15th March 2000
City Country Alliance's Member for Ipswich West, Jack Paff today highlighted what he claimed was "the hypocritical and uncaring attitude of the major parties in their treatment of rural and regional issues.
Both the Labor Party and the Coalition at first embraced National Competition Policy, but since CCAQ have been highlighting the problems it is causing in the bush, both major parties have changed their stance, and spoken out strongly against it.
Mr Paff said that the time for posturing was now over. "The other parties have to take a definite stance one way or the other", he said. "They must decide whether they will sacrifice the future of Queensland's rural communities on the altar of economic rationalism to support the Big City Big Businesses, or support our bill to provide a future for regional Queensland", said Mr Paff.
"There is a reluctance in the community to state the obvious - NCP is destroying our Nation. This is an opportunity for Queensland to lead the way by demonstrating to Canberra that rural and regional communities are not prepared to accept their inevitable decline to peasant status" said MR Paff in his speech to Parliament last night.