2012 SOCIAL COMMENTARY QUEENSLAND - NOT JUST A PLACE, BUT AN IDEA, AN IDEAL

MAP OF QUEENSLAND

WELCOME to Queensland Australia! The distinctive shape of the Queensland coastline makes it easily recognisable , even if you live in the heart of the Russian republic. Queensland used to be the poorest of Australian States, but in recent decades it has shaken off that unhappy status to become, together with Western Australia, the envy of all Australian States. And even then Queensland has particular features which assure it premier status!

The great key to the success of Queensland and Western Australia is natural resources : coal, copper , gas,iron ore, alumina. But Queensland adds to its natural resources extraordinary tourist attractions along its sub-tropical to tropical coastline! And it has plentiful ( occasionally excessive) rainfall!It has the distinction of being the great preference of Australian interstate migration and the retirement destination of choice.

My wife and I have lived 20 of the last 25 years living in Queensland. With different members of my family , the whole family or alone, I have visited all of the coastal centres past Cairns up to Cooktown, across to Normanton and Weipa down to Mt. Isa and down to Goondiwindi east of Cunnamulla and up through the centre to Roma,Emerald, Barcaldine, Longreach and Cloncurry and across to Charters Towers. It is a State of remarkable diversity geographically from tropical jungles, to rolling plains and desert, to lush highlands.

Most of the Provincial cities have populations in the range of 30,000 to 70,000 people and their wide spread and relative independence, gives the State a diverse economy, which on occasion has isolated those Provincial parts from national trends. The heart of the State's population is concentrated upon the Brisbane /Gold Coast(to the South) and Sunshine Coast( to the North) .

In the post WW II decades the State has enjoyed massive economic growth with remarkable financial discipline under 23 years of unbroken conservative Government and after several following periods of Labor Government had progressively stumbled into a strongly adverse debt situation. Earlier this year in an electoral landslide, conservative Liberal National Party Government was restored in an unprecedented landslide.And the new broom is sweeping clean whilst pushing greater development.

But Queensland is more than a geographic location, an aggregation of industries and concentration of populations. 

In the minds of its people and even of other Australians, Queensland is "different". Up to the early 1960s this "difference" was an object of ridicule in the Southern States. The smirk has long since been wiped off those Southern faces - it is now replaced by looks of envy! But for Queenslanders it has always been a source of pride, and, in the sporting world in interstate competition , the cry of "QUEENSLANDER!"is an inspiring, awesome war cry! There are no cries of "New South Welshman!"(for obvious reasons) or even "Victorian"or other - No, Queensland is different! It is an abstract ideal, a mental concept that embodies ideas of personal satisfaction, progress, quiet self-confidence and faith in the future. Yes, and all with good reason. Queensland is DIFFERENT! 

WELCOME TO QUEENSLAND!