Newsroom

August 27, 2025

Federal Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter has today paid tribute to the late Sir Leo Hielscher in the Federation Chamber of Parliament, ahead of the revered public servant’s state funeral to be held in Brisbane tomorrow.

“Queensland was once the Cinderella state of Australia,” Mr Katter said. “We had virtually no coalmining, very little mineral wealth, few cattle, we had nothing. And then Joh Bjelke-Petersen became Premier, with Sir Leo Hielscher by his side, the transformation began.”

Mr Katter credited Hielscher’s leadership and bold economic vision as the catalyst for Queensland becoming the world’s largest coal-exporting region, a global copper and aluminium powerhouse, and home to quadrupled agricultural output.

“These were men who strained every nerve, muscle and sinew to build a better life for Queenslanders. That's how they were driven, not to save the planet or for some other ideological pursuit—which future generations will laugh at on a grand scale. No; these people were serious people.”

In Parliament, Mr Katter recalled the visionary infrastructure programs driven by Hielscher, including massive investments in coal ports, railway lines, and power stations.

“They built the biggest power station in the world at Gladstone and fuelled it with free coal. That gave us the cheapest electricity on Earth, and one of the biggest aluminium industries on Earth.”

Reflecting on Sir Leo’s legacy, Katter said: “Public servants, normally, are bad. They do terrible things; they stop anything from happening and they make our lives miserable. There are very rare exceptions; Leo Hielscher was one of them. He made things happen. Two of the six biggest bridges in Australia are named after him, and rightly so.”

In September 2023, Mr Katter had the privilege of tabling in Parliament Sir Leo Hielscher’s blueprint to achieve “the Australian Dream”, The Great Queensland Dividing Range Scheme, to irrigate and flourish inland Australia and make these communities rich and diverse in their productivity.

“These were truly great men. These were men of freedom, vision and action. If you went in there with some restrictions and petty little rules and regulations, you would have been laughed out of their offices.  Sir Leo Hielscher leaves behind an extraordinary legacy one that built modern Queensland.”