CST pick stinks for tourism

DO the Queensland Government and Brisbane want tourists to come or not?

It’s a reasonable question, because the preferred option for a new cruise ship terminal being pushed by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Queensland’s capital city is Luggage Point, renowned for a couple of things – and they do not include beauty.

Even if the proposal clears all hurdles and is built, tourists arriving on ships tying up at what might one day prove to be a showpiece terminal will still have to look out over a wasteland that at the moment includes derelict houses and car bodies.

But the coup de grace will be Brisbane’s largest sewage treatment plant just a few hundred metres away.

Anglers have joked for well over 50 years about the size of the bream that could be caught off Luggage Point – largely due to what flowed from the pipe that used to discharge there. Of course, no such effluent flows into the water there anymore, but perceptions are important and the thousands of tourists arriving on each ship will have a grand view of the treatment ponds.

What message does that send, even if strong odours and “solid” discharges are long gone?

The Premier’s comments yesterday seemingly sank any hope the Gold Coast had of its own cruise ship industry.

But unless she has a plan to throw many, many millions at beautifying her preferred option at Luggage Point, she might want to reconsider because that site will struggle as an entry statement for southeast Queensland tourism.