$2000 cash for your old(ish) car "another Labor lemon" says Warren Entsch

Labor’s plan to pay $2000 for Australians to upgrade their old cars is just another lemon of an idea from Julia Gillard and Labor, LNP Candidate for Leichhardt Warren Entsch says.

Warren Entsch says the scheme encouraged motorists to take on debt they couldn’t afford, pushed up the price of old cars and did little for the environment.

“What this makes very clear is that Julia Gillard and Labor have learnt nothing from their disastrous pink batts policy,” he said.

Labor has announced a $2000 rebate to encourage people to get their "old, polluting cars" off the road, when they purchase a new, lower emission, fuel efficient vehicle.

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This is a program that has already been rejected by the Labor Industry Minister Kim Carr as being “extremely expensive” and as a Labor ‘green’ project it is sure to have unintended side effects and cause havoc for the industry.

“In Far North Queensland, and around the rest of the nation, there are businesses still waiting for the government to pay outstanding bills for the insulation scheme that had to be abandoned once people started dying and houses burnt to the ground," Warren Entsch says. "Now the Government is handing out more taxpayers money for another green farce."

“This scheme is nothing but a lemon — Kim Carr knew that last year but the Prime Minister is moving forward with this disaster anyway.”

A similar cash for old cars scheme in Germany has resulted in a surge in the number of new cars bought, followed by a big drop that resulted in job losses.

“The $400 million taxpayers are paying for this scheme will only cause motorists to upgrade their car today instead of tomorrow,” Entsch says. “In return the industry will suffer a huge hangover, when car sales that would have been spread over several years are squeezed into a short period.

“What I am very concerned about is how many people will be tempted to buy a new car when they can’t really afford it? This scheme will also force up the price of older vehicles, making it harder for teenagers to purchase their first car and putting the price of second-hand vehicles out of reach for families who are doing it tough," Warren Entsch says.

“This recycled policy idea is just a waste of $400 million and another green lemon from Labor.”

Households will be able to receive a $2,000 rebate towards a new vehicle by trading in their pre-1995 car for scrapping.

The rebate scheme is part of Labor’s plan to make "positive changes to how we live, work and travel."

According to Labor, from 1 January 2011 to the end of 2014, the Cleaner Car Rebate is expected to result in significant cuts in Australian fleet emissions as close to 200,000 pre-1995 vehicles are taken off the road and replaced with more fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly cars.

The Rebate will be capped over its four years of operation at 200,000 vehicles.

'Warren Entsch and Abbott will not upgrade the Bruce Highway on the south of Cairns' - Turnour

Leichhardt MP Jim Turnour is singling out the planned upgrade of the southern access road into Cairns, as a line in the sand against his main political contender. However LNP candidate Warren Entsch says Cairns residents shouldn't be fooled by Turnour's reannouncement of $150 million.


"The Save Sugarworld Facebook site did a great job in pressuring the Cairns Regional Council into taking action to fix up Sugar World. It shows what people power can do," Jim Turnour says.

"Tony Abbott and the LNP are putting the Bruce Highway upgrade project at risk, they do not support it and will not fund it if they are elected this year," Jim Turnour says. "I’m now fighting to ensure that we can improve the Bruce Highway in the Southern Suburbs of Cairns and need your support."

"If you are tired of being stuck in traffic on the Bruce Highway South of Cairns and want this road upgraded join this Facebook site. I’ll keep you up to date with what is happening and you can lend your support to make sure this project proceeds."

"We’ve been fighting hard as a community for these long overdue improvements and together we’ve secured the funding to make it happen. The Gillard Government has committed $150m and the project is ready to proceed," Turnour says. "Not only is this a vital piece of infrastructure, the project is expected to generate more than 400 jobs for the region."

"Now just as work is only a few months away from starting the project is a risk. Tony Abbott and the LNP oppose the $150 million upgrade to the Cairns southern access road."

Local Southside resident, Dianne Brelsford, says she she takes her life in her hands everything she drives on the road.

"Having driven this road morning and evening for the last seven years, I will be glad to see the upgrade take place. Each day I take my life in my hands driving to and from work."

Turnour says LNP refuse to commit the money to this "critically important local project."

"It will ease congestion, making the drive into Cairns shorter and safer. Don’t risk Tony Abbott cutting this project. Support the Cairns-Bruce Highway Upgrade."

Local Regional Councillor Robert Pyne, and Robert Mulgrave Labor MP Curtis Pitt, says people are telling him that they want action on the Bruce Highway.

"Both the Bruce Highway Upgrade and Cairns Transit Network are critical to the needs of our growing region and I fully support these projects," Curtis Pitt says. "The LNP keeps talking about bridges over the inlet and second corridor options that will do nothing for residents in suburbs like Edmonton, Bentley Park, Mt Sheridan, Forest Gardens and White Rock - nor will they help with existing traffic congestion."

Local writer Leigh Dall'Osto says she's looking forward to travelling on a major highway with simple exits to each suburb and no traffic lights along the way.

"While I acknowledge that the final result is 30 years away, I am impressed with the fast approval once a plan was decided upon and the speed in which it has been funded with thanks to the efforts of Jim Turnour who recognised the need for this," Leigh Dall'Osto says. "The current system is dangerous as travelling along a major road at 80 klms per hour and having to stop suddenly due to red lights, over and over again, makes it very difficult to travel smoothly and makes it almost impossible for Learner or P-plated drivers."

"Even after doing it almost daily for several years, I still see drivers turning in front of semi-trailers at the last moment, drivers running up the backsides of overly cautious drivers and drivers running through lights while they are turning red," Leigh says.

ETU union organiser and local Labor party member, Stuey Traill is critical of the narrow thinking by this proposal.

"Why rail options haven't been considered is crazy," Stuey Traill says. "Focusing on just increasing the road capacity, shows how narrow this whole process is. The bus service is not not the answer. There are options like another route [along the coastline] coming out near Portsmith. Also, a satellite hub, of a specialist industries, could be developed around the southside so there's is lesser need for thousands of vehicles to travel into Cairns everyday. These options haven't been considered."

However LNP candidate for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch says Julia Gillard and Labor are dead set on destroying hundreds of homes and businesses, including the Portsmouth Fuel at Roberts Road, along with and the national-award-winning Cairns Coconut Resort Caravan Park with this road to nowhere.

“Cairns residents won't be fooled by Jim Turnour's reannouncement of $150 million for this project," Warren Entsch told CairnsBlog. "These are exactly the same funds that were announced in 2007, and at the rate the Labor Government is moving on infrastructure for Far North Queensland, Labor will be announcing the same funds again in 2013 unless we stop them."

“The Southern Access project is just a great big lie to make Leichhardt residents think that Labor cares about Far North Queensland. It is not a second access that will actually ease pressure on the road – all it will do is help motorists get to the traffic jam at Ray Jones Drive faster."

Warren Entsch says if Gillard and Labor actually cared about Cairns, they would have properly planned this project, they would have actually consulted with the community and found a plan that works.

“If Gillard and Labor were serious about easing traffic problem at the south of Cairns then they would have created a legitimate second access to Cairns rather than adding to the problem."

• Facebook I want the Cairns southern access road upgraded

Saturday SoapBlog: Chris Forsberg: Alas, a lack of Liberalism - and Nationalism

Public relations and communications consultant and long-time political observer, Chris Forsberg takes aim at what he calls a lack of liberalism - and nationalism on offer for Far North Queensland voters.

A spruiker by day and political prestidigitator by night, Chris has worked with independent MP Bob Katter and election campaigns for Cairns mayor Val Schier. Chris Forsberg is also the publicity officer for the new North Queensland Party. May God help them both.

Condolences are due - overdue - to all Far Northerners who voted for the Liberal National Party - that forced marriage of two totally incompatible parties that brands itself as the "LNP."

Revelations on CairnsBlog and in The Cairns Post that things are not at all well with the four local branches of the LNP are nothing new to Far North Queensland political junkies who have spent a few years monitoring the local conservatives' collective determination to self-destruct.

To comprehend the latest outrage, it is necessary to examine the chaotic state of the local Liberal Party before the merger. Party activists like Diedre and Colin Ford and [Cairns Councillor] Alan Blake alienated a fair share of rank and file members – and contributed to a long list of failed campaigns.

Electable candidates like economist Bill Cummings, tourism operator Steven Welch, Port Authority guru Bob Manning and lawyer Miles Thompson, were given no chance at all - because their notional Liberal supporters and campaign workers were more focused on arguing amongst themselves than getting their candidates 'over-the-line'.

Warren Entsch was smart enough to realise that he could never win Leichhardt by relying solely on his party's support - Wazza worked National Party networks throughout the region to achieve his three successive and well-deserved wins.

Yet Warren blew it too - by insisting that Charlie McKillop take his place. When Kevin Byrne correctly cautioned that Ms. McKillop was not an electable candidate - many local Liberals rounded-on Kevin Byrne, white-anting his mayoral re-election campaign, contributing substantially to Val Schier's un-expected victory.

These same former Liberals now criticize Cairns mayor Val Schier at every opportunity - conveniently forgetting the fact that they contributed fulsomely to her win.

Meanwhile, back in the bush, the moribund National Party was still licking it's wounds from the One Nation phenomenon – and fell prey to a suggestion from Lawrence Springborg that they should merge with the Liberals.

The Gnats weren't travelling all that well - even safe ministerial seats like Tom Gilmore's Tablelands had been lost to One Nation.

In spite of the spin from LNP headquarters that the merger has been a thundering success, the fact is precisely the opposite: a faction-divided Liberal Party has collided; with an old-fashioned agrarian socialist party, which at least wasn't split in to squabbling factions as were the Liberals. But nor was it anywhere near 'at the top of it's game' - had it had been so (as it was in the 'Joh era') a merger would never have been considered.

The Nationals themselves at the time of the merger were not fully aware of the bitterness and back-stabbing that had become 'normal' within the Liberal Party. The Libs then, and perhaps still, had a 'Sicilian faction' - a group of Italian-Australian MPs and senior party officials who wielded in-ordinate influence over party affairs, much to the disgust of Anglo-Saxon-descendent Liberals.

Note please that no Liberal could be accused of racism in respect of their loathing of players in the 'Sicilian faction' - the arguments were always over policies, personalities and, especially, perks - to their credit, the anti-Sicilian faction Libs never referred to their adversaries as 'wogs' or 'dagoes'. Well, never in public anyway.

These factional rivalries were reflected in all Liberal Party branches throughout Queensland - and no where more so than in FNQ. It isn't a case of these rivalries merely continuing to this day - they have intensified, dramatically, fueled in this latest instance by Dennis Quick's seemingly self-appointed role as Warren Entsch's campaign manager.

15 seriously aggrieved LNP members catalogued a litany of allegations against Mr Quick last September - and forwarded them to LNP state president Bruce McIver. Mr Quick claims he has since been "cleared" by an internal investigation - and most likely he has been.

Reason: former Nationals 'have the numbers' in the Brisbane LNP hierarchy - and Mr. McIver and/or the 'internal investigators' may well have thought that exonerating Mr. Quick would meet the approval of his fellow former Gnats. Mr Quick served the National Party well in his extended tenure as Townsville-based 'regional co-ordinator' - the LNP finding against Mr Quick could have antagonized countless ex-Gnats who now rest, most uncomfortably, in the LNP.

Regrettably, Mr Quick is not the ideal campaign manager for any Liberal candidate - not even one as Gnat-friendly as Warren Entsch. To describe Mr. Quick's win/loss record as campaign manager over many campaigns as "mixed" would be charitable - he's lost many more than he has won - including Kevin Byrne's unexpected defeat at the last Council poll.

Kevin Byrne snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on that occasion - and Mr Quick, along with the many Liberals who turned on Byrne, as payback for his perfectly sensible cautions relating to Charlie McKillop's candidacy, share responsibility for mayor Byrne's demise.

No doubt, every LNP member and supporter means well and acts in good faith - but the sad fact is that the local branches, as much as the entire state apparatus, are in a total shambles. Mistrust and deceit are the order of the day - every day - the back-stabbing and bull-shitting has reached depths that are nothing short of outright disgrace....
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Precious few LNP folk are 'liberal' in the proper sense of the word, which conveys tolerance and understanding - and nothing any LNP spokesperson has come-up within years could be described as 'national', the word that implies an all-embracing country-wide engagement.
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Indeed, the 'national' reach of the LNP goes no further than Brisbane - the Nationals are no longer major players in Canberra, where even their Liberal coalition 'partners' regard them as a rural rump.

Voters BEWARE - the LNP is not supportable until such time as it gets its act together, eases-up on the back-biting and back-stabbing, and re-invents itself as a credible opposition, to both the Bligh regime in Brisbane and the Ruddites in Canberra.

And that's going to take a long while yet.

But all that said - let no-one take any of the above as a piece of pro-Labor propaganda. Labor is creating havoc across the land with its big-government 'we know what's best for you' ethos - and running-up massive debt in the process. But at least they keep their equally bitter factional squabbles 'in-house', and have mechanisms in-place that ensures a 'common party position' after the various factions has, in relatively courteous fashion, 'negotiated' compromise outcomes.

The LNP can't do this - they're too bogged-down with blood-letting and back-biting to negotiate compromise - and, at the end of the day, all politics is compromise.

Little wonder North Queenslanders are flocking to the new North Queensland Party in droves - too young to have factions, too new to have 'baggage', the NQP is focused only on the needs of the region.

The very fact that 15 seriously pinged-off LNP operatives have to send their complaints to the head honcho in Brisbane speaks volumes as to who is running the show - and where LNP priorities lie. Likewise, in the less likely event of 15 Laborites having similar grievances, they too would have to lodge their complaints in Brisbane. And, no doubt, who-ever the subject of those Labor complaints was, he/she too would be 'exonerated' by head office.

Uniquely, the North Queensland Party is accountable to no-one who doesn't live here in the Deep North - and is unquestionably the only political party that genuinely understands the North. It's not National, it's not Liberal – in fact it has no leanings to either left or right - and it has already learned from our local LNP how not to manage a branch structure.

In 'what not to do' politically, our local LNP have supplied a splendid example.

• You can email Chris Forsberg and ask him the meaning of life and who to vote for.

Entsch to run against Turnour, 2010 Federal election

This afternoon, after a marathon two-hour, 15 minute closed meeting at the Cairns Shangri-La hotel, the Liberal National Party faithful selected Warren Entsch by a generous majority to run as their Leichhardt candidate in the Federal election next year.

As CairnsBlog first revealed on Monday, Warren Entsch put his hat in the ring for pre-selection a week ago, after sending out a letter to members.

Former Prime Minister John Howard, who was rumoured to attend today's pre-selection, sent a letter of support for Entsch.

A Party insider said there was rigourous debate.

"There were a few questions from the floor, but it was pretty clear cut. All three candidates spoke well, and Warren was rather impressive as you'd expect," she said

59-year-old Warren Entsch will contest the seat of Leichhardt against first-term Labor member, Jim Turnour, who holds one of the strongest majorities in the country. In 2007 Turnour enjoyed the largest swing in the country at 14.3%, and now commands a comfortable 10.3% lead over his nearest rival.

At the last Federal election, the Liberals, who had not joined forces with the Nationals at that time, ran Charlie McKillop as their candidate as former member Warren Entsch retired. He had held the seat from 1996, when he beat Peter Dodd, who only had one term as the ALP member.

However, throughout the 2007 campaign, Warren wasn't far away. The day before the late November election, his voice was used to make hundreds of telephone calls to swinging voters, in an effort to show he was still involved. They sensed the departure of Warren was going to lose them the election, so in a political first, the Liberals printed road-side billboards with both Entsch and McKillop on them.

"I'm taking the unprecedented step of phoning you personally, to ask you to vote for Charlie McKillop...," Entsch said in the recorded message, that seemed to annoy more than it pleased.

However, Entsch's departure seemed to weigh in Labor's favour as they were enjoying a nationwide backlash against the incumbent Howard government and their Work Choices legislation.

McKillop picked up 38.8% against Turnour's 43.1%, a stunning victory that tipped Labor power in Far North Queensland closer to their trifecta, which was achieved after Schier's win as Mayor of Cairns in March the following year.

Entsch's political career saw his as parliamentary secretary for Industry, Science and Resources and also Tourism. In the last three years of his tenure, he campaigned for gay rights, often a sole voice in the Liberals.

Entsch says that since since stepping down in 2007, he has become increasingly alarmed and frustrated by the current Labor government and its local elected representatives agendas which are "only to the detriment of the Leichhardt community."

"The Cape York communities’ economic future is being traded off through Wild Rivers legislation and the proposed blanket World Heritage listing proposal and our recreational and commercial fishing industries are under serious threat through a proposed closure of the entire Coral Sea region," Entsch says. "This is so Labor can continue their ongoing placation of radical Greens to the detriment of our local community and residents."

This week Entsch strongly criticised the Federal Government as it continues to commit Australians to an ever-increasing and unsustainable debt level through its stimulus package. He says that community initiatives that are extremely cost-effective and have provided tremendous benefits to our Far Northern community are being dismantled and de-funded.

"There is no worse example of inept policy making and handling than the recent loss of the FNQ Area Consultative Committee, acknowledged as the best in Australia, which in the last five years has generated some $75 million into our local economy," Entsch says.

"Funding for the Cairns Youth Mentoring Scheme was also scrapped without a word of protest from any of the elected Labor representatives and no viable alternative offered," he said.

"The recent de-funding of the Aboriginal and Islander Alcohol Relief Service at Douglas House and Rose Colless Haven will see displaced indigenous people with alcohol related issues back on our streets in larger numbers," Entsch said.

Eight State LNP party executives flew up from Brisbane for the Leichhardt pre-selection in Cairns this afternoon, displaying their importance of gaining the seat back.

In 1998 Entsch kept the anti-Coalition swing down to 0.5%, the smallest in Queensland. He achieved a 2.3% swing to him in 2001 and added another 3.6% in 2004. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders make up 14.3% of the electorate, the third highest in Australia.

Other candidates contesting today's ballot were Jen Sackley and Richard Gibbons, director of a fire protection company. Sackley was a member of the Democrats and also stood as an independent against Warren Entsch in 2004, when she gained 4.9%. Now the former nurse has a career in real estate, with strong connections in Cape York aboriginal communities.

Former LNP candidates at the last State election, Barron River's Wendy Richardson, and Mulgrave's Vic Black, led the campaign for Jen Sackley to win the party nomination today.