Leichhardt — what Growing Australia delivers

Member for Leichhardt: Matt Smith (Liberal National Party) · Queensland

The Cairns Growth Precinct sits inside Leichhardt — $2.7B of platform investment, 3,300 direct jobs, with the government building the solar, the industrial estate, the CSIRO research lab and the TAFE training campus, while private operators take the leases and create the manufacturing jobs. Cairns produces Pacific cable landing + meet-me room + IXP, sovereign cable repair vessel, patrol vessel sustainment, Pacific humanitarian logistics hub, Pacific Digital Academy.

Beyond the precinct network, Leichhardt also benefits from the national programs the plan funds. Australia currently holds about 24 days of liquid fuel — well under the 90-day reserve the International Energy Agency requires of member countries. Growing Australia funds the four sites that take the country to 90 days, and Growth Precinct solar generation delivers wholesale industrial power at 2.5–3 cents per kilowatt-hour, half today's wholesale rate. Cheaper sovereign power flows through to household bills in Leichhardt as it does everywhere else.

Australia imports more than 90% of its medicines, runs on 24 days of fuel cover, and has watched its manufacturing share of the economy fall from 25% in the 1980s to under 6% today. Growing Australia is a costed, public-domain plan to reverse that — $169.1 billion across five sovereign-industry programs over ten years, roughly 2.0% of federal spending. The same federal spending that funds the NDIS, AUKUS, and Medicare. Leichhardt's share isn't a number on a spreadsheet somewhere — it's whatever the Cairns Growth Precinct actually puts into the local economy.

Growth Precincts near Leichhardt

• Cairns Growth Precinct — $2.7B · 3,300 jobs · inside Leichhardt. Pacific cable landing + meet-me room + IXP, sovereign cable repair vessel, patrol vessel sustainment, Pacific humanitarian logistics hub, Pacific Digital Academy

National programs that reach Leichhardt

• 90-day strategic fuel reserve — ending Australia's 24-day vulnerability with refining at four sovereign sites.
• Lower energy bills — Growth Precinct solar at 2.5–3¢/kWh wholesale, flowing through to household bills.
• Regional broadband upgrades — closing the city–regions internet gap.
• Sovereign cyber shield — one number to call, ASD-led response, training at every TAFE.
• Strategic grain reserves — 500,000-tonne minimum, ending the bad-season-equals-crisis pattern.
• National medicines stockpile — $1B for antibiotics, insulin and surgical supplies. Australia currently imports 90%+.

Take action

• Write to Matt Smith — pre-written email, postcode-matched, 30 seconds.
• See the full $169.1B costing model — every line item, every assumption, every source.
• Read the methodology — bottom-up benchmarks, employment estimates, key assumptions.
• Growing Australia — home

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