Gold Coast cableway: Latest on controversial Hinterland proposal and approvals

A meeting between Mayor Tom Tate and the state government over the controversial Hinterland cableway project has revealed something which would turn the proposal’s future on its head.

Federal government approval of the controversial Gold Coast Hinterland cableway may not be needed, Mayor Tom Tate has revealed.

Mr Tate met with state governments recently to discuss the project, which is in the early stages of planning and has not yet got a settled route.

The mayor said planning was progressing well and the project would be in the box seat to be fast-tracked if it was found environmental approvals from Canberra were unnecessary.

Mayor Tom Tate. Picture Glenn Hampson

“We are looking at all the environmental approvals first to make sure that we can tick all those boxes for the environmental impact statement and these things take time but there are no roadblocks,” he said.

“The next step will be updating the state government again and it looks like we potentially don’t need federal government approval, so if that is the case then I can speak with the premier and we can streamline it.

The project remains under investigation.

“I met with the state recently and I’ve got more homework to do in the next three months and we’ll have more precise routes then, so we’ll take that to council, have it endorsed and then take it to the state government, tourism minister and premier.”

However the idea of the project proceeded without federal government approval was ridiculed by Mudgeeraba councillor Glenn Tozer.

“The idea that a cableway traversing world heritage-listed biodiversity areas would not be subject to a federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) referral seems laughable,” he said.

“It is entirely appropriate for the federal government to assess such important environmental assets in our country.”

Premier David Crisafulli and Tourism Minister Andrew Powell both backed the project after being elected late last year.

“The cableway is exactly the kind of project that we want to work on with the City of Gold Coast and other partners around the state,” Mr Powell said at the time.

“I’ll be blunt, I’ll have to look back over the process and find out exactly what those roadblocks have been, look at the red and green tape which have held up projects like the cableway and then work our way through them so we can go to the proponents the Mayor’s talking about with the confidence to say, here is the project, we’re ready for you to invest, the approvals are all there.”

Councillors overwhelmingly voted last year to support continued investigation of the project