Cairns’ division 2 to be a fierce contest with at least five candidates Election battleground

l SOUTHERN CORRIDOR

| Nick Dalton

CAIRNS Regional Council’s division 2 is fast becoming one of the hotly-contested seats in next year’s local government elections.

With incumbent councillor Rob Pyne departing with his eyes on central city division 5, the southern corridor location has at least five contenders: high school teacher Steve Lippingwell, businessman Matthew Tickner and former councillor John Schilling as well as candidates expected from mayoral hopeful Terry James’ Unity team and second mayoral contender Amy Eden’s team.

Mr Schilling lost the division in 2020 to Cr Pyne (4014 to 4428) but is keen to return.

“I enjoyed it. I think I did a good job. It was a real sense of achievement,” he said.

“Prior to me they had nothing apart from Sugarworld.”

Now the division had Petersen Park which doubled sporting fields from two to four, he said.

But Mr Schilling said there were other projects that had been pushed aside such as the $12-$13 million Edmonton pool (replaced by the Esplanade dining precinct upgrade during COVID) which he said he had arranged the finance for, a full upgrade of Southside Gymnas- tics Club, a $1m commitment from South Cairns AFL towards upgrading Tom Murray Park after the council had built a car park and changing and storage rooms, as well as a rugby union club proposed at Fuller Park.

“These things need to be pushed back in front of the council. They have been forgotten,” he said.

Mr Schilling said he was standing as an independent, not part of the Unity team which he was previously.

Mr Tickner is a south Cairns resident, raising a family with his wife Pippa and their two- year-old son Winston. He operates a civil engineering design business Progression Design and Development.

Mr Tickner said as a current vice-president and advocacy sub-committee chairman of the Cairns Chamber of Commerce, he knew what it took to “advocate for his community and put into action the initiatives which drive results”.

“The local community has been told time and time again by representatives that the south of Cairns has continued to be overlooked and they will resolve the issues we face. Noth-

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