Bush Summit 2024: Ditch the ‘resilient’ tag, says Outback mayor

As political leaders gather in Queensland for this year’s Bush Summit, regional residents are hopeful their pleas will be heard.

• Editor’s view: No more bulldust

An outback Queensland mayor has made an impassioned plea to state and federal leaders to help improve the lives of regional Australians whose everyday struggles are “falling on deaf ears in the city”.

Croydon Shire Mayor Trevor Pickering said regional communities wanted to ditch the tag of being “resilient”, claiming the moniker bestowed by city-based leaders actually meant “we know it’s stuffed, but you guys are tough and will cope anyway”.

This story is part of News Corp Australia’s Bush Summit series celebrating rural and regional Australia and championing the issues that matter most to those living in the bush. You can read all our coverage here

Mr Pickering’s decree, in an exclusive opinion piece for The Courier-Mail, comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Premier Steven Miles and federal and state opposition leaders Peter Dutton and David Crisafulli gather in Townsville for this year’s National Bush Summit.

Mr Pickering, a fourth-generation cattleman, said country Queensland was the best place in the world, driven by big ideas, but the region was being held back by a lack of action from political leaders.

“It’s that we’re not being listened to,” he said.

“When we ask for something, when we make the case for something, it feels like it’s falling on deaf ears in the city, in Brisbane and in Canberra.

“Instead of the city listening, all we hear is empty acknowledgments from people sitting in offices in the city.

Croydon Shire Mayor Trevor Pickering at Gilbert River bridge. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“And calling us ‘resilient’ won’t raise the Gilbert River Bridge any higher to be above the floods, or get our food trucks into Croydon or the mail and medicine in either, off and on for six months of the year.”

Mr Pickering said regional towns needed reliable roads, floodproof bridges, new weather radars, better health care, reliable mobile coverage and adequate schools.

He said cities benefited from regional agriculture, while mining royalties paid for roads, bridges, schools and hospitals and jobs.

But there was little acknowledgment of that.

“The only way things will change is for the political leaders – the Prime Minister and the Premier, the Opposition leaders and the ministers, and the top bosses in Brisbane and Canberra – to get off their bloody backsides and come out here,” he said.

“What we would all ‘welcome to country’ is real attempts to solve our problems.

“All we are asking for is for them to see and hear the truth, for us to be listened to, for a fair go.”

Mr Pickering also urged city dwellers such as health specialists and tradespeople to give time back to helping their regional counterparts.

“Words don’t stop young people in bush communities getting rheumatic heart disease and the crippling effects that has on them for life, if they survive,” he said.

“Meeting acknowledgments don’t fill the gap in health care.”

Nationals Queensland Senator Matt Canavan said regional communities needed better political representation, particularly in Canberra following the election of four consecutive Sydney-based prime ministers.

LNP senator for Queensland Matt Canavan

Senator Canavan, writing today in his regular column for The Courier-Mail, said a “chasm of mistrust” had built up between regional and rural Australians and their leaders.

“All of our premiers and the Prime Minister are from capital cities,” he said.

“When (National Cabinet) meets, there is no representation from regional Australia.

“The House of Representatives is based on population so two-thirds of its members are from capital cities.

“In the Senate, which is meant to represent the least populated parts of our country, it is even worse.

“More than 80 per cent of senators live in capital cities.”

Senator Canavan again called for North Queensland to become its own state, with the region home to more than one million people – double the population of Tasmania.

“We now have developed areas of our nation that were previously sparsely populated,” he said.

“North Queensland generates 25 per cent more economic output per person than southern Queensland.

“New states would reinvigorate our federation and our whole nation.

“Our capital-city-based governments are groaning under the pressures of congestion and a lack of new land to develop housing.

“A new state of North Queensland would be hungry for development and population growth so that it can grow its economic viability.”

Originally published as Bush Summit 2024: Ditch the ‘resilient’ tag, says Outback mayor