No crucial funding

Federal Budget: Opposition critical of spending, and taxes

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Far North

| Nick Dalton

THE Cairns region has missed out on key infrastructure funding in the 2023-24 Federal Budget with new taxes expected to increase costs for residents and businesses, according to Federal Member for Leichhardt Warren Entsch.

“Labor’s new farming tax and their truckies tax is only going to grow these pressures, particularly for regional communities,” Mr Entsch said. “This is only going to translate to more expensive trips to the supermarket.”

He said there were no allocated funds for the marine precinct nor for an alternative route to the Tablelands.

“They didn’t allocate the $24 million needed to finish the marine precinct, it’s the last tranche in order to get it to completion, and they haven’t stepped up to do it,” he said.

“We’ve seen the Queensland Government in recent days commit to half of that money, but they need to convince the Federal Treasurer to commit to the other half.

“There is no money to identify an alternative for the current route, which means it’s another year of kicking the can down the road.

“It’s clearly obvious the Kuranda Range will never meet the needs of heavy transport.”

On tourism, Mr Entsch welcomed the Labor government honouring the $15m for Tourism Tropical North Queensland that he secured in the previous government but criticised Labor’s increase to the passenger movement charge.

Mr Entsch said Labor had cut the successful The Young Entrepreneurs Project, which was supposed to be a further two year contract, with just two months’ notice.

Northern Australia Opposition spokeswoman Senator Susan McDonald said the Budget cut northern water projects, lacking clarity in northern roads funding, and buried spending on flood recovery for Gulf of Carpentaria, Kimberley and NT communities. “In this Budget,

Northern Australia has at best, been insulted, or at worst, forgotten.” she said.

“For example, Labor’s regional spending paper from this Budget runs to just 87 pages – the Coalition’s last regional Budget paper ran to more than 300 pages.

“All this Labor government has done is steal future jobs, prosperity and hope from Northern Australia by cutting the $5.4 billion Hells Gates Dam, the Urannah Dam and the

Hughenden Irrigation Project.

“In this Budget the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority has been abolished, meaning decisions about water in Northern Australia will now be made in a department building in Canberra 2000km away.”

After the Coalition boosted northern roads funding by more than a billion dollars, Senator McDonald said the lack of detail on Labor’s road spend was concerning.

Lobby group pleased l FAR NORTH

FAR North Queensland’s independent economic development and advocacy organisation Advance Cairns has welcomed the confirmation of additional $30 million in funding for the critical Cairns marine precinct Common User Facility (CUF), part of a suite of measures contained in the Federal Government’s Budget last week.

Chief executive officer Jacinta Reddan welcomed confirmation of a total $180m for the CUF over the next five years, with CQUniversity’s Cairns CBD campus to receive $50m over the next four years.

“Importantly, given the CUF is jointly funded by Federal and Queensland governments, we would expect to see this new money matched by the state, bringing to $360m total funds earmarked for what is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the region,” she said.

“In committing these funds, the government said this would see the delivery of a ship-lift and work areas and support the region’s forecast increase in demand for marine-related services, and would further diversify the economy.

“We are particularly pleased to see this forecast to flow from next year. This comes on the heels of an announcement by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of $39m towards early works for the CUF,” Ms Reddan said.

Advance Cairns also welcomed the boost to Medicare where GP bulk-billing incentives tripled for families with young children, pensioners and concession cardholders. Chairman Nick Trompf said this would have a significant impact in the Far North.