Ire over funding delays
FNQ ‘missing out’ on infrastructure loans
ANOTHER year, another annual report, another conspicuous absence of Far North Queensland projects funded by the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
NAIF chief executive officer Laurie Walker has issued her annual statement outlining the $1 billion in loans earmarked across six investment decisions and four conditional approvals.
“Over 2870 direct jobs are currently forecast to be gener- ated across NAIF-supported projects (not including the many additional indirect jobs that will be generated),” she said in a statement to stakeholders.
However, the lack of any projects within arm’s reach of Cairns has started to grate in the Far North.
Advance Cairns CEO Nick Trompf hoped the situation would be mended during 2018-19, noting he knew of a handful of top secret projects vying for a piece of the $5 billion loan fund.
“Clearly the government is expending funds but they have still only moved 20 per cent of the facility,” he said.
“It hasn’t moved as fast as people would have expected when it was first set up.
“We know of several projects in our part of the world have been in active conversations with NAIF but, for commercial-in-confidence reasons, we can’t disclose who they are.
“But with a couple of those projects, it would be very exciting if they were to succeed.”
The closest project to Cairns to receive a NAIF loan so far was James Cook University in Townsville, accruing a $98 million investment to build a Technology Innovation Complex as part of a larger enterprise bundle – similar to what the university has proposed for Cairns.
Mr Trompf said it was important to note the NAIF would not die with the government in the event of a Coalition loss at the next election.
“Labor have said they will continue it and earmark $1 billion for tourism,” he said.
“It hasn’t been as widely used as some would have liked but the facility has some time to run yet.”
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