SENATOR HANSON SLAMS CANAVAN’S REMARKS ON TOOWOOMBA
MEDIA RELEASE
“Matt Canavan shouldn’t be talking Toowoomba down – it’s Australia’s second largest inland city with over 170,000 residents enjoying the great amenities and lifestyle Toowoomba and its surrounds offer,” said Senator Hanson.
“Thanks to the construction of the Wellcamp Airport by the Wagner Corporation – a local Toowoomba business – Toowoomba is now an international aviation gateway to and from Australia.
“Since the opening of the $1.6 billion Toowoomba Second Range Crossing, driving time to Brisbane has been cut by 40 mins. It’s now faster and easier to get to Brisbane from Toowoomba than it is to get to Sydney from many of that city’s outer suburbs.
“And the $15 billion inland rail includes a new Gowrie to Helidon section for Toowoomba, including a 6.2km diesel freight tunnel – the largest in the southern hemisphere.
“Instead of bagging Toowoomba’s health facilities on national television, Senator Canavan should have been promoting the fact that the area has three major hospitals. Toowoomba Hospital alone has around 380 doctors and almost 1,400 nurses and handled 6432 overnight admissions in the Dec 20 quarter.
“St Vincent’s Private and St Andrews Private are both significant hospitals that any city would be proud to have, and both have ICU facilities.
“Queensland has the chance to have an international standard quarantine facility built for free by the same group that delivered the local world class international airport.
“But Senator Canavan says ‘no’ and blames it on remoteness and lack of ICU beds – both of which are wrong and misleading. He needs to remember he’s a Senator for the whole of Queensland, not just his small home patch.
“Toowoomba has easy, fast access to Brisbane and through the worst times of COVID in Australia how many ICU beds have we needed nationally? The answer is very few. Have we got even close to 10% usage of available beds? No.
“Matt Canavan has proven yet again the Nationals have become nothing more than lackeys of the Liberal Party.
“Senator Canavan is just scare mongering and rubbishing a great Queensland city. There’s absolutely no valid reason why he should be denigrating this proposal for a facility in Queensland that will save Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and create around 300 jobs.”
