General News
7 July, 2020
NQ First announce promises ahead of election
NQ First Leader and Whitsunday MP Jason Costigan has announced some big promises for the residents of Cook, ahead of the upcoming October state election.
NQ First Leader and Whitsunday MP Jason Costigan has announced some big promises for the residents of Cook if they get the balance of power in the upcoming October state election.
Last week Mr Costigan and candidate for Cook Desmond Tayley exclusively announced to the Express their plans for the decentralisation of government departments from Brisbane to Far North Queensland.
“There’s been a lot of talk about decentralisation and I’m happy to announce that if we (NQ First) get the balance of power we will be relocating Biosecurity Queensland from Brisbane to Mareeba.” Mr Costigan said
“We all know that Far North Queensland and Cape York is on the front line of biosecurity, whether it’s Fall Army Worm, Papaya fruit fly or Panama disease, it all creeps in through the top end.
“None of those diseases sneak in via Tasmania.”
Mr Costigan said that Mareeba should be the epicentre of biosecurity operations.
“This is the biosecurity front line and it makes sense to redeploy resources where they should be and if we are going to be serious about decentralisation we need to have biosecurity Queensland relocated here.” he said
“My and Desmond Tayley’s vision is to transfer Mareeba into North Queensland’s second city and the economic catalyst for this will also be a tunnel to Cairns for the road that everybody talks about but nobody does anything about.”
Mr Tayley added “It’s a welcome announcement from Jason that if we get the balance of power we will be moving Biosecurity Queensland to Far North Queensland,” he said
“Mareeba is on the front line of combating Biosecurity in the region so it makes sense for them to be based here. As for the Kuranda range, the LNP and Labor haven’t made any commitments at all about fixing the range; a tunnel will alleviate the bottleneck on the range.”
“If I win Cook and Jason keeps the Whitsundays and we have the balance of power, then we will hold the government to account and say make it happen.”
