Push for locals to work on upgrade

Fears that state-funded upgrade will deliver an unsustainable sugar hit for workers

Cairns Chamber of Commerce will be pushing for the awarding of more local trade contracts on the Cairns Convention Centre upgrade when joining Advance Cairns next week in a convoy to Brisbane.

Cairns chief executive Patricia O’Neill said local businesses deserved a fair go.

“We want an award-winnign convention centre,” she said.

“We’re not unhappy with what we’re getting as an end result.

“It’s just that we were advocating for more local companies to actually win contracts.

“The Queensland Government have their box they’re ticking about locals getting jobs, whereas what we’re advocating is that local businesses should be getting the contracts.”

Mrs O’Neill said she would be pushing for regionally-targeted small business procurement benchmarks to be introduced for major upcoming government infrastructure projects.

“They have committed to a minimum 25 per cent procurement target for small businesses, which is easy to do if you give it to people in the southeast corner,” she said.

“We’re saying there should be a minimum regional procurement target for small business.”

Cairns MP Michael Healy reiterated the commitment to 85 per cent workers on site being Cairns locals.

He said some big Cairns companies had missed out on contracts but that had opened the door for smaller contractors who do not usually do business with them to enter the fray.

“I’ve had people come to me and say they’re very happy,” he said.

“They’ve picked up work they usually wouldn’t because a lot of companies already have their subcontractors locked in.”