Projects create jobs

Major infrastructure projects in North Queensland, such as the $497 million Mackay Ring Road and the $514 million Haughton River Bridge replacement, create a wealth of jobs for concreters, plant operators, drivers, labourers and more. North Queensland businesses have plant and equipment at the ready, and they employ North Queenslanders to operate them. Major contracts mean pay packets for locals, which means money spent at other local businesses, resulting in the dollar going around and around, creating and sustaining even more jobs.

Locals Competing for Tenders

For North Queensland to truly benefit from these infrastructure projects, a fair share of those jobs must go to people who live in the local community and spend their pay packets inside that community. Unfortunately, on major infrastructure projects, that isn’t always the case. On one infrastructure project, not too far from the Mackay Ring Road, we saw examples of local service providers being overlooked and southern-based contractors brought in. The locals were not even considered. The head contractor may have an existing relationship with capital city companies. They may even have specific purchasing agreements in place. Whatever the reason, the outcome is local businesses missing out.

Maximising Local Benefit

For the local economy to get the biggest possible boost, a fair share of contracts must go to local business operators because they live here and spend here. When hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on a project, there is a certain community expectation that those dollars will flow into the local economy. Locals do not expect those millions of dollars to be funnelled off to the south-east corner of Queensland or interstate.

In early 2017, George Christensen wrote a letter to the Queensland Labor Premier, raising the community’s concern that a southern contractor might win the tender for the Mackay Ring Road project and could give many of those jobs to people from outside the region. The letter called on the Queensland Labor Government to do the right thing by the Mackay region and give locals a chance.