Unemployment down, but Labor's marginal seats the crunch points

Jason Whittaker in Crikey writes:

• Many of the most marginal seats crucial to Labor's re-election chances are also among the hardest hit by unemployment, new data shows.
  
  Unemployment under Labor has averaged 6.3%, according to Roy Morgan Research released this morning, but 14 of Labor's most marginal electorates have suffered unemployment rates above the national average.
  
  Labor will be particularly concerned about three crucial seats in Queensland (Leichhardt, Bonner and Flynn), along with the New South Wales bellwether electorate of Eden-Monaro, which have some of the highest rates of unemployment in the country.
  Roy Morgan estimates unemployment fell to 6.6% in April, the lowest rate since December 2008. About 760,000 Australians remain out of work, down 76,000 from March.
  
  But as the research firm notes today: "While this is good news for the Rudd government, it is critical to recognise that unemployment is never uniform across the country."
  The electorate of Grey -- which takes in most of non-metropolitan South Australia -- has had the nation's worst unemployment rate between January 2008 and December last year at 16.3%. While the Liberal-held seat is listed as marginal the chances of Labor securing a 4.4% swing now seem remote.
  
  Of the government's marginals, Flynn (held by Labor on a slim 2.2% margin, where unemployment has averaged 9.7%), Leichhardt (4.1% to Labor with unemployment at 11.2%) and Bonner (4.5% margin, 9.7% unemployment) are all likely to punish Kevin Rudd for the economic downturn.
  
  

Has anyone seen our $446 million?

John Robinson from Kuranda tries to track down a few million million dollars, from the sale of our Cairns Airport.


In April 2008 the proposal to sell the Cairns Airport to a private consortium was announced with much fanfare by Premier Anna Bligh. We were told that the sale of Cairns airport would fund a $450 million expansion of the city's existing hospital.

Then on Christmas Eve last year, it was reported that our airport had been sold for $530 million.

The ABC reported at the time...

• “The $530 million sale will provide the Government with funds to proceed with the $446 million redevelopment of Cairns Base Hospital next year."

A press release from Cairns Airport trumpets...

• "Premier Anna Bligh said today the $446 million redeveloped hospital for Cairns is full steam ahead following the successful sale of Cairns Airport.
  
  The proceeds of the sale will go directly into the redevelopment of the Cairns Hospital,'' Ms Bligh said.
  
  "The comprehensive redevelopment will include additional cardiac care facilities, full day surgery unit, specialist clinics and pathology services, and integrated mental health and cancer care units. "By 2014, the redevelopment will mean 168 extra beds.

Not unnaturally enough, we the users of the hospital, expected that the $446 million would come out of the $530 million sale. Or so we thought.

The efforts of the ALP in Brisbane to placate the party faithful in Cairns was today reported by the Cairns Post. Apparently ALP members were told that...

“$446 million redevelopment of Cairns Base Hospital could be “shelved” if the Bligh Government’s sale of state owned assets does not go ahead.”

So the question needs to be asked, and asked loudly, where the hell has the money from the sale of the Cairns Airport gone?

Obviously not to fund the upgrade to the Cairns Base Hospital.

I would suspect that rather than being earmarked for the redevelopment, the $446 million went straight into the black hole of consolidated revenue and thus straight off the bottom line debt.
So now it appears that we have a privately owned airport and no funds for the redevelopment of Cairns Base Hospital.

What guarantee do we have that any of the $15 billion hoped to be generated from the fire sale will be allocated to replace the now apparently missing $446 million?

I wonder if the Member for Cairns still stands by her comments of last year. "This is a great outcome for the people of Cairns and for the tourism industry."

Former Cairns 1st Council candidate, Richie Bates, echoes the opinion of many in the Cairns community. “So what’s happened with that money?” he asked last week.

Has anyone seen it?