Forgotten but not gone: our ex-leader

FIRST it was Advance Cairns and now it is TTNQ, what’s next — a new Cairns Chamber of Commerce? It is time for a small pause and a deep breath. There is no problem with the leadership groups of our city.

What is now plainly clear is that the problem is one man. A man from yesteryear that is doing his utmost to destabilise our community for one simple reason; to maintain his own relevance.

All our bodies are member based community groups with elected boards. If any local wants to change the direction of our city, stand for election.

The problem here is, this man did stand for election, on multiple occasions in multiple capacities, and while there were times we drank his KoolAid and said yes, more often than not, we said no.

This community has said no to his negativity, and no to his dogmatic and autocratic leadership style.

Yes we need apolitical leadership but we also need leadership that can work with the politics, leadership that can open doors and build coalitions. We need leaders that can get a yes for highways, a yes for dredging and a yes for the dozen other projects we need to keep our city moving.

Advance Cairns today has more members paying more subscriptions than we have ever had before, all he has done is create a distraction that we all don’t need, a distraction that, quite frankly, is given more airtime than he can justify and more credibility than he deserves.

We wish him no ill will, we wish him the same good fortune and good health we wish all of our past leaders, but above all, we wish him a happy transition to retirement.