Future Cairns: How an FNQ Office of the Pacific can create stronger bilateral links

The closest capital city to Cairns isn’t Brisbane, but Port Moresby, and it’s high time our region turns its attention north.

Future Cairns 2024: A bold vision for the region’s future.

The closest capital city to Cairns isn’t Brisbane, but Port Moresby, and it’s high time our region turned its attention north, say key business advocates.

A major part of establishing Cairns as the gateway to the Pacific would be an Office of the Pacific presence here, stakeholders including Advance Cairns and Cairns Chamber of Commerce say.

Advance Cairns chief executive Jacinta Reddan said it made “perfect and very logical sense” to have the OTP’s operational staff – those that regularly travel between Australia and Pacific countries – based in Cairns rather than Canberra.

“Not only from the point of view that they would be so much closer in flying time, but they would also be embedded then in a community which already has a very deep understanding and close engagement with the Pacific, and particularly with Papua New Guinea,” Ms Reddan said.

“Cairns has the highest population of people from PNG outside Port Moresby.

“Our closest capital city is Port Moresby, and not Brisbane.

“The ambition that we have for the region is that we pivot to the north and that we no longer measure ourselves against what’s happening in the south.”

An OTP presence in Cairns would build on longstanding ties that stretch back hundreds of years, Ms Reddan said.

Advance Cairns chief executive Jacinta Reddan. Picture: Brendan Radke

“For centuries Indigenous people have been trading across the Pacific to our north and the city already has very deep ties through our general aviation precinct, through tourism, through education,” she said.

“We have the Defence presence here as well with HMAS Cairns, we have naval vessels here, we have the education and training ties with the Pacific as well with the Pacific patrol boat crew being trained at the Great Barrier Reef International Marine College that TAFE operates.

“We have a large population, a large diaspora of people from the Pacific living here, which makes the city such a dynamic and multicultural place to live.”

Cairns MP Michael Healy. Picture: Liam Kidston

Cairns MP Michael Healy, who also supports the relocation of OTP operational staff to Cairns, said he had made contact with a number of federal ministers over the matter but was not aware of any plans to act on those calls.

“It makes sense that the feds invest in having assets in Cairns so we can engage more efficiently, more effectively. Going all the way to Canberra is not efficient,” he said.

“PNG have a consulate here, we have a Japanese consulate here – there is already existing infrastructure in place.

“It’s so obvious and I’d really love to see it happen, I think it needs to happen.”

Cairns Chamber of Commerce chief executive Patricia O’Neill said mutually beneficial ties with the Pacific were “critically important”, with increased trade slated to brings benefits to the whole supply chain, including smaller businesses.

“Building relationships with organisations who will be trading between Australia and around the Pacific will result in calling on small and medium enterprise within our region to adequately supply goods and services to these large organisations,” she said.

Cairns Chamber of Commerce chief executive Patricia O'Neill. Picture: Brendan Radke

Produce from the Tablelands was in high demand across the Asia-Pacific, Ms O’Neill said.

“We are known as the food bowl of northern Australia … that really consolidates the need for that wide-bodied plane travelling in and out of Cairns Airport, which we’ve just been fortunate enough to get this year through Singapore Airlines.

“That may actually catapult other carriers like Cathay Pacific for example to also look at Cairns Airport as being advantageous to transport goods and services up through the link to Hong Kong.

“I think the most important thing for us now is to ensure that we consolidate and make financially viable the airlines that we’ve got currently servicing the Pacific.”

Queensland is the only Australian state to have a trade commissioner appointed to work with the Pacific region, with Leata Alaimoana becoming the first to take on the maiden role in March last year.

Leata Alaimoana is the Queensland Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner – Pacific. Picture: Trade and Investment Queensland

While based in Brisbane’s Trade and Investment Queensland team, Ms Alaimoana said Cairns was a really important region in the state’s trade strategy.

“There’s shared values and connections in terms of people to people (in Cairns) and that’s really important,” she said.

“It’s not just transactional, it’s really those deep relationships. People to people (links) are really important and the commercial outcomes come from that.

“It’s fantastic to see Cairns build on the work they’ve been doing … we know that there’s goals and aspirations to get a (flight) route going between Cairns and Fiji, making further connections.”

Ms Alaimoana said some of the key industries that have stood to benefit from close Queensland-Pacific trade include food and agriculture, infrastructure and renewable energies.

“There’s lots of benefits on both sides, not just for Queensland but also in the Pacific Islands in terms of shifting the dial and creating more economic development as well as capacity building,” she said.

“We’re coming up with ways to help combat things like climate change or helping each other build climate resilience.

“We’ve seen some really awesome win-win situations, where we get the ginger coming out of Fiji, it comes to Queensland and gets value-added and then gets exported out to the world.”

Originally published as Future Cairns: How an FNQ Office of the Pacific can create stronger bilateral links