Qld election 2020: Rolling coverage
An LNP candidate has been caught up in a social media storm after an old post emerged where he questioned education for married women. Find out more about this story and others in our rolling election coverage.
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Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington’s election campaign has been derailed after Labor released a dirt sheet on one of her candidates in a must-win marginal Townsville seat.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles, who like Ms Frecklington is in Townsville today, handed out print outs of Facebook posts made by LNP Mundingburra candidate Glenn Doyle.
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It comes after another Facebook post by Mr Doyle, where he captioned a selfie with Queensland Senator Pauline Hanson “breakfast with the next prime minister!” was released yesterday.
One of the posts released today includes Mr Doyle commenting on an archived
BBC video discussing the virtue of women’s education.
“Great points on both sides” he wrote, along with “may need to sit on the fence with this”.
Another of the years-old Facebook posts, from Mr Doyle’s personal account, showed him superimposed with a picture of Kim Jong Un and joking that he had recently met the North Korean leader.
Mr Doyle was caught by surprise when hit with sexism accusations and he said he valued the smart, educated women in his life, including his wife who had multiple degrees.
“I haven’t seen it, I don’t know what you’re talking about but that’s not true at all, I’ve got a wife who’s got degrees, I’ve supported her,” he said.
“A lot of the women who I socialise with are very well educated.
“I support women, I 100 per cent support our leader, I always have.”
Ms Frecklington said she stood by her candidate and called out the personal attacks that have become a feature of Mr Miles’s press conferences.
“When it comes to the deputy premier of Queensland, I’m on an absolute unity ticket with the Prime Minister of Australia, that bloke needs to grow up,” Ms Frecklington said.
Ms Frecklington, who was in Townsville announcing the LNP’s commitment to spend $67 million building an aquaculture facility at James Cook University, was forced to field questions about the quality of her candidate, if she thought the posts appropriate, and if she is a feminist.
“Well absolutely I don’t support that. No one would support that. I’m an educated woman standing right before you at a university, I have three daughters of course I don’t support that,” Ms Frecklington said.
Mr Miles said the post by Mr Doyle had “no place in politics” and called on the Opposition to disendorse him.
“I think he should apologise but I think the leader of the opposition, a woman herself should distance herself from him,” he said.
- Madura McCormack, Chalie Peel, Caitlan Charles
LABOR WILL BRING RAIL MANUFACTURING JOBS TO ROCKHAMPTON
LABOR has promised to bring rail manufacturing jobs to Rockhampton by securing a new site in the Central Queensland town.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk revealed today her government had kicked off negotiations to buy the 21 hectare Aurizon workshop site in the state’s beef capital.
Under Labor’s plan, the site would serve as a supply chain for the train manufacturing site in Maryborough, where 20 new trains are expected to be built over the next five years.
But the government still needs to buy the Rockhampton site in order to get the plan off the ground, which they say will create over 500 jobs.
“We have a clear plan to grow this region and grow the jobs,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
Transport Minister Mark Bailey was unable to guarantee that the site would be purchased, but said they were “confident” about the process.
“Obviously there’s specific infrastructure here that is particular to rail manufacturing that makes this site very valuable and it’s one that we’re very keen to come to an agreement on,” Mr Bailey said.
The government entered into negotiations before the caretaker period began.
-Jack Mckay
LNP PLEDGE: ‘MORE BARRA, MORE PRAWNS AND MORE JOBS’
Queensland’s aquaculture industry would more than double in size in the next decade under a $67m investment by a Liberal National Party government into a research hub at James Cook University.
JCU vice chancellor Sandra Harding said the Tropical Aquaculture Accelerator, to be based at the university’s Townsville campus, would support $2.6bn in gross regional product by 2035 and create more than 11,000 jobs.
LNP leader Deb Frecklington announced the funding at the university on Thursday.
The $67m would go towards building the facility as well as equipment, tanks and other infrastructure.
Ms Harding said the project was shovel-ready.
“The aquaculture industry is taking off in the north and we know it’s going to become more important moving forward,” she said.
“This is one of those feature industries we should be focusing on in northern Queensland and indeed northern Australia.”
Ms Harding said seafood had overtaken beef as a source of protein worldwide and the LNP’s funding was a “landmark announcement” that would “turbocharge the industry”.
Ms Frecklington said the funding would mean “more Barra, more prawns and more jobs”.
“This is about growing an industry,” she said.
“Right now Queensland is trailing South Australia and Tasmania in aquaculture and that is not good enough.”
- Charlie Peel
FRECKLINGTON CALLS OUT LABOR ON RESOURCES
Deb Frecklington has urged mining companies considering laying off staff to “hold on” until after the October 31 election, saying a Liberal National PArty government would support the resources sector.
It came as at least two mining companies in Queensland flagged possible redundancies.
“I would ask those companies to hold on, hold on, because on October 31, if Queenslanders put their faith in the LNP, the resources will have a champion with the LNP government,” she said.
Ms Frecklington said Labor’s royalty deal with mining giant Adani and approval of the Olive Downs mining project, announced shortly before the government entered into caretaker mode, was too little too late.
She repeated her pitch to approve the expansion of the New Hope’s New Acland coal mine, west of Toowoomba, which Annastacia Palaszcuk has refused to do, citing ongoing legal issues.
“Nobody believes Labor, at two minutes to midnight, starting to approve mines,” Ms Frecklington said.
“What have they been doing for the last six years.
“It is the LNP that wants to supercharge the Galilee Basin, it is the LNP that wants to secure those men and women who are actually working at Acland.
“Those men and women deserve to have a future and that’s why we will approve that.”
LNP SETS 5 PER CENT UNEMPLOYMENT TARGET
The LNP has set the ambitious target of 5 per cent unemployment in Queensland during the first term, if the party forms government after the October 31 election.
It comes on top of the party’s pledge to return the battered Queensland budget to surplus within four years.
“A 5 per cent unemployment target is getting 65,000 people into work, and how good is that,” she said.
“The LNP’s economic plan actually aspires for 150,000 Queenslanders in work.”
Deb Frecklington said the party’s infrastructure announcements and investment in job-creating projects, including the $67m announced on Thursday to build an aquaculture hub in Townsville, would help create jobs.
The pledge comes as Queensland records the nation’s highest unemployment rate.
Originally published as Qld election 2020: Rolling coverage