Letter writer defends Labor on Hinkler deal

LETTER writer Allan Cook has defended Labor on the Hinkler deal.

Allan Cook has defended Labor on the Hinkler Regional Deal. Picture: contributed

THE continuing impasse of the so-called Hinkler Regional Deal and the editor's defence (NM 20/08) of his newspaper's partisan coverage and personally offensive front-page headlines of 16 (Mr Saunders) and 19 August (Ms Trad), deserve some rational and calm fact-stating.

The Hinkler Regional Deal was announced by Hinkler MP Keith Pitt and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack in November 2018, apparently in support of Hinkler's trialling of the cashless welfare card and regional infrastructure projects to stimulate employment.

The "deal” was announced as an initiative that would be jointly funded by the three levels of government; except neither Local or State Government were aware of it prior to the announcement, which is curious as one might have imagined that if one organisation was making funding commitments for another organisation, those other organisations would be involved.

Any injection of funding for local initiatives is much-needed and welcome, but from the outset, the Queensland Government has been cautious about commitments of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds being made on their behalf, without some reasonable input into how the deal would be structured, particularly given the usual definition of a deal as an agreement willingly entered into by several parties.

The key sticking point of geographic coverage is apparently non-negotiable to the Federal Government, which sounds more like a "deal when you don't have a deal”, even though Queensland Treasurer Jackie Trad seems to have provided a resolution strategy by conceding to a soft boundary with Maryborough, but this has also been rejected by the Federal Government.

Despite Tim Sayre's (apparently president-elect of the Bundaberg Chamber of Commerce) incorrect claim (NM 10/8) that this is a "Federal Government deal with Federal Government money”, Ms Trad has repeatedly said the Qld Govt is not opposed to the Federal Government funding a Hinkler Regional Deal in their own right, but that no State funding would be committed without genuine consultation on how to also provide some support to Maryborough.

The NewsMail (and other conservative entities) seem to have looked for any culprit to blame for the stalemate in progressing the Hinkler Regional Deal, apart from scrutiny on the one side who refuses to negotiate the deal; that being the Federal Government.

The editor's arguments (NM 20/8) that the NewsMail criticisms during this process are simply trying to get what is best for Bundaberg are well made, but if that is the case, perhaps some energy (and criticism in a more even-handed way) in agitating for a preparedness on all governments to play their part in resolving this dispute to implement a genuine deal would have greater effect.

Allan Cook

Bundaberg