The percentage of Australians belonging to trade unions has been in steep decline with a drop from 40 per cent to about 15 per cent of the workforce in a little over two decades. Some of this is due to a change in the composition of employment, but most of it is due to the regulation that creates the statutory monopolies that deny workers choice of who will represent them at work.

This means that these union monopolies are able to charge at least twice as much as is needed to provide the service to members. Evidence uncovered through the Trade Union Royal Commission, findings of the Fair Work Commission in the Coles case, and the 7/11 scandal prove collusion between trade unions and employers, with unions not only failing to do their job to ensure that companies adhere to industrial relations law but actively colluding with them to breach these laws. So employees have been underpaid with the connivance of their monopoly unions in return for the employers enriching these unions by making union membership compulsory in their firms.

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South East Queensland is in desperate need of new road infrastructure. While the state government fixates on building a cross river tunnel, the M1 to the Gold Coast will be at capacity just about in time for the Commonwealth Games. The Bruce Highway to the Sunshine Coast is also close to capacity. Both roads will be tested further by new residential developments occurring, planned, or mooted.

And then there is the regional road network, particularly in north Queensland.

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This idea is about more than revenue. The way the GST and the Commonwealth Grants Commission interact effectively denies Australia, and Queensland, one of the main benefits of federation.

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Queensland has some of the best developable mineral assets in the world. The value of mineral reserves depends on a variety of factors, of which price is only one. Access to markets, capital and running costs, and time delays in development are just as important as amount and grade of ore. But more important yet is a stable legal system which provides certainty to explorers and mine owners in developing what can be very long term projects (Mt Isa, was established in 1924, and is still producing).

Changes have been made to Queensland law, specifically the Environmental Protection (Chain of Responsibility) Amendment Act 2016 (Qld) (Amendment Act), the Mineral Resources Act 1989 and the Environmental Protection Act 1994 which have significantly, and unreasonably, increased sovereign and business risk for miners.

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This is an idea whose time appears to have come. Queensland has a once in a lifetime opportunity to reinvigorate its industrial base and exploit its abundance of cheap energy. South Australia is in the process of decimating its industrial base because it has preferred expensive forms of unreliable energy, so-called “renewables”, over reliable baseload power from gas, coal or nuclear. Victoria is following suit. As summer’s load shedding in New South Wales demonstrates, that state also lacks a buffer against extreme demand.

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