BUDGET REACTION Hopes high for export hub bid
AN off-the-cuff remark from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has emboldened hopes a $10 million export facility could be built in a bid to carve out new international flights to the Cairns Airport.
Toowoomba and Cairns have been facing off in a contest to secure funding from the State Government to build the refrigerated export facility.
The Premier was replying to a question at the end of her post-budget speech at the Brisbane Convention Centre last week when she said she “could see no reason why we can’t have two hubs”.
Cairns MP Michael Healy said Ms Palaszczuk had gently alerted him to the comment – an encounter that had buoyed his expectations of a big spend in his electorate.
“I said that’s great, but we want the whole shebang up here,” he said. “I don’t want that to mean Toowoomba gets $5 million and we get $5 million – we need the full $10 million.”
Mr Healy said Cairns was locked in a race to supply the Asia-Pacific and particularly China’s growing middle class with fresh produce.
“We need to be sure we’re competing not only with other countries, but other regions within Queensland and Australia,” he said.
Treasurer Jackie Trad said she was well aware of the push to use the facility to coax more international flights into the Far North.
She said having export centres in both Cairns and Toowoomba made “entire sense”.
“Our exports are booming,” she said.
“We’ve got a rising middle class in China and they want the clean, green produce of Queensland and Australia – great beef, great vegetables, great product.
“If we can provide an opportunity for the bellies of planes to go back with freight, then it makes direct flights much more attractive. It makes better business sense.”
Notification of the outcomes of the business case stage and funding for the Regional Export Distribution Pilot Centre are scheduled for late-2019.