Hi, my name is Mick Jones and I'm your Greens Candidate for Rockhampton.
I was born and raised in Mount Isa, before my family moved to Rockhampton. After attending CQU, I fought a long and bitter battle with a life threatening illness. I’m deeply grateful to healthcare workers in Rockhampton - amazing people who do their absolute best in an underfunded, understaffed regional health care system.
Experiences like this taught me the steep cost that regional communities pay as successive Liberal and Labor governments fail to support essential services like health and education. After getting back on my feet, I decided to volunteer my time to help build a movement for change in Central QLD.
All over Queensland, people are doing it tough.
We face skyrocketing costs of living, while the big parties cut funding from services we need, and pump our region’s wealth into the mega-profits of billionaires and big corporations. Taxpayer subsidised property investors crank up rents and the price of housing, while Woolworths and Coles engage in blatant, unregulated price gouging.
Tens of billions in subsidies go into coal and gas, but there’s no clear path forward for our mining communities, or workers in the sector - particularly with the current attack on the union movement. And as renewable energy finally rolls out across QLD, we face genuine issues as the transition seems to be planned for the profits of big corporations, instead of community benefit.
That’s not surprising when we consider that the LNP, Labor, and other parties take massive corporate donations.
Their actions benefit their donors and lobbyists, not everyday Queenslanders - particularly in the regions. These cynical political operators take advantage of our community, and seek to divide us - scapegoating people in need of support, and offering false solutions that make matters worse.
But we’ve also had some real wins and good news. At our last election we added a second Greens Senator in Queensland, as public school teacher Penny Allman-Payne walked out of the classroom and into the party room, and set up shop just down the road in Gladstone. And we've forced concessions from the big parties, including the recent 50c bus fares, and billions more in funding to combat the housing crisis.
During that time I've worked with a team of local activists and campaigners to build a political project that people in our community are calling out for. We’ve had hundreds of conversations with locals from all walks of life, we’ve supported and consulted with community groups on the front line, and travelled all over the region in the process.
We can build a better kind of politics, one that serves the needs of our community, and ensures a brighter future for Central Queensland. We can have the services we need like free, high quality education and health care, and vital infrastructure like public transport, renewable energy, and affordable housing. We can fund this by making big corporations and property investors pay their fair share.
The Greens can make this happen, because we don’t take corporate donations, we reject the old, broken politics, and we’re building a people powered movement for change that keeps us close to the community.
Join us in making a real difference at this election.
