Several key priorities have emerged from today's Bush Summit, but none greater than locking in a hard deadline for finishing off the Bruce Highway. LIVE UPDATES
Welcome to Bush Summit 2024 where Australia’s political leaders and key regional stakeholders are gathering in Townsville to talk about all things impacting remote and rural areas.
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That brings the first leg of the National Bush Summit to a close.
While several key priorities emerged from today's discussions, the number one prerogative for this masthead will be locking in a hard deadline for finishing off the Bruce Highway.
Queensland Premier Steven Miles, The Courier-Mail Editor Chris Jones and Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese. Picture: Liam Kidston
"We need to get both sides of politics to outline a firm time frame to finish the Bruce Highway once and for all," The Courier-Mail Editor Chris Jones said.
"Now that realistically, is not going to be in five years, but without a long term commitment, we just end up on this merry go round."
KAP leader highlights realities of regional insurance costs
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Katter Australia Party leader Robbie Katter has claimed mitigating insurance risks won’t bring down premiums in major regional towns like Mount Isa.
“To provide context with insurance I live in Mount Isa on a flood free hill in a nice modern home, there is zero crime in my suburb,” he said.
“I pay $4500 a year for my insurance and as I understand it, if my house was in Brisbane it would be $1000 a year.
“With all due respect, there's no mitigation in Mount Isa, who’s going to make my insurance go down?”
Suncorp Consumer Insurance chief executive Lisa Harrison has told the Bush Summit that more flood mitigation needs to occur in regional Queensland to help bridge insurance cover price gaps between rural and city residents.
Cairns Airport flooding after ex Tropical Cyclone Jasper. Picture: Brendan Radke
"Far North Queensland is a much greater cyclone risk, a strong flood risk that we do in some of the urban areas, we also see in rural and remote communities real bushfire risk that you don't necessarily see in some of the urban areas," she said.
"So in terms of how we bridge the gap, we need to invest far more in resilience in those communities and preventing the disasters.
"We need to mitigate…I think in terms of supporting regions, it's listening and building their resilience is so critical."
Core group of offenders behind Townsville crime
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Townsville elder and activist Gracelyn Smallwood warns “gaps are widening” for Indigenous people and believes the situation is getting worse, particularly with stereotypes with crime, and health delivery. These were issues that negatively flowed back to all Australians, she said. Professor Smallwood said there was only a small group of 20 Indigenous youth actively involved in criminal activity, but that this was creating a harmful stereotype for the rest who were doing the right thing.
Indigenous leader Gracelyn Smallwood. Picture: Evan Morgan
She said having worked in the Cleveland Youth Detention Centre for 20 years that the repeat criminals were not receiving culturally appropriate programs to work on their trauma, and personal losses, as a result of colonisation. “It wasn’t only the 20 years I’ve been there, it’s been going on for ages, and we must have massive change,” Prof Smallwood said. “If you have a look at how much money is being poured into Youth Justice, it’s appalling, and three quarters of that money is not reaching social determinants of culturally appropriate programs, and most of it’s going into consultancies.”
– Christopher Burns
Cotter 'had all the same opportunities' growing up in the bush
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The Cowboys co-captain Reuben Cotter was born and bred in North Queensland and said that thanks to his family, he never felt like he had less opportunities than others to achieve his NRL dreams.
Spending most of his youth in the small town of Sarina, Cotter said that his parents had to work hard to provide for their family.
“Agriculture was the main form of employment with sugar and the mill,” he said.
“Mum was a stay at home mum and dad had two jobs during the day. He’d work out on a farm and come home for dinner and then he’d go out commercial fishing at night time, so he was a very hardworking man.”
Queensland Regional Network Editor Craig Warhurst with and Cowboys star Reuben Cotter. Picture: Liam Kidston
The Maroons representative said that his father was a strong believer that a private school education wasn’t required to ensure a professional rugby league career.
“I started making a few representative teams from high school and I made the Queensland under-15s team and you know that it was that moment where I thought I could probably give this a red hot crack,” he said.
“I had all the same opportunities that someone growing up in the city might have.”
Cotter said that giving his two young children the opportunity to grow up in a regional area, as he did, provides them with plenty of positive experiences.
“I was always outside kicking the footy, we'd go down and ride buggies, dad had a boat and we’d go out fishing all the time and that's probably where my passion for being outdoors grew,” he said.
“There’s so much opportunity for young kids in regional areas.”
The Maroons representative said that his motivation each week comes from his children and wife Mackenzie.
“Every moment I get to pull on, not just a Queensland jersey but a Cowboys jersey, I don’t ever take it for granted. I’m not just playing for myself, but my family, my community,” he said.
“That makes me extremely proud.”
Copperstring will keep lights on, business doors open
Townsville Enterprise chief executive Claudia Brumme-Smith has praised the government's Copperstring 2.2 project, calling it an "enormous opportunity" for regional Queensland. The project, to build a 1100km high-voltage power line to connect the resource-rich North West Minerals Province (NWMP) to the national grid via Hughenden and is tipped to “unlock the next mining boom in critical minerals” once completed in 2029.
Ms Brumme-Smith said regional businesses had faced up to 40 per cent power price hikes and their survival was now banked on the state's pivot to renewable energy. "I think where we are different to other regions is that this region has always relied on the mercy of power supply," she said. "We're still servicing one of the largest middle provinces in the world with diesel generators. "This is the world country stuff, until we build Copperstring, really, that's not going to change, so that's why this region, for 10 years, has advocated for that transmission line. "That will actually connect us for the first time in history, to the industry solar plants to actually keep their doors open."
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has opened his Bush Summit address with a pledge to introduce stronger laws addressing youth crime as his first order of business if elected in October.
"It'll remove detention as a last resort, it'll embed adult crime for adult time, and it will embed in legislation that the rights of the victim have to come before the rights of the offender," he said, garnering a healthy round of applause.
Leader of the Opposition David Crisafulli, The Courier-Mail Bush Summit, Townsville. Picture: Liam Kidston
Mr Crisafulli rattled off the LNPs other election policy commitments including fighting for 80-20 Bruce Highway funding, publishing "real time" hospital performance data and addressing infrastructure blowouts through a productivity commission.
He has also announced this morning's commitment to give half of the LNPs $2bn infrastructure fund to the regions.
"We have regional planning schemes that are 15 years old in this state without an infrastructure plan embedded in it, and that has to change every single cent of the housing investment fund to be used to deliver new supply," he said.
New planes to make airfares cheaper and flights faster
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Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson says an investment of hundreds of million of dollars into new Q400 aircraft will help make flights faster and cheaper.
She said reinvesting in the fleet was the single most important thing that an airline could do for long term sustainability.
"Ansett, for one, fell behind the cycle in investing in new technology and so looking forward, we think that it's incredibly important for an island nation where the geography of population spread the way it is that aviation is critical, and so competition is critical," she said.
Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson. Picture: Gaye Gerard
Ms Hudson said regional Australia was not an "afterthought", spruiking the airlines's residents fare scheme offering 20 per cent discounts for regional Queenslanders in cities like Mount Isa, Moranbah, Charleville, Cloncurry and Longreach.
"The one thing that we do recognise is that residents in regional communities need to be able to access reasonable fares to get into the larger cities," she said.
"We have teams of people that are reviewing demand in the community as well, we have sales people who are connecting with community leaders, local mayors, customers, getting that feedback, understanding how our network needs to change over time based on the needs of those communities.
"But the most important decisions that we are making to keep fares low and reasonable is investing into new aircraft."
Ms Hudson said the new aircraft would come with more seats, lower maintenance cost and be more reliable.
She said the airline also attempted to override automated systems when there were peak periods of demand like footy finals when prices traditionally spike.
"We absolutely focus on making sure that where there are big surges in demand, that we keep fares under control," she said.
Ms Hudson said Qantas were sad to see the downfall of Rex with competition on regional routes welcomed.
"We were very sad to see Rex in the situation that they are in," she said. "We know that they are a loved brand, and we also feel for the pilots, the cabin crew, who are so committed to that business."
Ms Hudson denied Qantas they undertook "anti competitive behavior".
"We have been monitored by the ACCC for years and the ACCC has found no instance of anti competitive behavior," she said.
Ms Hudson said Qantas' next most significant phase of investment was in sustainable aviation fuel, which would create new jobs in North Queensland.
"That's going to be good for efficiency, that's going to be good for the climate, because noise will reduce from those new aircraft, as will emissions," she said.
"It's a biofuel that substitutes for a fossil fuel.
"We are investing one of our first major investments in sustainable aviation fuel is here in Townsville.
"We've invested in the development of this capability here, and that is going to add jobs here locally."
How QLD could unlock its full resource potential
jami.roberts
Queensland Resources Council CEO Janette Hewson says a healthy resource sector would complement a healthy agricultural sector and a healthy tourism sector.
“It’s all about balance, and it’s about helping each other out, particularly when each of those sectors goes through some tough times as well as some good times,” she said.
“It’s really clear that Queensland is endowed naturally with almost every resource you could possibly want for a modern life.
Ms Hewson said that 26 per cent of the Queensland Government's budget relied on revenue from the resource sector which is predominantly from Central Queensland coal.
“We’ve got out traditional commodities like coal and gas. We’ve got the metals industry. We’ve got critical minerals opportunities."
Ms Hewson said the key to unlocking the revenue from Queensland resources is a balanced royalties framework.
“We have to be competitive. So having the highest world royalties for coal means that money is going to walk. It's not going to come here in Queensland," she said.
“We need to have a royalties framework where its got the right balance so that there’s money coming in for Queensland to provide the services that we will need; the roads, the hospitals, the police, education, but it's getting that balance right so that there's still a return for people who are investing over a billion dollars of there capital to get a project up and running.”
The government will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars renaming seven satellite hospitals following overwhelming support from medical professionals, a new survey has revealed.
