FORMER Mackay mayor Julie Boyd is no stranger to issues in the wider Whitsunday region and by running as an independent for the Senate, she believes her experience can help bring greater federal equality to Queensland.

"The main reason (I'm running) is that I'm very concerned that the balance of power is Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia and Queensland seems to be missing out absolutely in terms of investment, infrastructure development," she said, on a visit to Proserpine this week.

Ms Boyd said this part of the world in particular had been affected by rising unemployment rates, sky-rocketing vacancy rates for residential properties and people leaving in their thousands from Central Queensland as a result.

"There's been a lot of talk about the changing economy to go from mining into something else but there's no view from the government about what that is actually going to be. There's no investment back into it," she said.

With 11 years as mayor of Mackay, Ms Boyd said she had seen first-hand some of the region's roadblocks.

"The Abbot Point terminal for instance has been talked about and it's going nowhere," she said.

"With what's happening in Bowen, it's been quite a dreadful shame for that community to have lost pretty much all its sources of real work."

On Monday Ms Boyd met with current Whitsunday Mayor Andrew Wilcox to gain an even greater understanding of local issues.

"It's all very well for me to look at it from the outside but that's why I'm meeting with the mayor to get a good understanding of the sorts of things they think would make a difference for the Whitsundays," she said.

Equality is also a massive driver for Ms Boyd, who believes having more women in Parliament House will create a greater balance in decisions.

She promises to also push for greater investment in Queensland and believes that running as an independent will ensure party policy will not hold her back from getting more for the state.