STATE, COUNCIL NEED TO BE ON ONE PAGE
OUR ratepayers are right to not have confidence about this city being left with a huge bill and planning chaos as Brisbane maps out the 2032 Olympic Games. The spotlight on Robina and preparations for the Olympic athletes village in a suburb under intense development pressure shows why the council and state government need to get on the same page, or at least sit at the same table soon.
Councillors were united at a planning committee meeting this week backing area representative Hermann Vorster, who fears the government will overdevelop the suburb.
He predicts “fierce resistance” from the government, with so much of the suburb owned by the Queensland Investment Corporation, a state development business arm.
A report to council shows Robina had 7200 residents in 2016. By 2050, it is expected to have a workforce of 40,000 and a population of 92,000.
The Olympic village will provide much-needed new housing, but a big concern is its impact on congested transport links to the M1.
The issue surfaced about eight months ago. Road upgrades planned five years ago were put on the backburner for more planning by council due to the state’s announcement of the village.
Officers were forced to rescope an upgrade of one of the city’s most dangerous intersections at Robina Town Centre and Laver Drive. Planned five years ago, it was fully funded in last June’s budget.
Costs for the $5.9m upgrade could skyrocket to more than $30m if the council is forced to consider a bridge across a railway intersection, councillors were told.
So Cr Vorster, furious about the delays, was backed in getting a separate investigation outlining the Olympic infrastructure costs and challenges in the lead-up to future government talks.
Since then there has been little talking to each other and much shouting from the sidelines. Mayor Tom Tate did not get a seat on the Olympics organising committee.
The Mayor recently told the Bulletin: “I am not inside the tent, but Gold Coasters know I am able to point out false things and I will be holding them (Games board) accountable. I will not be shy to point out some of the flaws in their decision and if that means worldwide news, the better because it will mean a result.”
The state needs to listen to the council. Community consultation in November will inform a draft plan for release next May.
Both levels of government must get Robina planning right.
1610
Francois Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic, assassinates France’s King Henry IV, who gave a measure of religious freedom to Protestants. 1796
English physician Edward Jenner gives the first successful smallpox vaccination to eight-year-old James Phipps, in Berkeley village, Gloucestershire.
1798
Preachers from the London Missionary Society, who were besieged by hostile natives in Tahiti, find refuge in Sydney, arriving aboard the leaky Nautilus. 1943
A Japanese submarine torpedoes the hospital ship Centaur off Cape Moreton, Queensland. It sinks in three minutes. It was en route to the war zone and carrying no patients. Only 64 of the 332 on board survive.
1955
The Warsaw Pact is signed by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union.
1964
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Egypt’s Gamal Nasser open the first stage of the $1 billion Aswan High Dam project in Egypt. 1973
Skylab, the first US space station, is launched at Cape Kennedy. Its solar energy panels fail to open, delaying the launch of its crew. 1986
Federal Treasurer Paul Keating warns on Sydney radio that large trade deficits could make Australia a ”banana republic’’. The dollar then plunges.
1987
Actor Rita Hayworth (pictured), 68, dies in New York. 1998
Singer Frank Sinatra dies aged 82.
1998
The last episode of the television situation comedy Seinfeld aired; ostensibly a show about nothing, it was a landmark of American popular culture.