For the people of Far North Queensland, this report is a report card on a decade of lost opportunity under the former Labor government, because there is perhaps nowhere in Queensland with greater potential for ecotourism than Far North Queensland.
We have the Great Barrier Reef, the Wet Tropics, some of the oldest rainforests on earth, extraordinary
national parks, landscapes and culture that people travel from around the world to experience. Tourism
is not something that happens on the margins of our economy in Far North Queensland; it supports local businesses, local jobs and livelihoods right across our region. So when a government gets ecotourism wrong, Far North Queensland pays the price. This report lays bare what happened under Labor.
The Queensland Audit Office found the state’s success in developing ecotourism had been limited. It found lengthy, complex and costly approval processes. It found vague and poorly defined processes for identifying and planning opportunities. Despite all of the natural advantages our state possesses, the Audit Office found that since 2013 just three ecotourism facilities in national parks had been approved across the entire state, with another two in development. Think about that from the perspective of someone living in Cairns. We sit on the doorstep of two World Heritage areas.
We know that people want to go there, we know that they want to experience our natural environment, and we know that those experiences can support jobs, small businesses and communities while protecting what makes our region special, yet for years the system simply was not delivering, and that is a story this report tells.
For Far North Queensland, it is a report card on opportunities squandered under the former Labor government. My community cannot afford another decade of talking about potential. It needs a government prepared to take that potential and turn it into opportunity. From the outset, the Premier made a deliberate decision to change the way the government thinks about ecotourism. We brought tourism and environment together in the same portfolio because we do not accept the old argument that protecting our environment and allowing people to experience it must somehow be in conflict.
We can do both.
We can protect the extraordinary places that make Far North Queensland special, and we can create a carefully managed experience that allows people to see them, understand them and appreciate why they are worth protecting. That is why we moved to put in place our 45 by 45 ecotourism policy—45 new ecotourism experiences by 2045. It is a clear ambition to get Queensland’s ecotourism moving, to create new reasons for people to visit, to support regional jobs and businesses, and to turn potential into experiences.
We are already seeing the green shoots of what happens when you have a government with the
right priorities for Far North Queensland. Look at Wangetti Trail. This is a 94-kilometre vision to create a world-class walking and mountain-biking trail connecting Palm Cove and Port Douglas. It should be one of the great ecotourism experiences of Far North Queensland, but under the former Labor government the project became synonymous with delays, cost increases and lost community confidence. Just 7.8 kilometres of trail between Palm Cove and Ellis Beach was delivered, at an extraordinary cost of $22.5 million.
We changed the way the project was being delivered. We put Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service in charge. We moved the project out of Brisbane and put it where it belongs—in Cairns—because we knew that we needed people who could work directly with the community and were accountable for getting this project moving, and look at the momentum now. Twin Bridges has reopened and planning has progressed, and we are now getting on with the next 22-kilombetre section between Ellis Beach and Wangetti.
The Crisafulli government has committed $31.2 million in this year’s budget to keep Wangetti moving. Importantly, we appointed Cairns-based World Trail to deliver the next section. That is local expertise, local knowledge and people based in Far North Queensland delivering a project for the Far North.
This is what changing priorities looks like. It is putting decision-makers closer to the community.
It is listening to locals. It is backing local expertise. Most importantly, it is getting things moving Wangetti matters because it shows what is possible, but it is not happening in isolation. We are also investing $15.5 million to transform Smithfield Mountain Bike Park, growing its trail network to more than 85 kilometres by 2028. This is another world-class adventure experience and another reason to visit Cairns. The lesson from this Audit Office report is not that Queensland lacks ecotourism potential; it is quite the opposite. The potential is extraordinary. The failure was Labor letting ideology block opportunity.
