DRIP FEED WON’T CUT IT

BRISBANE-based politicians in power have a long history of short-changing the Gold Coast. Things are better now than they were in the 1960s and 70s, but it is still no level playing field, and it’s our city that keeps missing out.

The recent decision by the Palaszczuk State Government to pump $12 million into a new Brisbane film and TV studio is just unbelievable.

This is a perplexing decision – they might be saying “We are aiming for movies’’ but what they are really doing is backing a view that the film industry somehow doesn’t want to come to the Gold Coast.

It again just shows how this Government throws a few shekels our way every now and then, but it’s not substantial or enduring.

A prime example is the cruise ship terminal debate – so far it is two-nil to Brisbane, with no prospect of one here. Brisbane has a terminal at Dockside and it is getting one at Fisherman’s Island. The prevailing view from the Brisbane powerbrokers is cruise passengers who dock in Brisbane can always catch a bus or train to the Gold Coast.

Well I’m sorry, but having just been on a cruise, any place more than half an hour away is not somewhere passengers can be bothered going.

We see the Gold Coast missing out from big-ticket industry leg-ups through to the much-hyped “Magic” weekend next year when all eight NRL fixtures during a May round will be at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium across three days, including the Titans’ match. Surely a game or two on the Gold Coast that weekend wasn’t too much to ask for.

The lack of movement on a cruise ship terminal is the number one example of the lack of interest in the Gold Coast by State Government.

The film studio funding is number two.

I can go on. What happened to the trotting and dog racing tracks at Parklands? Why don’t we have any Government departments here? Why are locals crying out for more police numbers and a local specialised drug squad?

Don’t expect answers from Brisbane any time soon.