Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Pressure for North Queensland state increases

According to newspaper reports (here for full story), pressure for a new state in North Queensland is growing. 

Next month, local government leaders in North Queensland will ask their counterparts across the state to give them vital support for a referendum to be held on the issue at the next state election in 2012.

At a recent North Queensland Local Government Association meeting, just two of 100 delegates voted against the motion

Backers including Richmond Shire Mayor John Wharton, Hinchinbrook Shire Mayor Pino Giandomenico, Mount Isa Mayor John Molony and Independent Federal MP for Kennedy Bob Katter hope for a similar reaction when they put the motion to the annual LGAQ conference next month.

"We just need a spark to ignite the fuse," Mr Katter said.

Later

My thanks to Jack Arnold from Armidale for sending a further piece on the North Queensland story from ABC radio - Could North Qld be a separate state?

The story begins:

Demographer Bernard Salt says north Queenslanders have legitimate grounds for secession from Queensland on numbers alone - and their case may become even stronger.

Postscript 11 August

At last count, the comments section on the original story is now up to 124.It's interesting how the old arguments recur. It's also interesting how little history people remember.

In a later post,  An earlier New England New State Movement flier, I gave an example of a much earlier New England information piece, commenting that the anti case had simply failed. It was time to let the pro case have a go.

 

2 comments:

Mark said...

I'm not suprised at the reader comments in the news.com article. People just don't understand and I'll admit that I was one of them a while ago. Further, secessionist arguments for outweigh their against everytime. Once people see the for and against, the pluses and minuses and can weigh everything up with FACTS, support for secession would be more widespread. Very interesting times indeed.

Jim Belshaw said...

I agree, Mark. We just have to keep hammering.