Centre is the real deal

Premier gives assurance of ‘no shortcuts’

ANY risk of one of the most important State Government infrastructure developments in Cairns having its wings clipped by bureaucrats has been averted after a closed-door encounter with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

All of the Far North Queensland’s Labor members of parliament – Michael Healy, Cynthia Lui, Curtis Pitt and Craig Crawford – sat down for a joint meeting with the Premier on Thursday last week.

It was a chance to raise any issues the MPs may have had in their electorate, and one issue quickly rose to the top of the agenda.

Cairns MP Michael Healy raised an issue that has been rattling around boardrooms across Cairns in recent months – that Building Queensland could push for a half-cocked Cairns Convention Centre extension and upgrade that did not achieve what was promised at the election.

“There was an element of frustration about concerns the convention centre would not be able to host concurrent events,” Mr Healy said.

“I raised those concerns with the Premier and now I can confidently say there will be concurrent events in the upgrade.

“Now we are just waiting for the final business plan, which I am told is literally only a matter of weeks away.”

Mr Healy said the motivation for getting concurrent events was simple – having multiple mid-sized conferences running at the same time will give Cairns more bang for its buck than a single giant event.

What final shape the convention centre transformation will take remains to be seen, but the $176 million project will include refurbishment of the existing centre plus the addition of new exhibition space and meeting rooms.

Construction had been scheduled to begin after the Commonwealth Games in April last year, but a year on the business case has still not been finalised by Building Queensland.

Construction is now due to run from May to October next year.