Introducing the new Queensland premier – me!

In 1976 I had the growing desire to start my own Company, to walk into a room where everyone paid attention to me, to be a millionaire by the time I was 30 and retired on my superyacht by my 40^th. A grand plan, but sitting in the erratic weather patterns of Melbourne working for the Govt shipping line, ANL, I spent months pondering where to start my empire. As my job involved interstate travel to most main ports, I did walk the ground and carefully weighed up the alternatives.

I concluded that Western Australia and Queensland were the best options and both States had a population of just over 1 million.

Queensland however, had recently elected a bold leader Joh Bjelke Petersen, a relatively uneducated man that left school at 13 when his father died, to work on the family farm. This visionary mover and shaker Premier had just abolished death duties, was confronting the unions and there were early signs that he would make his state rock and roll and for 19 years he did just that !

He was the deciding choice for me, so I headed north on my old yacht and set up at Main Beach on the Gold Coast where they were talking about building a Marina next to the Southport Yacht Club, a male only domain.

The first order of business was to get women into the yacht club, and along with some friends, we upset the Commodore and his wingmen by changing the rules.

South east Queensland at that time was a great place to start my business, and I had the privilege of meeting that outstanding Premier at a "free breakfast" small gathering 3 years into my venture, where he addressed 15 of us as the "future of Queensland". I thought at the time how could he possibly know what I was doing? Nevertheless as an apolitical workaholic, I became an immediate convert to the National Party.

I met Joh on other occasions, the last time just one on one, which I considered a real privilege.

Fifty years on from the start, I am still here, having stumbled a couple of times, and even had a distraction to my business with a crack at state politics in 2015. This resulted in me being soundly thrashed by Labor and the Greens, as I was promoting evil and nasty policies such as a Gold Coast Cruise terminal, elimination of payroll tax, cutting red, green and black tape for small and medium businesses.

But Joh was right in his early prediction, and our Queensland company did prosper with customers in 47 countries and achieving 10 international awards

Western Australia and Queensland, like their AFL teams, are still the Nation's best options, and despite having recently lost $200 backing the Fremantle Dockers while my jaw dropped watching Wharfie Time being called too early, they allowed me back into WA last week. The State, especially the shipbuilding and maritime activities around Henderson, Kwinana and Garden Island is rocking and rolling, and good on them and not bad for a Labor State !

Queensland on the other hand has its S&P credit rating dropped, is imitating Labor Lite predecessors and urgently needs a bold leader as it doesn't have one.

Having investigating the possibility of creating a younger clone of Stuart Ballantyne, a smart Aleck but now with the experience of 10 burnt fingers (but never the same one twice), what would I do if I was the Premier of Queensland ?.

Well that's easy, just focus on what you have got, not what you don't have. Copy successful countries with a dose of boldness !.

So in order of our inherent wealth and geography let's prioritise the action plan on a clean sheet basis, starting with tackling our expensive energy. It is urgent that I, on behalf of Queensland, boldly and immediately action :-

• Lifting bans on nuclear and like successful Finland, organise cheap power for the whole state and attract manufacturing and ease the power cost burden for all Queenslanders
• Immediately repeal the Sustainable Ports Act 2015 as should have been done 2 years ago. This Act, a 630 page economic handbrake on North Queensland was a reward to the greens for their preferences by the ALP at the 2015 State election.

Concurrently start to install roll-on roll-off ship ramps every 150 kms from the border near Coolangatta to Lockhart River to get the trucks off the road and emulate the successful European Motorways of the Sea (MOS) which saw truck 60% of the truck traffic off the roads within 2 years. The first 20% of the S$9bn earmarked for the Bruce Highway upgrade should be redirected to this blue highway initiative. Trucks using this blue highway will seriously reduce Queensland's 316 annual road deaths and 5,000 serious accidents, as well as reducing road repairs, congestion and pollution. https://youtu.be/WoMDx_IVITY This is a no-brainer bold plan !

• Repeal 75% of regulations on state-wide dredging and authorise the start the Karumba to Port Augusta "Bjelke Petersen" canal, in co-operation with the SA Government, to access the $3 trillion dollars worth of minerals languishing under our feet.

Surely if the highly successful 2104 km European Rhine-Main-Danube canal, only completed in 1992 can be constructed up to a height of 406 metres above sea level, our world leading Australian expertise in moving dirt can easily do a 1700 km canal to a maximum height of 266 metres above sea level ? Peace of cake !

• Cancel any treaties, agreements or activity remotely connected with net zero, the Paris agreement.
• Cancel payroll tax and any other anti- employment disincentives to allow growth of small businesses
• Cancel Islamic immigration, and repatriate all the weepy bedwetting malcontents who don't like us or our State.
• Re-introduce Kingswood Country and other classic comedies on TV to restore our sense of humor and eliminate thin skinned offence from our vocabulary and behaviour.

Embracing these few activities will keep me busy the first week, and make people aware that Queensland is once again rock and rolling, and a great place to start your company, enjoy your work, your family and your great state under strong and bold leadership!

Note

Stuart Ballantyne worked closely with Deployable Energy in getting International Classification Society approvals for Micro modular reactors into his ship designs. Deployable Energy had to leave Queensland 3 years ago due to the anti nuclear sentiment by the Federal and Queensland State Governments, and recently achieved criticality for their MMR at the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory resulting in their production facility in Houston having a full order book. A disgraceful loss for Queensland and Australia.