Far western shire says it has little in common with communities to the north

Along with Diamantina and Winton Shire Councils, Boulia was once in the Gregory electorate, being shifted to the Mount Isa electorate after the 1995 state election.

While the first two shires, which have been a part of the Mount Isa electorate for 12 years, have been moved back into Gregory in the latest redistribution proposal, Boulia remains in the north western electorate, renamed Traeger and incorporating the electorate of Dalrymple, centred on Charters Towers, as well as Mount Isa.

Boulia mayor, Rick Britton said all the shire’s relationship building with essential health, education and transport groups had been done under the banner of the Remote Area Planning and Development Board, encompassing seven shires in the central and far west.

Under the redistribution proposal, Boulia would be the only RAPAD shire not in the Gregory electorate.

Cr Britton said the shire didn’t have a lot in common with the shires to the north, in the Traeger electorate.

“The people in the ECQ need to do a road trip to realise how big the state is,” he said. “I don’t think they’re aware of how the state operates.”

He said when the Gregory MP went on a road trip to visit western parts of his electorate, he or she would be driving for about 400km through Traeger to reach Bedourie from Winton.

According to the Commission report, it uses GIS software together with a MapInfo application to assist its deliberations.

The guidelines used by the commissioners ask that they consider the extent to which there is a community of economic, social, regional or other interest within each proposed electoral district, and to consider the ways of communication and travel within the districts as well.

Cr Britton thought the shire’s argument could easily be made from a numbers angle as well.

“I think we’ve got good grounds,” he said. “Our population of 350 to 400 isn’t going to make a difference to Traeger.”

The total enrolment in Traeger is put at 36,090, close to the upper tolerance of district quotas of 36,485, while Gregory’s enrolment is 35,970.

Former Member for Gregory, Vaughan Johnson said Winton, Diamantina and Boulia shires should never have been taken out of the electorate.

His argument was similar to Cr Britton’s, that the centres for health, education and roads for the far western communities lay in Longreach, not in the north west.

At times Mr Johnson was representing people in the McKinlay region as part of the Gregory electorate, but he described the latest redistribution proposal as a “higgly-piggly set-up”.

The commission said there was a need for electorates to lie in an east-west direction, in line with the major means of communication and travel.

“As it happens, a number of government departments have based their regional organisation along these same lines,” the report said.

Using this as the justification for the big changes to the former Mount Isa and Dalrymple electorates, the report added a series of site visits were conducted, “with the chairperson in attendance”.

“The commission feels confident in its decisions as to the locations of, and boundaries of the new districts,” it said.

Mr Johnson said the most important thing would be a decent travel allowance for the local member, who would be covering an electorate that was 1400km long, from the Gogango Range in the east to Birdsville in the west.

“The people out west deserve the same representation as the people in Emerald and Rocky.

“Resources for the member will be most important if they are to do the job properly.”

Objections and comments to the proposal are invited until 5pm on  March 27.