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Regional FHOG Boost $11000
31-May-2010By Chris O'Brien
Updated Fri May 28, 2010 6:17am AEST
Ms Bligh says the overall plan contains 22 initiatives, and 25 other support actions, to manage population growth.
Video: First home owners bonus for Qld regions (7pm TV News QLD) Map: Brisbane 4000 Regional first home buyers in Queensland will get a $4,000 boost, and government agencies could be relocated, as part of a State Government regionalisation plan.
Premier Anna Bligh has released the Government's response to a growth summit held in March.
It includes lifting the $7,000 first home owners grant to $11,000 for new homes outside the south-east as of July 1.
"[It] might just tip the balance and make a regional city their city of choice," she said.
"We hope to see over the next 12 months many young people take up the opportunity of buying their first home in regional Queensland.
"[That's] whether they live in those towns and this helps to encourage them to stay and start their own working life there, or whether they might be from interstate and they're thinking about where in Queensland they want to live."
Ms Bligh also wants to step up efforts to move government agencies.
"Government call centres for example which use technology that don't require them to be in Brisbane [could be moved]," she said.
Ms Bligh says the overall plan contains 22 initiatives and 25 other support actions to manage growth.
She has also re-emphasised that Townsville could grow to be in effect a second capital city.
Likely impact
Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) spokesman Greg Hallam says the initial impact may be hard to gauge.
"In the first instance people will have to have a job and somewhere to go to and that could well be the case with the regional growth around mining," he said.
"It's an incentive - whether it's going to be fundamentally a driver time will tell."
Mr Hallam says there is a model for moving Government jobs to regional centres.
"The New South Wales Government was able to do it under [former premier] Bob Carr," he said.
"They took whole departments to country towns like Bathurst and Orange.
"So clearly the coastline of Queensland with its major population centres is more than capable of hosting those departments."
LNP plan
Queensland Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek says the Liberal National Party (LNP) has a plan too.
"The people of the regions want jobs and services and infrastructure," he said.
"You can't make people go when there aren't jobs there and there is no infrastructure.
"That's why we're determined to make sure we have decentralisation by actually establishing departments using the local people."
Opposition state development spokeswoman Fiona Simpson says action speaks louder than words.
"If people had a dollar for every time this Government has announced a new regionalisation plan, this would truly be a rich state in the regions," she said.
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