Government ‘rolled the dice and lost’ on Coast hub
THE State Government has been ridiculed for failing to secure a $100 million upgrade of the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Veteran Gold Coast LNP MP Ray Stevens accused the government in state parliament on Tuesday night of “rolling the dice” and losing a high stakes game on resort development.
Labor has killed off talk of a global tourism hub and it will not agree to a monopoly deal for Broadbeach casino The Star. The exhibition centre is at bursting point and cannot keep pace with an increasing convention industry.
Mr Stevens said he was “shocked and disappointed” for the city’s tourism industry.
“The single-operator status was the same protection given to Jupiters Casino when it first opened, as was the Brisbane Treasury Casino when it first opened,” he said. The Government has recently given Queens Wharf Casino singleoperator protection status.
“And it’s not as if there is a queue of potential investors lining up to put forward a proposal for the Labor government’s phoney global tourism hub, pollie-speak, gobbledygook with no known location, no known proponent and no known concept plans,” Mr Stevens said.
“The Star’s proposal for a concrete $100 million investment in public infrastructure in return for a maybe 20-year exclusivity on the Gold Coast casino operation seemed like a rolled-gold no-brainer of a deal to me, when the alternative from the Palaszczuk Labor government is nothing, diddly-squat, crickets for the Gold Coast.”