a river or water system. We also don’t have the rainfall, so do we have a catchment area for the dam? When is the next time that dam is going to be filled if we spend all that money? That’s all the information I’d need to have and being a candidate I’m not privy to all that to make that decision. But I’m supportive of water security.
8. What is your 20-year vision for Groom and Toowoomba – what does it look like and how do we get there?
I’ve been here for 30-odd years, it doesn’t seem like a long time, I feel like 20 years will go really quickly and for me our major employer in this region is health, followed by education. Health to me, I see us with our new hospital, with increased health services, with increased federal funding for the health services that we need here, talking about mental health, NDIS, everything that goes with that. I have a vision for Groom that we are not begging for federal funding for the health dollar, as we have been doing the past 30 years. With passenger rail, I see commuters and jobs, and jobs is the key. I see a lot of jobs growth with the building of our health services and our passenger rail. People can come up from Brisbane and work, and people from Toowoomba can do vice versa. It will bring tourism to our region, and my 20-year vision includes vastly improved tourism. If we can get the rail built and open up our region to not just Toowoomba but our beautiful country regions, to the city that would be an extraordinary benefit for the health and prosperity of our region.
Originally published as Groom federal election candidates answer big questions, give their vision for undecided voters
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