On Saturday October 31, Queensland went to the polls to elect who should represent our state and community for the next 4 years.
Over 2 million voters had voted pre-election day via pre-polling or postal votes, with around 1.2 million left to vote across the state on October 31.
In Pumicestone, candidates included Ali King (Labor), Fiona Gaske (LNP), Ross Konowalenko (One Nation), Richard Ogden (Greens), Dr Steven Newbery (United Australia) and Ryan Dryden (Legalise Cannabis QLD).
After a campaign heavily influenced by border closures, fear and COVID-19 the voters of Pumicestone decided that Ali King was the best candidate to lead us into the next four years, with 46.4% (14,923) of first preference votes (further results below).
After being unsuccessful in the 2017 election in the Maiwar electorate as a Labor Candidate, Ali King said she recently moved to the Pumicestone electorate, once again as a candidate for Labor.
At the end of this term, in 2024, Queensland would have been led by the Labor Government for 23 out of the previous 26 years – with Campbell Newman from LNP being the only alternative between 2012 and 2015.
Premier Anastacia Palaszczuk now enters into a third successive term as Queensland Premier. The Premier announced the long-awaited State Budget would be completed by the end of this month.
Some of the Labor promises during the election period included:
$4 million to plan and design a new Bribie Island Bridge
$35mil in Volunteer Marine Rescue across the state
Plan for Pumicestone economic recovery
$7.775m in Beachmere Road planning and upgrades
Outdoor learning space for Beachmere State School
$250,000 upgrade to the Special Ed block at Beachmere State School
Mobile Police Beat for Beachmere and Bribie Island
5800 Nurses, 1500 new doctors, 475 additional paramedics & 1700 new health professionals
$3mil for Ningi road intersection upgrade
Pumicestone will get an extra 1200 more teachers and 210 teacher aides
$11.4 Mil for Pumicestone State School
New $35m Satellite Hospital for Bribie Island
Reinvest in our TAFE campuses (no dollar committed)
Other key strategies that we look forward to include a Visitor Management Strategy (including 4WD access and the environmental impact, how to increase tourism revenue and managing traffic flow during peak times), assistance to local small businesses and the creation of new jobs for locals in our local area.
We look forward to benefitting from these initiatives over the next four years and we wish the new Member for Pumicestone, Ali King, all the best and look forward to seeing her out and about in our community and delivering on the election promises she made to us.
