The Labor Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Senator Singh, last night deplored the fact that the people of Mackay, God forbid, might have more of a say on the Great Barrier Reef than Canberra.

The people of Mackay, the people of Bowen and the people of Proserpine now know where they stand with the Labor Party. Labor prefer it when they try to improve the health of the reef from a room in Canberra.

It is not surprising that Labor ignore North Queensland: their most northern Queensland seat is Blair, based on Ipswich, just west of Brisbane.

Senator Singh told the Senate that: “The legislation giving bilateral approval powers to the States that is currently before the Senate goes further than that — it allows the States to derogate those powers to councils. So we could have the Mackay Council having more power than the Federal Environment Minister in deciding development projects on the Great Barrier Reef.”

Well, the impacts of decisions made on the reef affect the people who live on the reef. If we shut down projects, it will be North Queensland jobs lost. If we fail to attract investment, it will be North Queensland roads that are lost.

Labor's approach on the Great Barrier Reef is now indistinguishable from the Greens. While Labor are in bed with the Greens, they can't represent north and central Queensland. The Greens don't believe in any coal mining, and want to put massive red tape on canegrowers and shut down fishing.