‘Chasm of mistrust’: Calls for North Queensland to be its own state

A high-profile Queenslander has called the Sunshine State to split in two, making North Queensland its very own state.

Article by Brielle Burns

A federal senator for Queensland has called for North Queensland to break away and become its very own state after pointing out the lack of regional representation among our country’s top decision-makers.

Liberal Senator Matt Canavan, who lives in Rockhampton, made the bold suggestion in a piece for theCourier Mailon Friday, where he noted recent Australian prime ministers and all current state premiers are from capital cities.

“When the Council of Australian Governments meets (or now called the “national cabinet”), there is no representation from regional Australia,” he wrote.

Senator Canavan claimed a “chasm of mistrust” has formed between Aussies living in rural and regional areas and political leaders, who he claimed often made decisions based on capital cities.

He pointed to a recent example where farmers were left “disgusted” by comments made by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at an agriculture awards dinner about banning the livestock trade this week.

Speaking at Tuesday’s AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award gala at Parliament House, Mr Albanese recalled a meal he shared with the Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto hours before getting on stage at the prestigious event.

“We had dinner, beautiful Australian beef – not the live export, we made sure it was dead,” he said towards the end of his scripted speech.

The farming community did not receive the joke well, as it grappled with the reality of a total ban on live exports by May 2028.

Senator Canavan’s suggestions about a new state come as Mr Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton are meeting in Townsville on Friday for the National Bush Summit.

While he commended the summit and its attention to regional issues, he suggested a parliament with decision-making power based in regional Australia would be “even better”.

“The way to get that is to create new states,” he wrote.

“North Queensland generates 25 per cent more economic output per person than southern Queensland. Yet we are ruled by a government focused on 50c fares and an Olympics to be held thousands of kilometres away from us.”

The senator said new states would “reinvigorate” the country and help relieve growing housing and land pressure faced in cities.

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

He also noted the Constitution allows for the creation of new states.

“Indeed, our founding fathers expected that we would create new states just as the United States did as it grew and developed.”

Two Queensland states

Senator Canavan isn’t the first to suggest splitting the Sunshine State in two.

The idea was previously a major policy platform for the North Queensland First party, created by the former member for Whitsunday, Jason Costigan.

Mr Costigan told news.com.au in 2020 he was ridiculed by his former Liberal National Party colleagues when they’d go for beers outside Brisbane’s Parliament House and he’d bring up the idea of North Queensland going out on its own.

He said the idea had been touted by some from as far back as 1865 and suggested northern Queenslanders had finally had enough of being told what to do by their southern neighbours.

He said they want to be able to “shoot crocodiles and burn coal” without being lectured to by the city-dwellers in Brisbane.

“The government in the south-east of the state is sucking the life out of north and central Queensland, and it will continue to until there’s a 21st-century version of a civil war unless we finally do something about it.”

Original article here: News.Com