SURFERS NO LONGER A PARADISE
All the top acts and attention focused on Broadbeach leaves one thing for Surfers Paradise ...
IT’S time we bulldozed Surfers Paradise’s CBD and started again. While we’re at it, can we reschedule all the major events planned for Surfers Paradise – except for Schoolies – and have them in Broadbeach?
It’s already happening. The international premiere of the Hollywood movie, Elvis, will be held next week at Pacific Fair, Broadbeach.
The biggest night in Australian TV, the annual Logies, will be held a few weeks later at the Convention Centre, which just happens to be in … yep, Broadbeach.
The Bluesfest last week was in … Broadbeach. The convention centre will host big acts including comedian Chris Rock later in the year. Far enough away from Surfers Paradise to ensure he doesn’t get mugged, or slapped around again. Aussie surf titles. Broadbeach.
The only big event now being held each year in Surfers Paradise is Schoolies, which just cements its reputation as the sleaze capital of Queensland.
Having lived most of my adult life on the Gold Coast, I’m just going to come out and say it – I’m ashamed of Surfers Paradise.
In a city which is the envy of the world for its lifestyle and liveability, Surfers Paradise
Surfers Paradise around Cavill Mall and Orchid Avenue is more akin to a Yemen travel brochure than a bustling, bright Australian tourism haven
has become a national disgrace. It is a dark stain on a city that needs all the help it can get after the perils of the pandemic. It would have to be the greatest disappointment of our lifetime, a cesspit of crime, inhabited by drunks and stoners.
It is ugly, uninviting and a blight on our tourism industry. Cavill Avenue is a joke. Now, to be clear, the Gold Coast City Council has much to be proud of, particularly in the past 20 years.
It has managed rapid growth to make this a wonderful place to live and play. When it comes to urban planning, it gets a nine out of 10. But somewhere along the way, it has abandoned Surfers Paradise. Sure, it has done up the foreshore and made the beaches look pretty.
Sure, it has overseen the construction of some nice hotels and the light rail.
But the heart of Surfers Paradise around Cavill Mall and Orchid Avenue is more akin to a Yemen travel brochure than a bustling, bright Australian tourism haven. It’s a good, oldfashioned bomb site. Tourists must shake their head when they go for a stroll down the main drag. If we want to compete with Dubai, Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti and the Maldives, we can’t be serving up that rubbish. When the International Olympic Committee bosses recently inspected Brisbane and the Gold Coast’s 2032 venues, they looked at Broadbeach,
Carrara and Southport.
Drivers of their vehicles were told to keep moving through Surfers Paradise, and go nowhere near Cavill Avenue.
In 2015, when the Council of South-east Mayors started to get fair dinkum about a 2032 Olympic bid, the proposal gained extra momentum when the post-games legacy piece was trumpeted. It was all about accelerating the funding for big infrastructure projects like a second M1 between the Gold Coast and Brisbane, heavy rail to the Sunshine Coast from Brisbane and six lanes of the Bruce Highway.
Anybody who has travelled the Gold Coast-brisbane M1 recently will attest to the need
for a second M1. It is absolutely necessary before the Games, otherwise we run the risk of total gridlock. But now it is time to link the Gold Coast’s 2032 Games expansion to the total makeover of Surfers Paradise. You can’t have the most well-recognised tourism hotspot in the country – Surfers Paradise – offering up a main street that looks like a war-torn enclave. It needs to be bulldozed, and we need to start again. A blank canvas is the only option. Let’s transform Surfers Paradise into the jewel in the city’s crown. Why should Broadbeach have all the fun?
Maybe – just maybe – we might get the Logies there one day.