Greens leader slams Cairns port dredge plan and risks to Great Barrier Reef. UNITED STAND: Professor Sandra Harding, vice-chancellor of JCU, Bruna Harrison, the Australian representative for French jewellery artist Lea Stein, who designed the possum brooch, Professor William Laurance of JCU and Greens Leader Christine Milne in Cairns yesterday. Source: News Limited GREENS Leader Senator Christine Milne says it is completely unacceptable for more than four million cubic metres of dredge spoil from Trinity Inlet to be dumped within Great Barrier Reef waters. Ports North is seeking approval to expand and deepen Cairns’ shipping channel to accommodate larger cruise ships. The authority is proposing to remove 4.4 million cubic metres of dredge material from the inlet, to be deposited either at sea or on land.
Sites under consideration for dumping of the material include East Trinity, Admiralty island, on cane land in southern Cairns adjacent to the inlet, along the Esplanade and near the Cairns Airport. ANTI-DREDGING: Greens Leader Christine Milne. Economist says Cairns can cope with 90,000 in Aquis as it survived massive growth in the 80s too. VISION: An artist's impression of the main entrance of the $8.15 billion Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort at Yorkeys Knob. Source: Supplied CAIRNS has been tipped to ride any growth spurt generated by the proposed Aquis development. A Cairns economist says the city has coped before with the kind of growth the Aquis development will bring. Cairns economist Bill Cummings from Cummings Economics has had a long-time association with the city and told the Chamber of Commerce yesterday that an Aquis-type boom was not unprecedented. He produced figures showing the population of Cairns grew 57 per cent in 12 years between 1984 and 1996.
The boom added 40,000 more people to the city’s roll, leaving it with 110,000 people in total by the time it ended. It was sparked by the lengthening of the Cairns airport runway in 1984 to accommodate wide-body jets, followed by a sharp drop in the value of the dollar and the break-out of the Japanese tourist market in the early 1990s. Aquis: ‘A whole new paradigm‘ to finances and infrastructure Cairns would need to support it. VISION: An artist's impression of the main entrance of the $8.15 billion Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort at Yorkeys Knob. Source: Supplied CAIRNS Regional Council says its charges are still lower than other places, but the Aquis development would bring a “whole new paradigm” to its finances. The council yesterday released a study showing its total charges, including rates, are below those in Townsville, the newly de-amalgamated Douglas council area and the Cassowary Coast.
The report compared rates and utility charges across several council areas for a residential property paying the minimum rate; a residential property with the average Cairns valuation of $165,000; and a strata title property, (which is usually an apartment or townhouse), paying the minimum rate. Brisbane City Council and the Tablelands Regional Council were the only bodies looked at with lower charges than CRC across all three categories.
“But all negotiations don’t end up fairly,” he said. Property expert tips Cairns house prices to soar with or without Aquis mega-resort at Yorkeys Knob. GOING UP: An expert says propert prices in Cairns are likely to soar - with or without Aquis. Pic: Thinkstock. Source: Supplied A PROPERTY expert says history shows house prices are on the verge of a boom, with or without Aquis. Rick Carr, research director at property valuation and advisory group Herron Todd White says the Cairns market has seen increasing numbers of residential properties sold over the last three years, but that is still 40 per cent below the normal trend for the city. Prices have also risen 6 per cent over the last three years, but are still below their 2008 peak.
Mr Carr warned the Cairns Chamber of Commerce yesterday that this is likely as good as it’s going to get for buyers. “In the last recovery in the early 2000s it took three years of increasing volumes before prices started to substantially move. TIPPING A PROPERTY SURGE: Rick Carr, research director at property valuation and advisory group Herron Todd White. What do you think?
Cairns Convention Centre takes world title. GLOBAL ACCLAIM: The successful Australian Tourism Exchange helped put Cairns Convention Centre on the map. Source: News Corp Australia THE Cairns Convention Centre has been named the world’s best. It was declared the 2014 World’s Best Congress Centre at the annual General Assembly of the International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC) in Berlin in Germany.
The award is given every second year on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of centre performance following customer satisfaction surveys. Centre general manager Ross Steele, who accepted the award in Berlin, said it was “a fantastic honour and accolade for Cairns and the dedicated, hardworking AEG Ogden team that operates the venue”. “As the award is measured by client satisfaction, this ongoing endorsement of world class standards and consistent quality is outstanding recognition in the face of increasing competition,’’ he said.
The centre also won the award in 2004 and has consistently ranked highly in AIPC surveys since. Rising car parking problem in Cairns CBD could be improved without significant spending according to UDIA | Business News | Business and Finance News | HARD TO FIND A SPOT: Claudio Di Bartolomeo with his wife Floriana and son Marco paying for parking on Grafton Street. Picture: Brendan Francis Source: CairnsPost THE struggle to find a carpark in the CBD is a problem Claudio Di Bartolomeo and a growing number of Cairns residents would like to see fixed. And the push for better parking has received the backing of Australia's peak body for urban development, which will use a seminar this week to discuss how overhauling Cairns' parking policy could help revitalise the CBD.
During the forum held by the Urban Development Institute of Australia, guest speaker Steven Burgess, from planning consultants MRCagney, will argue one of the most significant improvements Cairns can make to its inner-city area is through its parking policy. Finding a parking space in the CBD is a headache Mr Di Bartolomeo tries to avoid, even if it means staying out of the city during peak times. Cairns residents stung by skyrocketing insurance premiums also support council's soaring costs. PRICEY: Cairns Mayor Bob Mannins said the price of insuring the council's assets had gone up by an average of about 20 per cent each year over the past seven years Source: CairnsPost Source: CairnsPost FAR Northerners stung by skyrocketing home insurance costs are also having to help cover their local council's soaring premiums which are forcing up rates and adding to the region's financial woes.
It will cost more than $1.5 million for Cairns Regional Council to insure its assets for the next year after its latest renewal notice showed a 12 per cent increase, with the yearly spikes taking their toll on ratepayers. It means the cost of insurance has risen by 75 per cent in the past three years as insurers continue to show little interest in offering cover to local government areas in North Queensland. "It's putting pressure on councils and it's putting pressure on people. "I think we get a bad rap in terms of the fact we live in a so-called cyclone area. " What do you think? Cardwell celebrates opening of revamped foreshore after Yasi destruction | Cairns Post. Sue Turner, of Tweed Heads, admires Cardwell's revitalised foreshore. Picture: Scott Radford-Chisholm Source: Townsville Bulletin AFTER more than two years of heartache, devastation and destruction, Cardwell residents were given the closure they had been waiting for.
What was once a skeleton of a town with demolished businesses and homes, scattered debris and broken lives after the harrowing winds of Tropical Cyclone Yasi tore Cardwell apart has transformed into one of the state's greatest assets. Hundreds of North Queenslanders celebrated a milestone they never thought possible when they took the first steps on the revitalised Cardwell Foreshore or sunk a line off the jetty for the first time since Yasi hit on February 2, 2011. A sense of overwhelming relief filled Cardwell on Saturday when hundreds of residents celebrated the foreshore's official opening and brought the town back to life with crab races, a fun run, an umbrella-decorating competition and a fishing contest.
Tourisim. Housing & Social. Telcos vow to extend Cairns signal cover. Job-hogging boomers don't know when to quit. Pany doubles workforce for $100m tungsten mine. NBN officially switched on for connection in Cairns.