Townsville did it so why cant we right? Their new terminal is fantastic and the Gold Coast is missing out! We keep hearing this from pro-terminal lobbyists and supporters on a daily basis and we are here today to put this one to bed. The new Townsville $85 million terminal is a complete dud, and it was just a ruse and a con to enable the developers to get hold of habourside land and spaces to develop. Heres the facts - our own investigations confirmed that the relatively narrow channel presented significant challenges for our cruise ships to navigate to the berth,” - P&O Spokesperson But Carnival were deadly quiet on the issue prior to and during construction, allowing the people of Townsville to proceed with the plans and arguably giving a false sense of support by not raising their concerns then. A whopping total of just 3 smaller cruise ships are scheduled for the 2015 season at the new terminal, down from an initial 8 ships in its first 12 months of operation. Why is this though? Its a simple question with an even simpler answer - the terminal was purpose-built to be obsolete. The channel and terminal position, the direction of the docks and the overall design and layout of the space meant that the largest cruise company in the world couldnt even bring any of the flagships there - townsvillebulletin.au/…/story-fnjfzs4b-12270… They still got their land and developments though, residential, commercial, you name it they scored it ... some great acquisitions of prime Barrier Reef Marine Park frontage for the private developers indeed! YES! The people were sold on a newspaper and propaganda campaign of gargantuan proportions, promises of passengers, wealth and riches, booms and benefits from the arriving tourists and expanding industry. Except in just a couple of short years its clear they wont be coming. This was planned obsolescence and the proponents knew it. This picture, just one of the many headline articles thrust upon the community by the Gold Coast Bulletins sister publication the Townsville Bulletin was loaded with such inviting and rich slogans and terms as, a big win, strengthen the local economy and of course, Out of this world. Now we fast forward to the present day and the reality is that the terminal is fast being lost into the abyss of obsolescence, with fewer and fewer ships coming, and perhaps the biggest blow, the outspoken claims from Carnival Cruise Lines that they wont risk their ships by attempting to go there. Lets compare the two - - Seaway - open to direct Pacific Ocean swell and seas, intense tidal currents and rapid infill - Townsville - no swell, no seas, limited currents - Seaway - requires constant large-scale dredging and the maintenance of a 3+km long and deep channel out to sea through a soft-sand dynamic tidal delta, through into the swell and open ocean - Townsville - low maintenance channel that has negligible infill and is in an already used shipping international channel, fully protected from swell by Great Barrier Reef The only thing in common is that both locations are exposed to stiff prevailing east and north east winds through summer with no wind breaks - which is one of the specific things cited by Carnival as being a problem for the Townsville terminal. So how is it that ASF are claiming 75 ships a year will be coming to the Gold Coast and into the seaway soon? They are clearly claiming a lie. The Townsville Bulletin predicted a cruise boom and pumped out dozens of articles with pretty pictures and predictive assertions of ship numbers, passengers and benefits. My how it turned out to be blatantly incorrect. Heres one of the dozens of cruise reports that resulted from the spin - news.cruise1st.au/…/queenslands-port-of-townsvi…/ Heres is the ACTUAL cruise ship data for Townsville, showing how much of a dud their cruise ship boom, that they were sold on, has turned out to be. This has nothing to do with the industry growing or number of ships in the seas, it simply has to do with the significant risk to the ships, and the fact that insurance companies WILL NOT insure massive cruise ships to attempt unsafe terminals where wind, tides, swells and narrow areas significantly increase the risk of an incident - which IS exactly what the Gold Coast seaway is and always will be - townsville-port.au/…/cruise-ship-report-for-… Right now the Queensland LNP government is wrongfully undertaking a process to offer out public beaches and an irreplaceable and sensitive marine park on the Gold Coast under far more questionable circumstances. Despite all evidence and facts suggesting the ships wont come, the companies wont risk their ships, that the mayor campaigned to not develop the area, that there is no mandate, that a massive and significant proportion of the community are strongly opposed, and that its a now been exposed clearly as a disasterous land grab orchestrated by dishonest men for themselves and their dodgy foreign developer mates who are guilty of fraud and collusion overseas - THE LNP ARE STILL POWERING FORWARD WITH IT?!?!?!?!?!?!? With ships only getting bigger and bigger, and the cost burden far to excessive to expand and/or re-do the Townsville shipping channels just for cruise ships, it seems the city is in a losing race against the clock to catch up - but perhaps this was planned this all along, to get the land, and its another case of oh well, too bad so sad for the community that pinned their tourism and economic hopes to the deliberately false promises of cruise industry benefits, sold to them as a smokescreen for land acquisition and development approvals.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:26:14 +0000