Lancini gloom fires defence of city vision
TOWNSVILLE civic leaders have called on people to start “talking up” the city, after scathing remarks by a prominent local developer claiming the economy had never been in worse shape.
Townsville development titan and outgoing North Queensland Cowboys chairman Laurence Lancini’s remarks that he had never seen the city in such a poor economic state have amassed passionate criticism and support.
Mayor Jenny Hill conceded Townsville had been struggling for a number of years but said “green shoots” of progress were starting to be seen.
“What we need is people to start talking Townsville up because every time people talk Townsville down, it gets harder and harder for us to sell the community into the big investment areas of Melbourne and Sydney,” she said.
“There is a problem for property here because we need to grow population and the only way we will grow population is through jobs.”
Mr Lancini yesterday pilloried the performance of the State Government, saying tax hikes, red tape and their reticent attitude towards resources were hampering economic recovery.
“I have never seen Townsville in as poor an economic state as we are in now,” he said.
“I love Townsville and there is a lot of opportunity, but we need state and local government to step up.”
Thuringowa MP Aaron Harper said Townsville had taken “hit after hit after hit”, in reference to the mining downturn, the Queensland Nickel debacle and the recent catastrophic floods.
“We’ve got to talk up our town and continue pushing confidence in getting people, private developers and other investors, to come into town, because our doors are well and truly open for business,” he said.
Townsville’s unemployment rate, now at 7 per cent, fell to its lowest in five years in July according to ABS data.
This is still higher than the Queensland average of 6.4 per cent. Nationally, the unemployment rate is 5.2 per cent.
Mr Harper pointed to the slew of announcements made this week by the State Government, including the establishment of Australia’s first land-based rock lobster farm in Toomulla, and the $132 million Kidston Hydro transmission line project, among others.
Cr Hill pointed to National Australia Bank’s decision to financially support Imperium3’s battery plant at Woodstock as a sign major projects were “inching closer to completion”.
“We’ve got a great place here, a great lifestyle; it actually can be a huge opportunity not just for Townsville but for Australia, especially around advanced manufacturing,” she said.
Meanwhile, Townsville developer Peter Tapiolas, of Parkside Development, said Mr Lancini’s comments were “spot on”.
“In the 50 years we’ve been operating in the city, we’ve never seen it in such a dire situation, diabolical,” he said.
“There’s been a lot of external forces that have created the diabolical situation that we’re in and I don’t see that Townsville City Council has helped.
“You can have all the light shows that you want and talk about battery plants but at the end of the day we need jobs; jobs bring confidence.”
It is understood Mr Lancini first voiced his scathing opinion at a Property Council of Australia lunch earlier this week.
PCA Queensland executive director Chris Mountford said the general view of the organisation’s members were consistent with Mr Lancini’s; that Townsville was a tough economy at the moment. “(Townsville is) in need of large degree of focus in a terms of turning that around,” he said. “From our perspective there is a real need and opportunity around the CBD revitalisation and what that might mean for Townsville.”
Townsville Enterprise chief executive Patricia O’callaghan said the region was on the road to recovery.
“Townsville and the North have been doing it really tough and like many of our regional neighbours, our part of Australia has been hurting,” she said.
Ms O’callaghan said the region had been through extraordinarily hard times but recent announcements, including the opening of the Galilee Basin, and federal and state government commitments, would “expedite” recovery efforts.