About Gregory
From the sweeping grandeur of Carnarvon Gorge’s escarpments and the spectacular visage of Blackdown Tablelands to the fields of plenty of the Central Highlands, over the Great Dividing Range to the black soil plains and on to the fragile beauty of the desert channel country at the South Australian border, the Gregory Electorate has it all!
Covering more than a quarter of the state of Queensland, Gregory is the largest electorate in the Queensland Parliament. At 459,681 square kilometres, Gregory is bigger than Victoria combined with Tasmania.
Its forested areas are bigger than many countries and it has both natural and man-made lakes, with Lake Maraboon, at Emerald, being Queensland’s second largest lake. While Lake Maraboon is man-made after the construction of Fairbairn Dam, Gregory’s natural lakes include Lake Nuga Nuga, the largest natural water body in the Central Queensland Sandstone Belt, and Lake Galilee, a semi-arid saline lake near Aramac. A rare type of lake in Australia, Lake Galilee represents tectonic depressions created by movements deep in the earth’s crust.
Western Gregory is blessed with artesian soaks and wetlands. These fascinating ecosystems are famous with bird watchers.
The Tropic of Capricorn traverses the northern part of the electorate, while the Great Dividing Range bisects it. Geologically, the electorate covers parts of the Bowen, Galilee, Cooper and Great Artesian Basins.
Gregory takes in part of two federal electorates – Maranoa in the west and Flynn in the east. It covers nine local government areas: Central Highlands Regional Shire, Woorabinda Aboriginal Shire, Blackall-Tambo Regional Shire, Barcaldine Regional Shire, Longreach Regional Shire, Barcoo Shire, Boulia Shire, Winton Regional Shire and Diamantina Shire.
With a population of about 41,500, the Gregory Electorate’s most easterly town is Duaringa, while Birdsville is both the most southerly and most westerly settlement. Emerald is the largest town in the electorate.
Gregory has some of Queensland’s biggest mining operations, with the mining sector being the largest employer in the electorate. It also has some of the smallest mines, with the vast majority of Queensland’s small fossickers residing on the sapphire and opal fields at the Gemfields and Winton.
Gregory is an agriculturally rich part of Queensland. Large areas of broadacre cropping can be found on the eastern side of the electorate. The Nogoa-Mackenzie Irrigation Scheme at Emerald produces both food and fibre, with table grapes, macadamia nuts, cotton and citrus being key products. Beef production takes place across Gregory, feeding to meat processors across the state, while sheep and wool are produced in the west.
Gregory has thousands of kilometres of state and council roads, including the Landsborough, Capricorn, Dawson, Gregory and Carnarvon state highways. These are key road-freight networks from Melbourne north to Darwin.
There are 54 schools in the electorate, including two Schools of Distance Education.
The beauty and variety of this part of the world makes Gregory an attractive tourist destination for both domestic and international visitors. The tourism season peaks in winter and there is a continuing growth in visitor numbers, especially in the caravan and RV segment of the market.
The region is a camper’s paradise, with popular locations including Carnarvon Gorge and the Blackdown Tablelands, Welford National Park and Muttaburra Lakes. Lake Maraboon offers boating and fishing, with redclaw being especially popular. Barcaldine boasts a recreational water park, with a 1.1km dam accommodating water skiing and a wide range of aquatic activities. The Thomson River, in Longreach, is also a famous boating and fishing location. On the way, visitors can stop and enjoy fossicking on the famous sapphire fields.
Other Gregory attractions include Rainworth Fort at Springsure, the Barcaldine Workers’ Heritage Centre, the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine, the Blackall Wool Scour, Longreach’s Qantas Founders’ Outback Museum and the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame.
Winton is home to the Waltzing Matilda Centre and the Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. This museum has Australia’s most productive fossil lab and regularly hosts researchers from across Australia and overseas. As the home of Australia’s largest time-interpretive dinosaur fossil collection, the Museum is a major tourist attraction and offers ‘dinosaur tours’ to nearby Lark Quarry.
Birdsville plays host to the iconic Birdsville Races. Crowds of more than 6000 racegoers celebrate the carnival each year, enjoying two days of outback racing and three nights of live entertainment.
