Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald
Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia
Liberal Senator for Queensland

BLIGH’S DUPLICITIOUS POLICIES

Queensland Liberal Senator, and member of the Senate Inquiry into Traveston Dam, Ian Macdonald, says that the Queensland Government has demonstrated twice why it can’t be trusted governing Queensland.

“An advertisement on a New Zealand website calls for expressions of interest for ‘proposed significant major project and associated projects’ in the Mary Valley. Further enquiry reveals that the ‘major project’ is the Traveston Crossing Dam,” Senator Macdonald said.

“The Bligh Government is doubly duplicitous in that:

1. at a time of rising unemployment and with Queensland mine workers laid off, the Queensland Government is recruiting overseas.

2. Having announced a deferral of the Traveston Crossing Dam, (which most see as a precursor to abandonment of a stupid project), why is the Government recruiting labour for the project?

Perhaps Ms Bligh really does plan to proceed with the construction of the Dam after the election?”

“And perhaps she doesn’t give a ‘dam’ about displaced mine workers in Queensland?”

“An explanation would be welcome.”

The job advertisement can be found at
http://www.seek.co.nz/users/apply/index.ascx?Sequence=32&PageNumber=1&JobID=14606826

20 January 2009
Media Contact: Troy Reeves (07) 4771 3066 BH 0427 960 255 AH

Meet “Sausage”… now a star of the No Dam campaign!

Job ads deepen dam fears

21st January 2009
By Bill Hoffman

The state opposition thought it had evidence of state government under-handedness over the Traveston Crossing Dam and accused premier Anna Bligh of being incapable of lying straight in bed.

The simple fact though, according to recruitment agency EVP, was that a lot of people had leapt to a conclusion without checking the facts.

At the centre of the consternation was a series of advertisements on www.seek.com.au looking for expressions of interest in a range of jobs around major infrastructure projects in the Mary Valley. Key in LNP member for Noosa Glen Elmes, the sniff of an early election and the hint of another Traveston Dam controversy, and suddenly Ms Bligh’s nocturnal habits were in the spotlight.

Mr Elmes sent off a “Bligh couldn’t lie straight in bed” media release and went on air to speculate about the reason for the ads.

The real story, though, according to Derek Dodunski from EVP’s Queensland and NT regional office, was that the international recruitment franchise was aware of Queensland Water Infrastructure’s commitment to source 40% of its workforce locally if and when the dam is approved, and was seeking to build a data base to satisfy that quota.

Mr Dodunski loves the dam project and thinks that the dam project will generate a lot of jobs before, during and after construction.

EVP is a member of AIM, a group of businesses and manufacturers between the northern Sunshine Coast and Bundaberg, which would be vying for contracts if the controversial dam ever gets the go-ahead.

Queensland Water Infrastructure sends representatives to its meetings.

Mr Dodunski said the advertisement was not targeting Kiwi workers as the LNP claimed. He said www.seek.com.au was an international company and if you asked the right questions it would pop up on search engines the world over. He said the advertisements clearly required applicants eligible to work in Australia.

A spokesman for infrastructure minister Paul Lucas was adamant that the ads had not been placed or paid for by either the government or QWI.

But nobody, including Mr Dodunski, could explain why the advertisements disappeared from the search engine within two hours of questions about it being asked.

Beaudesert dam to provide 300 jobs

Posted Tue Jan 20, 2009

Queensland’s Acting Premier says more than 300 jobs will come from the construction of a new dam near Beaudesert in the state’s south-east.

Paul Lucas says 55 workers have started building an access road to the site of the $333 million Wyaralong Dam.

He says another 250 will be employed on the project before the dam is completed in 2011.

“We’re looking for machinery operators, fencers, labourers, administrators and cleaners,” he said.

“We are committed to using locals as much as possible and we are also creating opportunities for about 400 businesses, boosting the Brisbane, Beaudesert and Boonah and south-east Queensland economies.”

Political heat cools enthusiasm for ads (Not online)
Bill Hoffman 22 JAN 2009

THE company that placed advertisements looking to attract work­ers for major infrastructure pro­jects in the Mary Valley has pulled them because of the polit­ical controversy that erupted on Tuesday.

EVP-Recruitment had placed the advertisements on seek.com au to build a data base of poten­tial workers to fill Queensland Water and Infrastructure’s quota of a 40% local workforce if the con­troversial Traveston Crossing Dam should win approval.

Company spokesman Derek Dodunski said yesterday that senior management had pulled the ads after they became the subject of a political attack by the LNP, which had interpreted them as a backdoor Queensland govern­ment push to proceed wilh the project.

Mr Dodunski said EVP was an apolitical organisation and had become concerned about the pol­itical heat around the advertising

It had withdrawn the ads, which had been booked to run for 30 days, until it could speak to all relevant stakeholders.

The Queensland government said on Tuesday that neither it nor QWI had booked or paid for the advertising, which sought expressions of interest from work­ers with a range of skills for in­frastructure projects in the Mary Valley.

An article in yesterday’s Sunshine Coast Daily said EVP was a member of AIM, an organisation of businesses and manufacturers interested in securing contracts if the dam goes ahead.

The organisation is in fact the Association of Industry, Engi­neering and Manufacturers.

Dam jobs gone
Thursday 22nd January 2009


“SORRY - this job no longer advertised.”

That was the bad news yesterday for would-be Traveston Crossing dam builders, especially any from New Zealand, responding to what had suddenly become a highly controversial internet job advertisement.

The ad suddenly disappeared from the net after a passionate attack on State Government integrity from Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald, along with Gympie and Noosa MPs David Gibson and Glen Elmes.

However, both the government and its dam construction company, Queensland Water Infrastructure Pty Ltd denied the advertisements were anything to do with them, particularly the version which appeared on the net in New Zealand.

Sen Macdonald blasted the government over “recruiting overseas” at a time of rising unemployment in Queensland and for recruiting at all for a deferred project which many believe will never proceed.

Mr Gibson said the government had “lied about so many aspects of the proposed dam and they are continuing to do so,” while Mr Elmes said Premier Anna Bligh “couldn’t lie straight in bed.”

Yesterday it emerged that a little too much of the government’s pro-dam “full steam ahead” rhetoric had rubbed off on the net advertiser, a local employment agency whose staff had attended one of QWI’s pro-dam pep talks, at which the project has been consistently promoted as all but inevitable.

QWI boss Graeme Newton said the company “is not recruiting for any employees for the Traveston Crossing Dam project and is not a client of recruitment firm EVP.

“Following review of the advertisement, QWI suggested to EVP that they may wish to remove it from Seek,” he said.