Queensland election 2020: Aspley candidates in special live debate
The seat of Aspley is one of the key battlegrounds at the upcoming October 31 election. Watch the replay as the LNP’s Amanda Cooper and incumbent Labor MP Bart Mellish went head-to-head in our debate in the Sky studios.
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Labor incumbent Bart Mellish and LNP candidate Amanda Cooper went head-to-head in a fiery debate today about the key issues in the Aspley electorate.
Health, crime and road projects including Gympie Road and the Beams Road level crossing are set to be deciding issues in the marginal seat north of Brisbane.
The seat - encompassing Aspley, Bridgeman Downs and Carseldine - has been held by Labor member Mr Mellish since 2017 on a 1.2% swing.
Ms Cooper resigned from her long-term role as a councillor with Brisbane City Council in October 2019 in a bid to replace him.
“Council has delivered significant projects for the local area and those are projects that I am personally proud of: the upgrading of Telegraph Rd, the sport and recreational precinct along that road, all sorts of upgrades to bikeways, parks, dog parks,” Ms Cooper said.
“These sorts of facilities are really important to our community and I have been frustrated to see the lack of action from the state Labor government to invest in our community and I am fed up of seeing Aspley left behind.”
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Mr Mellish said Labor’s outstanding health response to covid-19 has put Queensland in the best position for a strong economic recovery.
“Covid-19 is not over, European countries are experiencing second and third waves, North America, America is a train wreck, other parts of the world are going through a tough time, I think Australia is one of the best performing countries in the world and Queensland is the best performing state in Australia,” he said.
“That’s primarily because of the Premier’s strong leadership on health and particularly keeping the borders closed when others were calling for it to be reopened.
“Deb Frecklington 64 times when the Victorian second wave was starting was calling for our borders to be open, completely reckless.”
The incumbent said Labor had a number of shovel-ready road projects ready to go and that construction would begin on the long-awaited Beams Road Rail Overpass next year.
“We’ve really got some other great project, up in Bald Hills we’ve got the diverging diamond, that’s a $15m commitment … we’ve got the Northern transitway project ready to get underway, this is the only project on Gympie Rd that has money and is ready to go but the LNP at a council and state level are opposed to this project,” he said.
Ms Cooper said those road projects had been promised in the past by Mr Mellish but “there is not a hole in the ground”.
Ms Cooper said that Labor’s Jackie Trad was personally responsible for the Carseldine urban village which “ripped apart 46 Hectares of publicly owned land”.
“We are also seeing some horrific statistics when you look at the Metro-North hospital region, we have the highest waiting list in Queensland,” she said.
Ms Cooper said crime was an increasing problem in Aspley, with “residents living in fear” and going to bed at night “hoping that their cars are there in the morning”.
“We have got a surge in youth crime, and again I think that’s another failure of this government to tackle this issue,” she said.
Mr Mellish said Labor’s commitment to hire more than 2000 new police personnel by 2025 was the biggest commitment to increasing policing within the state’s history.
Six candidates are vying for the seat this month: Labor’s Bart Mellish, LNP candidate Amanda Cooper, Greens candidate James Hansen, Walter Hardy (Pauline Hanson’s One Nation), Joshua Morrison (Clive Palmer’s UAP), and Neil Skilbeck (Civil Liberties & Motorists Party).