Maranoa MP and Nationals leader David Littleproud has expressed his surprise at the Queensland Government’s $12.4 million sale of the Longreach Pastoral College site to three tender applicants.
The state government announced on Friday morning that the sale had been awarded to three tender applicants, none of which were a consortium led by AAM Investment Group, which had garnered significant local support in the form of a letter signed by 3300 individuals and organisations.
While Mr Littleproud is hopeful the successful tender bids will deliver on commitments to the community, he said if they did not, it was up to the Queensland Government to fill in the gaps regarding agricultural training.
“We would hope the successful tender bids will have a focus on offering agricultural training to the next generation of regional workers,” Mr Littleproud said.
“However, if that is not their intentions, the state government needs to come clean and identify how it will fill those gaps because it is the state government’s responsibility.”
“Awarding the tender to AAM was an opportunity for this site to be industry led, so we can only hope the successful tender applicants will share a similar vision for the facility.”