Cheap flights and accommodation on offer as QLD Premier looks to get tourists visiting the state’s north

Queensland Premier Steven Miles announces tourism support package to encourage Aussies to return to the state’s far north three weeks after Cyclone Jasper tore through the region

ADF help clean-up the Gold Coast hinterland suburb of Wongawallan after the Christmas storms. Picture: Adam Head

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has announced a tourism support package to encourage Australians to return to the state’s north, three weeks on from Tropical Cyclone Jasper.

Mr Miles said while in some regional communities like Wujal Wujal, “utter devastation” continues, Queensland’s far north is open and ready for visitors.

“Up here in Cairns and much of the states far north, it is business as usual, businesses are open. Unfortunately there’s not the number of visitors here that we’re used to,” he told the ABC on Friday morning.

“This is peak tourism season and that’s why our focus today, our announcement today is on getting more visitors here to Cairns and the state’s far north.”

Mr Miles said the state government has partnered with Qantas and Jetstar to offer Australians discounted airfares and accommodation to help boost far north Queensland’s economy and bring visitors back to the regions most popular sites such as the Great Barrier Reef, The Daintree Rainforest and the Kuranda Sky Rail.

Mr Miles added that the support package is all about “supporting those fellow Australians who count on visitors for their livelihoods”, amid millions of dollars worth of booking cancellations following Cyclone Jasper.

“We saw $125 million worth of bookings cancelled just in that first few days as those photos of the flooding went viral around the world and so we really need to get the message out, to Australians first and around the world, that Cairns and the far north is open for business,” he said.

As ADF personnel continue to aid energy workers reconnect power to homes and reinstall vital energy infrastructure in the state’s southeast, Mr Miles said powerlines had to be made safe before the clean up could begin.

“We’ve really never seen an interruption to power supply in such a highly populated area, there was something like 1,000 power lines down and we really needed to make those safe before we could even get into clean up the debris and then get new power lines installed,” he said.

“We’ve got 1,000 energy workers on the ground everyday, reconnecting people and they’ve done a fantastic job.”

Mr Miles said around 95 per cent of homes had their power reconnected on Thursday and plans remain to have most homes reconnected by Friday.

The Premier was also quizzed on his decision to take a short holiday three weeks on from Cyclone Jasper, defending his one night stay in a Queensland caravan park.

“In the end it was one day, I don’t think many people would call that a holiday. It’s been more than three weeks since Tropical Cyclone Jasper crossed the Queensland coast and I’ve been working every single day to support our disaster response and recovery efforts,” he said.

“Some people might want to play politics with these experiences but at the end of the day it’s real Queenslanders who need our support and that’s precisely what I’ve been delivering.

“I spent one day in a caravan park with my family. At the end of the day if we want to have leaders who have families, I think we need to understand that they need to spend a little bit of time with them as well.”

The slow clean-up of Queensland’s storm-ravaged southeast could be delayed further with more wet weather forecast on Friday as frustrated residents call for more manpower to speed up recovery efforts.

Thirty Australian Defence Force troops were deployed to storm ravaged parts of the Gold Coast on Thursday to clear fallen trees so power can be restored to more than 6000 homes and businesses blacked out in Christmas storms. Another 20 troops were due to be sent out on Friday.

Brenda Ashley, who owns the FoodWorks supermarket at Mount Tamborine, said at least 300 troops should have been sent to her town alone. “I don’t know why they only have 50, it’s not going to help Mount Tamborine today,” she told The Australian.

Ms Ashley, who runs the family business with her husband Michael, said they had suffered more than $25,000 in damages, and insurance would only cover $10,000.

She said elderly residents were lining up for hours to find support, just to be turned around.

“There’s a community centre where people can apply for grants, but there’s no information given. You line up for three and a half hours, and then they say you need your driver’s licence, Medicare card, healthcare card …”

Robbie Seymour, who owns Fit Baby Boomers gym at Helensvale, said that some suburbs on the Gold Coast remain “untouched”.

“They’re only bringing 50 troops down here but it’s like a war zone,” he said. “There should definitely be more troops sent here because there’s a lot of trees on the road and downed power lines. It seems higher end suburbs have been cleaned up while lower end suburbs haven’t been touched.”

State disaster co-ordinator Shane Chelpey defended the slow clean up, saying the destruction of 800 power lines had made recovery more “complex”.

“We had clean-up crews ready to go, but they can’t go in and start removing trees while there are live power lines, or energised power lines, laying among them,” he said.

“So we actually had to wait for the energy clean-up pros to be able to make those areas safe.”

Premier Steven Miles said most people should have power restored by the weekend, but looming storms could delay work.

“Our energy crews are working just as hard as they can to meet that time frame of reconnecting power by (Friday) but these storms could delay the last vital jobs there,” he said.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Angus Hines warned there were potential storms on Friday in areas in southeast Queensland and northern NSW already recovering from wild weather.

The threat of more rain came as Mr Miles defended his decision to take a holiday during the state’s flood recovery, after criticising Scott Morrison for travelling to Hawaii during the 2019 bushfires.

Mr Miles said he had been in “constant contact” with his team and that “good leaders spend some time with their family”.

The father-of-three declared his family holiday at a Sunshine Coast caravan park, was “a bit different” than Mr Morrison’s secretive trip to Hawaii while bushfires burned across Australia.

“Being here in Queensland, where the storms were, meant I could return at an hour’s notice, as I did,” he said.

Arriving back from leave on Thursday, he was due to travel to the Gold Coast to inspect homes devastated by a freak tornado on Christmas night before flying to Cairns to visit communities ravaged by floods last month.