Dawson Labor candidate Neil Wallace struggles at press conference

Labor’s new Dawson candidate Neil Wallace admits he is not across some local issues following his first press conference where a senator had to step in to assist.

Senator Nita Green and Labor's candidate for Dawson Neil Wallace announced Mackay would be getting an urgent care clinic. Photo: Fergus Gregg

In his first outing as a candidate challenging Dawson’s LNP incumbent, a federal MP hopeful admitted he wasn’t across a number of issues facing his electorate.

Neil Wallace, just two days after announcing his candidacy for Dawson, joined Labor Senator Nita Green to announce Mackay would be getting an urgent care clinic as part of Labor’s $8bn Medicare package.

But when asked questions on issues facing Dawson, Mr Wallace had to defer to Ms Green.

When asked how he planned to address the shortage of rural GPs in Dawson Mr Wallace said “I’m just new in this role, so I haven’t really got an answer on that one yet”.

Ms Green stepped in and said she was aware of the pressures on regional GPs to staff their clinics and said Labor made it “quicker and easier” for GPs from countries like the United Kingdom to emigrate to Australia.

Senator Nita Green and Labor's candidate for Dawson Neil Wallace announced Mackay would be getting an urgent care clinic. March 5, 2025 Photo: Fergus Gregg

“What that means they’re coming here, they’re finding out this is a great place to live and they are staying for longer,” Ms Green said.

She added Labor also announced more commonwealth subsidised places for universities across the country to ensure more doctors were “being trained here locally”.

The new urgent care clinic announced by Labor will provide bulk bill urgent care for non-life threatening matters of which the Mackay Hospital and Health service said there were more than 15,000 presentations for last year.

Mr Wallace said the clinic would “help with cost of living so families aren’t using their credit cards for those visits”.

The clinic will be added onto an existing healthcare operator following a tender process and there will be no construction involved.

“Once that competitive tender process finishes, and there will be a lot of bids I can just imagine … we will have that clinic up and running,” Ms Green said.

When asked when the clinic will be delivered Mr Wallace said he was not sure, but it was promised along with the 50 other clinics announced across the country including in Bundaberg, Gladstone and Cairns.

Mr Wallace said Dawson needed better representation and the electorate wasn’t “getting our fair share”.

He listed the Bruce Highway as a priority and said with the federal government’s $7.2bn commitment “we believe we can get that done”.

However, when asked how he would support tourism in Dawson, outside of the Whitsundays, and how he would advocate for local growers at a federal level, Mr Wallace once again decline to answer and said he wasn’t across those issues.

Mr Wallace is challenging incumbent Andrew Wilcox who was elected in 2022.

On both the cost-of-living and housing crises Mr Wallace praised Labor’s policies.

“Wages are up, employments up, interest rates are down … the Labor governments been doing a fantastic job there,” he said.

He said Labor was working hard to build 1.2 million houses across the country, but the LNP wasn’t supporting their efforts in parliament.

“We’ll just advocate to get those things built,” he said.

When asked how he would balance climate targets with protecting local mining jobs Mr Wallace said in his current position as an insurance broker in risk management he had a lot of mining clients he would advocate for.

“I’m a supporter of mining,” he said.

Ms Green once again stepped in and stressed the importance of keeping the ‘same job, same pay’ as policy.

“When it comes to supporting mining workers we hear a lot of rhetoric … from Peter Dutton and the Nationals that they stand up for mining workers but they never supported same job same pay,” she said.

When asked how he intended to grow the region’s involvement in renewable projects following the cancellation of the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro project he said it was about talking with stake holders and “seeing what’s on the table”.
He gave a similar answer when asked how he intended to create more education and employment opportunities for youth in Dawson emphasising the need to consult stakeholders.

“We’ve got lots of ideas,” he said.