Cairns may get more pokies

ELECTRONIC gambling could become more pervasive with the State Government not ruling out an increase to pokie machines if Cairns gets a new Global Tourism Hub casino development.

Yesterday’s parliamentary estimates hearing on tourism heard the Government had a no-increase principle in place when it came to the Gold Coast’s global tourism hub.

Opposition tourism spokesman David Crisafulli pressed the Tourism Department director-general, Damien Walker, on whether that principle also applied to Cairns.

“Those statements are specific to the Gold Coast,” he said.

“We would need to go to Government about any deal we could potentially do on Cairns and specifically what it meant for (electronic gaming machines).”

Cairns clubs have already flagged concerns the city did not have the population base or gambling tourist numbers with a sharp increase in the number of the so-called onearmed bandits.

Mr Walker said a decision on the matter had not yet been made.

“It is something that we are still working through, given that we are currently in a procurement process and analysing the RFDP submissions that have been made by the proponents,” he said.

Tourism Minister Kate Jones said no taxpayer funds had been allocated towards buying back pokie machine licences in either the Gold Coast or Cairns.

Mr Walker also faced questions over what work had been done with airlines regarding subsidies to make domestic airfares more affordable.

“Most importantly, we have taken an expression of interest to the marketplace at large around provision of air services into Cairns,” he said.

“Pleasingly, that closed on Monday, at close of business, with some significant interest.

“The department, with other departments as partners, is currently working through that exercise now to analyse what opportunities we might have.”