Spit master plan can work - but only if we do this one thing first

There’s a lot to like about the draft master plan for The Spit. But one major thing must be done before most of it can go ahead, writes Keith Woods

WE’VE all been there. You have a meeting, you need to get to work on time. Everything goes wrong.

The dog throws up in the lounge room. The garage door won’t open. You can’t find your keys.

Delay after delay. But oh, if only you can get a good run of lights, maybe you will only be ever so slightly late and can blame it all on terrible traffic.

And then it happens, the day dreamer, the idler, pulls out in front of you. They amble along at 40km/h in a 60 zone, slowly pull up at the first hint of an orange (you just know they’re going to manage to catch them all), and pull away with all the urgency of a condemned prisoner heading for the gallows when the signal finally goes green.

For all that, they’re still clearly far better than the leadfoots. As irritating as such drivers can be, they are almost guaranteed to arrive safely at their destination. You could never crash and burn at that speed.

So it is with the Palaszczuk Government.

Decisions are made slowly and haltingly at best, but as agonising as the wait can be, they do sometimes at least manage to arrive at the right destination.

When the Premier announces a 12-24 month consultation process, even to decide on something that seems blindingly obvious to most, this is actually an indication that there is some kind of pulse, however feeble, within this Government.

Lois Levy from Gecko, member for Gaven Meghan Scanlon, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, State Development Minister Cameron Dick, Council Planning Committee Chair Cameron Caldwell, Village Road Show CEO Clark Kirby and Friends of Federation Walk President Lyn Wright at the Spit Master plan announcement.

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The announcement this week regarding the future of The Spit is an excellent case in point. By and large, the draft plan presented is a good one. It represents a sensible compromise. For sure, it is hard to believe it has taken so long to produce something so far from radical, but we should welcome it nonetheless.

Much of what is proposed, such as the superyacht marina and ferry terminal, is an inevitable response to clear demand.

The decision to back an underwater dive site is more notable, given that it represents the first time in its four years in office that this Government has really got behind a genuinely new tourist attraction on the Coast.

We must hope the commitment is quickly backed by funds from the state’s Tourism Infrastructure Fund. All the indications from Tourism Minister Kate Jones are that this will indeed be the case.

The proposal to allow new low-rise tourist resorts south of Sea World will also give the industry a welcome boost.

But as ever, we must be wary of the devil in the detail.

The proposed new play area.

The ‘flexible events space’.

Less remarked upon is the fact that the plans also include provision for a “nature play area’’ and an adjoining “flexible event space’’. While there can never be enough such facilities in this rapidly growing city, it looks remarkably like a duplication of what is already available at the Broadwater Parklands just across the water. To criticism that a second casino at Carey Park would up-end the family-friendly Parklands, the Government now has a neat potential response.

A happy coincidence? Only if you don’t believe that delivering yet more gambling revenue into state coffers is not very dear to the heart of this government. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made a point of noting in her press conference on Monday that the area covered by the Spit master plan is eight times that of South Bank, which is to Brisbane what the Broadwater Parklands is to the Gold Coast.

Expect to hear much more of the same if Carey Park, as widely expected, is ultimately the site chosen to host a Hard Rock-style pokie palace.

Carey Park in Southport, which is rumoured to be the site most likely to host a second casino. Picture: Glenn Hampson

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This master plan also paves the way for an equally controversial proposal, one that would do far more for tourism than yet another gambling hall. Provision is made for a cruise ship terminal, though given this Government’s aversion to tough calls, the issue is inevitably fudged. There is an abundance of amateur maritime engineers out there saying the proposed terminal at Philip Park is not viable for all manner of reasons.

I’ve no intention of joining them. I’d rather leave that call to professional maritime engineers, and if they say it’s feasible, then it should be full steam ahead.

My one major concern – as with most people – was the implication for traffic in the area. It seemed to me nuts to build a terminal at such a distance from the heart of the city in Surfers and Broadbeach, where tourists would want to go.

On busy days it takes half an hour just to get off The Spit by car. Just imagine throwing a convoy of tourist buses into the mix.

How the draft Spit master plan envisages a cruise ship terminal would look at Philip Park.

Done properly, the proposed light rail line has the capacity to solve that issue. In fact, the light rail is at the very heart of making this master plan work. Before a single shovel hits the ground on any other improvements that are likely to attract more people into the area, that rail line and the proposed road improvements need to be completed.

Too often on the Gold Coast it’s a case of development first, infrastructure second. But with The Spit, there is quite obviously an opportunity to do things the other way around.

The Government should move at a pace not normally associated with it to get that line built.

Someone recently remarked that the trouble with Campbell Newman was he tried to do too much too quickly. Nobody will ever accuse his successor of that particular failing.

But if this Spit master plan is to have any real meaning, the Government should let its hair down just a little, locate the pedal to the right of the brake, and for once flirt with the speed limit.

The city has been waiting far too long for the future of The Spit to be resolved. Frustration has been rising in the meantime. Now that the destination is finally in sight, let’s get there as quickly as we can.