City targets Games gold
TOWNSVILLE could host a major Olympic event if Queensland is successful in its 2032 bid.
But if the city’s state representatives get their way, it will not just be a single game played in the northern city.
Townsville MP Scott Stewart said he had been working to make sure Townsville got a slice of the Olympics pie.
While the MP would not reveal exactly what sport he had been pushing for, he said, if all went to plan, Townsville would play host to the beginning, middle and end of an event, including a medal ceremony.
“We have a lot of opportunities I think that we lend ourselves to here,” Mr Stewart said.
“We have a great opportunity to be on the front foot, where we can host one of those events to attract people from all around the world, an international competition at an Olympic standard, here into town.”
Mr Stewart said there was infrastructure already in place, including the Hutchinson Builders Centre, stadium and pending redevelopment of the Townsville Sports Reserve.
With the state-of-the-art stadium and facilities available, Townsville has the capacity to host events like the soccer, sailing, skeet shooting, Rugby 7s, boxing, downhill mountain biking, table tennis, hockey and more.
In 2018 Townsville played host to basketball as part of the Commonwealth Games.
Mayor Jenny Hill said, while an event coming to Townsville would be positive, she was concerned about the city missing out on crucial funding in the lead-up.
Cr Hill said infrastructure spending in the years before major sporting events like the Olympics was not just about new or refurbished stadiums.
“They’re also about roads and public infrastructure like water,” Cr Hill said.
“The concern we have … is this is being pushed by the southeast council of mayors as their Olympics, and it will be a sugar hit but it’s not going to be a long-term support for the rest of Queensland.”
Cr Hill said the federal government would spend billions fixing highways in the southeast while the Flinders Highway, which will be the major connection from the new Singaporean military training facility at Greenvale to the coast, would miss out.
“That is the real concern we all have, that the Olympics will focus the next 10 years’ worth of budgets in infrastructure at a federal and state level in the southeast corner,” she said.
“The risk is the federal government will ignore the North.”
A TEENAGER with a string of convictions and an “atrocious” criminal record has asked a judge to let him out of detention after he was repeatedly denied bail.
The 15-year-old boy took his fight to the Townsville District Court on Thursday after two failed bail applications in the lower Magistrates Court jurisdiction in the Townsville Children’s Court.
He faces 20 charges including unlawful use of a motor vehicle, unlicensed driving, enter premises with intent and stealing, which were allegedly committed while on bail, probation and a community service order between June and October 2020.
He was initially bailed in the Townsville Children’s
Court on September 16 last year but was returned to custody after he allegedly committed further offences just eight days later.
The boy has been behind bars for more than four months after he was arrested in Cairns in late October.
His father had not seen the boy, who was aged 14 at the time, for more than 20 days after the child skipped town and flouted his residential and curfew bail conditions, the court was told.
Police finally caught up with him four hours north in Cairns on October 28.
He was then denied bail on November 17 and again on December 9 last year.
Judge Gregory Lynham detailed the boy’s criminal history, saying it could only be described as “atrocious” with multiple convictions for burglary, assault, unlawful use of a motor vehicle and drug offences.
He noted that the boy had faced court 21 times in the past four years; he would have been just 11 years old for the earliest court appearances.
The boy’s defence solicitor, Victoria Twivey of Rennick Lawyers, said despite the boy’s history, the four months he spent behind bars over Christmas, the new year and his birthday had served as a deterrent to him.
Ms Twivey said she believed there were a number of conditions, including a conditional bail program, which could be put in place to mitigate the risk the boy posed of reoffending.
“It (would) provide my client with significant assistance and support in the community,” she said.
Crown prosecutor Aaron
Dunkerton said he conceded that the boy risked serving more time on remand than he would after sentence.
But, despite this, Mr Dunkerton said the Crown still opposed the bail application on the grounds that bail conditions could not mitigate the risk of reoffending.
Mr Dunkerton said it was estimated that the child had breached his bail more than 80 times.
“(Some of his alleged offences) were committed while on bail,” he said.
“So those conditions have failed to deter him and ameliorate the risk in the past.
“Those same conditions will inevitably end up with the same result.”
Judge Lynham adjourned the application to Monday to allow the parties to source additional information and to consider his ruling.
ONE of the town’s eyesores is being cleaned up by a new owner.
The operator of Great Northern Laundry, Mark Bogiatzis, has acquired the building next door to his business in Flinders Street, which has been unsightly and derelict for years.
Records show it was previously owned by a company controlled by lawyer Barry Taylor.
Mr Bogiatzis said he had bought the property for future expansion.
He also believed making buildings like this more presentable was important to improve the look of the city.
“My plan is to restore it and make it good,” Mr Bogiatzis said.
“It made perfect sense for me to take it on. I don’t know what I will use it for exactly but it’s very handy to have an extra 1000 sqm up your sleeve.”
Mr Bogiatzis said vagrants had occupied the building in the past with incidents including a fire and a drug overdose.
“I’m more than happy to get rid of that problem next door to me,” he said.
Readers of the Bulletin in 2019 highlighted the property, among others, in a survey of buildings considered to be the city’s biggest eyesores.
Mr Bogiatzis said he had been working diligently since signing the contract for sale “to make it not an eyesore”.
The building’s front wall has been boarded and painted, steel fencing has been removed and windows are to be installed.
It is understood the property sold for just over $500,000.
Townsville City Council voted to enact a local law – Local Law No 8 (Unsightly Buildings) 2020 – in January, giving it powers to force building owners to clean up their properties.
Mayor Jenny Hill said this particular building had been a blight on the Flinders Street West precinct.
“Council received numerous complaints from the community about the state of the building,” Cr Hill said.
“I encourage the new owners to invest in our city and clean up the site.
“Owners of other unsightly buildings in the CBD are on notice.”
The new local laws include penalties of up to $26,900 for not complying with a compliance notice, while the council also has power to recover the cost of work where a building owner has not complied with local law.