…While almost seven million Australians live outside large metropolitan areas, of the 20 federal electorates with the lowest household incomes in Australia, 18 are located outside our capital cities. We need real solutions to rural and regional unemployment for most regional centres. Country towns are no longer the robust, almost self-sufficient communities that they once were. Queensland is copping it harder than most. Western and northern Queensland are facing a jobs crisis with unemployment at 10.7 per cent in Townsville and over 12½ per cent in western Queensland, and with youth unemployment almost twice that. The problem in Queensland, of course, is that the Palaszczuk Labor government continues to display total neglect for the vast majority of rural and regional areas of the state and for the people who live there…’
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