The word used to be "WHEN" now it's "IF"

When the Aquis project first surfaced business owners, Politicians, Chamber of Commerce and Councillors all were shouting from the highest building that when it gets started and now some politicians are saying "IF" it gets started.

The positivity seems to have waned in some circles and it's not hard to understand why, the community consultation has been virtually zero but the Fungs and the consultants (Flanagans) met with the business people including the Chamber of Commerce and council and had the whole project explained to them.

Why not the same for the residents? We are the ones that are going to have this project built within our community and one could quite safely say that rates will go sky high and people will suffer one way or another.

It was interesting to note that when this project surfaced back in 2012 the developers were going to upgrade the roads to four lanes, build a new road from the resort to Caravonica and also talking about about building overpasses at Caravonica, this will never happen within years to come.

With the latest design which looks like something from a fairyland tale the developers have said that they wanted roads upgraded and even a 4 lane road from Caravonica to Freshwater but will only assist with a proportion of the cost, so if the council decides to upgrade anything significantly you can be assured that your rates will sky rocket.

The Cairns regional Council held a closed meeting to discuss the EIS, why a closed meeting this concerns all ratepayers and the residents voted their particular representatives to represent them at council meetings not to hide behind closed doors and then “gag” councillors from speaking outside of the meeting room of what transpired.

It was interesting to hear the Member for Cairns speaking to talk-back radio host John McKenzie today and saying that 99% of people he spoke to agreed with the Aquis project, pretty high percentage rate when no survey had been conducted so how do these people get these figures.
Most of the people talking to the pollies probably haven't even bothered to google the web to find out any information that is relevant to this project and if they had it may change their mind to some extent.

Professor Nott who spoke at the community meeting at JCU bought up some relevant points that should concern a lot of residents and the representative from the Co-ordinators General's office appeared to be quite surprised at what Professor Nott had to say and was noting down the comments which he would have reported back to the Co-ordinator General the next day.

It is hoped that the Co-Ordinated Generals office, State Government and Cairns Regional Council seriously consider concerns that have been raised and not let this project go ahead without all avenues being fully investigated.

Below is the discussion from today's talk-back program: