Minister hits back on CST

CAMERON Dick has returned fire in the cruise ship terminal debate by demanding the LNP provide a location and cost for a future port facility on the Gold Coast.

The State Development Minister (right) was targeted in State Parliament yesterday and asked when he would back a terminal on the Glitter Strip.

The Government has been criticised for spruiking the terminal to open in Brisbane in 2020 and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk previously saying the Coast project could be surplus to requirements because of it.

Mr Dick said the proposed oceanside cruise ship terminal at Philip Park at the southern end of The Spit was a project of the Gold Coast City Council and needed to “stack up environmentally and economically”.

“The Port of Brisbane had to make the international cruise ship terminal to stack up in order for it to proceed. The same approach will apply to the Gold Coast City Council’s proposal,” he said.

Mr Dick declined to give his personal position and instead talked up the benefits of The Spit master plan which essentially rules out options at the Seaway end and on Wavebreak Island.

“What do they actually want?” Mr Dick asked of the LNP. “Do they support privatising Doug Jennings Park, which (former Deputy Premier) Jeff Seeney put on the table in 2012?

“Do they support turning Wavebreak Island into a canal estate, as Jeff Seeney wanted to do in 2014.

“Or do they support no development north of Sea World which was the position of the Member for Surfers Paradise (John-Paul Langbroek) in 2004. They have had more positions on The Spit than Prime Ministers and that’s saying something. So we have a clean and unequivocal position – we’ll let the master plan go forward, we have options for the community there, but the master plan for The Spit will be delivered.”

Mr Dick then took aim at LNP leader Deb Frecklington, who this week announced her support for a Coast terminal.

“She’s got everyone on the Gold Coast out with ideas but she says absolutely nothing. Except she said in the paper, we will build one. So where are you going to build it and how much will it cost?”

Consultant reports suggest the project could cost at least $463 million and as high as $526 million with a second berth.

Part of that project development phase will be to determine how much a private sector financier would contribute.

Outside the Parliament, Mr Dick called for a bipartisan approach to the future of The Spit.