Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to talk about the impact of the forced amalgamations of local councils which were forced on Queensland by the previous Labor government. I welcome a change of government—and not only a change of government but a sweeping change of government in Queensland. I think the Labor Party ended up with six seats out of an 89-seat parliament, which demonstrates just how overwhelming the need for change and the will of the people was expressed at the last state election.

Local councils were going through a process in Queensland called Size, Shape and Sustainability. They were voluntarily going through a process, looking at how they could be more sustainable, looking at the historic shape of some of the local councils. If you look at them today you would not have drawn the boundaries that way, but they were done over 100 years ago.

But they were just forced in together. Many of these councils, so often not like with like, small communities with larger communities, and I have several of these in my electorate, where the communities are now discussing as a result of the LNP policy, the option to de-amalgamate should their communities vote that way.

The LNP is giving these communities this opportunity to de-amalgamate. It will be a cost to them, but I know these communities—they are resilient, and they know what has happened to their communities since the forced amalgamation. They have lost services and they have lost the ability to have 'local' back in the local council area because all of those decisions have almost been taken right away, further away from where you need to be making those local decisions and providing the service in having access to local council services. Three of them are Booringa Shire, based on Mitchell, Waroo Shire, based on Surat and Aramac Shire, obviously based on Aramac up in the north-west of my electorate.

I got a report the other day from people in the Maranoa Regional Council, which includes the former Waroo and former Booringa councils. People out on the land now are telling me that they have not seen a council grader on their road—they are mainly dirt roads or formed-up gravel roads—since 2010. They are getting reports that livestock carriers will not go into these properties because of the state of the roads. I got a report from the council, and they said, 'It was 2010 we were out there the last time.' Well, under the old regime, under the councils of the past, they would have been there at least every 12 months, forming up the roads and keeping them in shape. But the fact of the matter is that this Maranoa Regional Council has 7,000 kilometres of roads. It is just an impossible task for them, and they have taken the local out of local government.

The other one that they want to do is to move the Maranoa Retirement Village and all its people to Roma. That would have just gutted their aged care facility. (Time expired)