BORN and bred in the electorate of Dawson, Glenn Lazarus Team candidate Michael Hall said job creation would be high on his list of priorities should he win the seat.

"Number one for our area is jobs," he said.

"We've been promised all this fast-tracking of infrastructure to create local jobs and we're still waiting."

With the proposed Abbot Point expansion project having been a major talking point around job creation for some time, Mr Hall said he would support the project provided it was done correctly.

"Research is being conducted to show we're not going to damage our environment," he said.

Mr Hall said there had to be a guarantee of jobs going to local people as well.

With a significant proportion of the Whitsunday economy relying on tourism and agriculture, Mr Hall said these two industries need to be looked after.

"We were here a long time before mining," he said.

"We were here and we were based on agriculture and we were based on tourism.

"I think we've forgotten that and we all got carried away with the mining and that's sort of blown up in our face a bit."

Mr Hall said he would be looking to get back to "our roots" in this regard.

Mr Hall also said the recent coral bleaching event was "definitely a concern".

"(But) a lot of industry is centrally located, so I think there's got to be a little bit of credit given to the people in industry today to have gotten over the top of the run-off," he said.