Cairns Regional Council publish state government funding figures, Cairns ‘lowest of any region outside SEQ’

Analysis by the Cairns Regional Council revealed Cairns as one of the least desirable regions for state government investment, but at least one Far North MP firmly disagrees.

Division 9 councillor Brett Olds is not happy about the “lack” of state government investment in the Far North. Picture: File photos

The Far North has been described as the state government’s “red-headed stepchild” after Cairns Regional Council documents revealed chronic funding shortfalls.

According to the council’s analysis, Cairns sat seventh on a list of 10 Queensland regions by state government capital expenditure, per capita, since the 2014/15 financial year.

The documents showed Cairns consistently trailed behind similar sized regions such as Townsville, Toowoomba and Central Queensland for the past decade.

Cairns Regional Council Division 9 councillor Brett Olds said the state government’s “lack of funding” had directly impacted on the council’s decision to raise rates.

“The whole region, Cairns especially, is absolutely treated like a red-headed stepchild,” Mr Olds said.

“The state government continually tells us we need to charge our residents more rates and ask less from the government. We get ‘you can pay for this yourself’ type of statements,” Mr Olds said.

Cairns mayor Bob Manning said the state government had some funding ground to make up in the Far North. Picture: Isaac McCarthy

“Most residents don’t understand this because our council has not done a good enough job at getting this information out to them … for fear of getting even less from the State. It has long frustrated me.”

According to the council report, the Cairns SA4 statistical region received about $1.23bn capital expenditure in the State’s 2023/24 budget – when calculated per capita, the region was the fifth-best funded after Outback Queensland, Central Queensland, Wide Bay and Townsville.

Over 10 years, Mackay and Toowoomba have received more per-capita funding as well.

Per-capita funding in the Cairns region did increase, however, by 32 per cent from the 2022/23 FY State budget.

Cairns’ mayor Bob Manning welcomed the increase but called for more.

Traffic queues at the bottom of the Kuranda Range Road, a section of the Kennedy Highway local governments have said requires immediate investment from the state government. Picture: Brendan Radke

“When you look over the past decade, our region still has the lowest per-capita investment from the state government of any region outside South East Queensland,” Mr Manning said.

“All we want is for Cairns to get its fair share.

“To address this gap and to secure further State investment in critical infrastructure, we will continue to work collaboratively with our local members, especially in the lead-up to the 2024 State election.”

In his report, the council’s director of economic development Nick Masasso said the per-capita numbers still did not account for the Cairns region’s large visitor population.

“Had this visitor population been included in the analysis, the already significant gap

between the Cairns region per-capita spend and that of other regions over the past 10

years would be even wider,” Mr Masasso stated.

Cairns MP Michael Healy said the council’s comparison was not constructive as they had not identified specific projects that lacked funding.

Mr Healy said the state government had responded to the council’s past advocacy priorities, citing the region’s Water Security Stage 1 project – which the State backed with a $107.5m commitment – as a chief example.

Mr Healy said Mr Manning had recently sent him an email that offered the council’s gratitude after the recent 32 per cent capital investment increase for the Cairns region.

“You can’t say ‘we didn’t get enough’ without actually identifying which projects specifically missed out,” Mr Healy said.

“When you do comparisons, there are always going to be parties who received greater and lesser amounts.

“The reality is we’ve invested unprecedented amounts in this region.

“There has been significant investment in job creation while also investing in this city’s schools, hospitals, roads, marine precinct, aviation industry and convention centre.”

Originally published as Cairns Regional Council publish state government funding figures, Cairns ‘lowest of any region outside SEQ’