A new SEQ dam and more bulk-billing GPs: Party pitches go big

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has promised to foot the $365 million bill to deliver 50 new bulk-billing GP clinics, as the LNP conceded plans for a new south-east water supply dam.

The high-profile election pitches land with early voting set to open Monday, and opposition efforts to maintain polled support over the third-term government to gain only its third term in 35 years.

Campaigning in Longreach to spruik his party’s water security pitch on Saturday, Crisafulli said the plan would include new weirs in the west and Burnett, and irrigation planning in the Scenic Rim.

While Saturday’s focus in Longreach was on water, LNP leader David Crisafulli also spent a sixth-straight day refusing to detail how he would hold off internal and crossbench efforts to overturn abortion reforms.Credit: Matt Dennien

But it would also include reviewing the state’s 23 regional water plans, and “urgently” so in the growing south-east – subject to a government plan just last year – but without a clear timeframe.

Labor’s plan proposed a multibillion-dollar desalination plant north of Brisbane by 2035 to meet demand, but kept use of the existing recycled water scheme for residential use only as dams dry up.

Crisafulli’s plan has ruled out a desalination plant.

Pressed by journalists, he conceded his ruling-out of recycled water referred only to new infrastructure – not the existing scheme.

Asked whether the alternative to supply in the south-east would then be a new dam, not mentioned in the announcement, Crisafulli said: “Yes, it’s about building dams.”

“We’re putting a flag in the ground today and saying that we should get back to an era when we were proud to build dams in this state, and we are,” he said.

“I do not believe that the option of desalination or recycled water is anywhere as efficient, as acceptable, or as visionary as building dams.”

Questions of size and location would be determined by the review carried out by water spokesperson Deb Frecklington.

No detail was given about the potential cost or timeline.

Asked how a new dam build would occur alongside large, legally required upgrades in early works or planning for Somerset and Wivenhoe dams by 2035, Frecklington cast doubt on efforts to date and said the LNP would “get to work”.

Polling suggests most Queenslanders would drink recycled water outside drought conditions, while experts say water supply not reliant on rain is key as climate change drives unpredictability.

Premier Steven Miles at the Mareeba District Hospital with Health Minister Shannon Fentiman during the state election campaign on Thursday.Credit: William Davis

UNSW professor Stuart Kahn told Brisbane Times on Saturday that water supply portfolios should be informed by cost, environmental impact and performance, not “ideological preferences”.

Speaking from the Gold Coast, Miles described the idea of a new south-east dam as “extraordinary”, claiming the best location would be the controversial Traveston site, which the LNP would revisit.

Miles used his campaign stop to pitch the investment – including construction or covering rent – for GP clinics if they bulk-bill, as decline in free primary care access, a federal responsibility, adds strain to public hospitals.

The idea, rejected by Crisafulli, would be hashed out with stakeholders such as the Australian Medical Association, whose Queensland branch labelled it “well-intentioned”, but misunderstanding that more staff were needed to keep clinics open, rather than more clinics.