A few dollars saved at the checkout is a pittance compared with the cost of driving our farmers out of business. You can’t blame customers for wanting to save money wherever they can but someone has to pay for the supermarket price wars. One thing you can be sure of – the ones who pay will not be the supermarkets. Now that the milk price...

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The tourism industry will welcome this week’s reduction in the reef tax but the timing of the announcement must have operators scratching their heads. It was only last year that the Government was increasing the reef tax. In June last year, I pleaded with the government to abandon the planned increase (of almost 10%) to the reef tax on the ground...

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The Gillard Labor government’s planned lock-up of one million square kilometres of the Coral Sea should be a wake-up call that our country, industry, and livelihoods are being sold out.   If this plan is let go through to the keeper, it will not only decimate what’s left of the Queensland fishing industry but it will drive Aussie seafood pri...

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During the last sitting of Parliament, I made public an invitation to Julia Gillard, her Treasurer Wayne Swan and her Transport Minister Anthony Albanese to come on a summer road trip of the Bruce Highway. The drive I suggested would be from Rockhampton to Townsville – approximately 725 kilometres – almost half of the total length of the highway....

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There’s probably never been better proof that wasting money and overspending is in the DNA of the Labor Party than question time today. The Prime Minister was asked to correct her claim yesterday that reopening Nauru would cost $1billion, given that the total cost of processing asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island over the six years they operat...

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  Richard Pryor’s movie character in the 1985 comedy “Brewster’s Millions” was surely the inspiration behind Labor’s spectacular ability to spend money on nothing. Brewster is challenged, through a late relative’s will, to spend $30million in 30 days (in order to inherit $300million). The catch is, he can’t have anything to show for it at the...

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You know a policy is well and truly on the nose when its own proponents start to line up against it. Several Labor luminaries are now joining the fight against the carbon tax. This week, New South Wales Labor leader John Robertson reportedly told his parliamentary colleagues that Julia Gillard had completely mishandled the carbon tax policy. ...

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The impact of the carbon tax will vary depending on who you are, where you live, and what you do. But for Slim Jones in Mackay, the carbon tax provided some inspiration. Thanks to Slim for dropping in this poem to my electorate office. The Carbon Tax If you listen to the pollies They will fill your ears with lies There’s a big hole in the ozone...

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There were some unhappy LNP members and supporters I had to call today. They were unable to get into the Tony Abbott Community Forum last night because of the overwhelming response from the general public. Typical Tony, he particularly wanted to speak to everyday Mackay locals rather than dyed in the wool party members. There are claims in the me...

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JULIA Gillard must have had an old Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in mind when she came up with her plan to announce the carbon tax details on "Swindler Sunday".   The little known Lloyd Webber musical "Tell me on a Sunday" features stirring lyrics from its pinnacle music number of the same name as the show: "Tell me on a Sunday, Let me down e...

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