Ongoing community concern that proceeds from the Cairns Airport sale will be spent outside of the region could be addressed by the Queensland Treasurer, through implementing a local advisory committee to counsel the Future Growth Fund, says Advance Cairns.

Despite reiterations from the Queensland Treasurer last week that sale proceeds from the Cairns Airport sale will be used exclusively for TNQ projects through the Future Growth Fund, concerns remain regarding this commitment and in particular its reliability if changes happen either within this Government or if there is a change of Government.

Advance Cairns CEO, Mr Ross Contarino said, “Feedback from the local business community suggests they are yet to be convinced by words alone from the government on this matter, despite our local State Members keeping this issue in the forefront of the Treasurer’s thinking”.

Advance Cairns considers that the Treasurer could go a long way towards allaying the concerns of Tropical North Queenslanders by utilising a section of the Future Growth Fund legislation, which provides for the formation of a local advisory committee to give the Future Growth Fund counsel on the best use of those funds.

The Treasurer also has the power under the legislation to issue a binding direction to the Fund that those monies must be spent in Tropical North Queensland.

“Confirming the issue of such a direction and setting up a local advisory committee will give the local community better confidence in and, some ownership of, the whole process” said Mr Contarino.

“The board of Advance Cairns still objects to the sale of the airport to finance the hospital projects but concedes the development of the Future Fund for upcoming regional projects as the best outcome for the current situation”, said Mr Contarino.

“We will be writing to the Treasurer outlining this recommendation for his consideration and will also be utilising the opportunity of the Cairns sitting of Parliament next month to discuss the proposal with the Treasurer personally and convince him that this is the best way forward”, Mr Contarino went on to say.

Recognising new trade opportunities and improving the region’s supply chain are some of the benefits anticipated from an Airfreight study commissioned by Advance Cairns in conjunction with the Department of Tourism, Regional Development and Industry.

Chief Executive Officer for Advance Cairns Ross Contarino said, “We are trying to gain a better perspective of the freight being sent out of our region, to ascertain where it is going, how it is getting there and if there is an opportunity of distributing more through the Cairns International Airport.”

The study is aimed at two major objectives, the first is to see if there are more opportunities to consolidate produce in the Tropical North Queensland region and reduce the amount of produce that is trucked down to Brisbane and sometimes back again to TNQ supermarkets. The second is to see if there is an opportunity to entice further airline operators to utilise Cairns International Airport by providing evidence of possible airfreight capacity.

“The project is a joint effort with not only ourselves and the State Department involved but we have support from the Regional Organisation of Councils, the Airfreight Council of Queensland and TTNQ”, said Mr Contarino.

“We have engaged a very well respected firm of Sydney based airline economists, Strategic Design and Development to undertake the work” stated Mr Contarino.

“We are anticipating the outcome of this research will be better transport solutions for local produce and increased capacity for airfreight, which makes our airport more attractive to some carriers” Mr Contarino explained.

Officers from Strategic Design and Development are in Cairns this week meeting with companies involved with the transport and sale of TNQ produce.

The reputation of Townsville as the economic capital of North Queensland is under scrutiny after figures taken from the 2006 census and extrapolated by local economist Bill Cummings show Tropical North Queensland has the bigger and stronger economy – which is predicted to grow at a faster rate than our northern neighbors.

CEO of Advance Cairns Ross Contarino said that he was pleasantly surprised at the strength of our local economy at it compared with other Northern regions.

“Having moved here from Townsville, it was easy to believe the constant rhetoric that the Townsville region was the North’s real powerhouse but after perusing the information extracted from the 2006 census by Bill Cummings, I think all the hype might have been just that” said Mr Contarino.

The figures show that at 265,000 the population of the Tropical North Queensland region is clearly the largest population centre in Northern Australia – eclipsing both Townsville and Darwin. More importantly, it will continue to grow at a higher rate than the other northern centres and by 2026 our population is predicted to grow by up to 20% more than that of the Townsville region.

“The number of people in the workforce was also well ahead of the other northern centres, which is unexpected considering Townsville’s high military and government staff numbers”, explained Mr Contarino.

He went on to say, “this is also equally true regarding business enterprise numbers where our region has nearly 50% more businesses than our counterparts in the Townsville Region”.

“There is also good news regarding the construction industry, where TNQ significantly leads Northern Australia in both building approvals and construction jobs”.

“We don’t have everything going our way, we trail behind the North Queensland region in mining employment but we do have significantly more jobs in the retail sector”, Mr Contarino said.

“It is a different story in agriculture where our gross agricultural production is the highest of all the Northern Regions and the amount of employment in this sector clearly outstrips them as well”.

“Regarding Tourism, of course we all knew that our visitor numbers would be the highest but it is interesting to see that our visitors outnumber both the Townsville and Mackay/Whitsunday numbers combined”.

“Whilst we lag behind some of the other regions in numbers of jobs in the manufacturing segment, we unmistakably lead the others in the Finance, Insurance, Property and Professional Business sectors and we have 25% more manufacturing businesses than Townsville region and almost double that of Darwin. We are the stand out leaders in employment figures in people involved in the Creative Industries” Mr Contarino went on to say.

“For many years there has been a perception in Queensland that the Tropical North is only good for a holiday, but the figures tell us this region is brimming with employment and investment opportunities. In a national sense, Tropical North Queensland’s economy is very strong and looks set to be a leader in Australia’s north”, Mr Contarino said.