Max Hooper for Moreton—an engineer with a vision for Australia

Civil engineer and Australian Citizens Party (ACP) candidate for Moreton Max Hooper has exposed in a Citizens Insight YouTube interview why the major parties are no good at delivering infrastructure for Australians.

Max explained that he got into politics to fight to realise a vision for Australian infrastructure, which is why he left the major parties and eventually joined the ACP.

Click here to watch Citizens Insight: Max Hooper for Moreton—an engineer with a vision for Australia.

As Max recounts, he initially heard about the ACP, and was attracted to the party, because of the ACP’s work with the late Professor Lance Endersbee, the Dean of Engineering at Monash University who had worked on the construction of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, Tasmania’s hydroelectric system, and dam projects in southeast Asia.

Prof. Endersbee mapped out grand infrastructure projects for Australia, including a Melbourne to Darwin fast-freight railway that could transport high-quality horticultural produce from the southern states to Darwin in 24 hours, an Australian ring railway around the whole country, and a Clarence River water diversion and hydroelectric scheme to keep the Darling River flowing permanently.

The ACP promoted these visionary ideas extensively around Australia.

Max is contesting the electorate of Moreton in Brisbane, which he describes in detail from the standpoint of infrastructure needs and potential. Moreton is currently the northern terminus of the Inland Rail project, which Citizens Insight previously discussed with ACP candidate for Riverina Richard Foley (Click here to watch Richard Foley for RIVERINA—Regional Australia definitely needs new leadership).

Both candidates agree that as currently designed, Inland Rail is flawed, and both propose constructive changes to improve its benefits for Australia. Max calls Inland Rail the biggest project on the books for improving Australia’s productivity. It will take thousands of trucks off the road, improving worker safety, the state of the roads, and the environment. But if Inland Rail terminates in Brisbane, it will fill Brisbane’s streets with trucks taking containers from the terminal to the port. Max has testified to the Senate on why Inland Rail should terminate in Gladstone, which is Queensland’s last state-owned port, and where the transfer of containers can be done inexpensively. In the interview he provides fascinating details about why Inland Rail is designed as it is, and what the potential is for improving the project along the whole route.

The interview also covers:

• The ACP’s policies that are most urgent for his electorate, including policies for small business, such as the public Post Office People’s Bank to make loans to small businesses which are currently starved of credit by the private banks;

• Australia’s skills shortage, which should be addressed by encouraging young people into apprenticeships and cadetships straight out of high school, instead of assuming they should all go to university;

• The impediments to the orderly rollout of basic infrastructure and housing projects;

• Max’s ideas for infrastructure for Australia, and how infrastructure can be prioritised and depoliticised;

• Project Iron Boomerang, a double-track railway across the Top End to transport Queensland coking coal to WA and WA iron ore to Qld, to be combined by steel plants at both ends, which would make Australia the cheapest producer of steel in the world.

Everyone who watches this interview will see that Max’s vision for Australia, and his mastery of the needs and solutions for his electorate, set him apart as the best candidate for Moreton.