Our tourism should be cruising

A report from the Gold Coast says that it may take a few more visits by luxury cruise ships to wake up the Queensland Government to the fact that the Gold Coast, not Brisbane, is the obvious place for a cruise ship terminal.

Southeast Queensland may have to endure a couple of years of the Government’s recovery from a loss of face about its abysmal port for big cruise ships at Fisherman Islands.

The brutal truth is that the Brisbane River and the new $750 million Portside Wharf at Hamilton do not meet the requirements of the big luxury cruiser market.

The river is muddy and unattractive, and Portside cannot be reached by the new super-size ships because they are too tall to fit under the Gateway Bridge.

The Queensland Government has to get past the tradition that the capital city is entitled to all the big ships and the lion’s share of airline traffic. It has to acknowledge that markets outside Brisbane sometimes are better suited to accept international visitors.

The forces railing against making The Spit at Southport into a cruise ship terminal are two-fold — the State Government and the environmentalists who, together, sank the idea of a terminal in the lead-up to the 2006 State election on the basis of flimsy information.

There are those who have a limited vision for the Gold Coast — as a seaside settlement for the weekend amusement of Brisbane people and as a city whose development should be restricted to a few high rises and whose waterways ought to be for the exclusive use of small craft.

But thinking beyond a shallow harbour and a broad picnic area of she-oaks and grass, the Spit and Broadwater could form an aquatic amphitheatre of international repute if ideas are allowed to flow.

With the Brisbane River port finally being recognised as a dud for cruise ships, the time surely has arrived for the Gold Coast to be reconsidered as an international terminal.

The reality came to the surface this week when the luxury liner Queen Victoria visited Brisbane and cruise ship company officials and their paying customers cringed as they sailed up the muddy Brisbane River past the sewage treatment works and factories.

It seems that the ship’s company, Cunard, is thinking of bypassing southeast Queensland or finding another port. A Queen Mary superliner visit next year is uncertain and the Queen Victoria, next time around, will probably sail directly to Cairns.

This is tourism money slipping away, for no good reason, at a time when Australian tourism is in the doldrums. We cannot afford to turn tourists away.

This newspaper has argued for years that a cruise ship terminal should be built on the Gold Coast because this city, whose special subject is tourism, would be perfect as a southeast Queensland stopover.

All we need is a government that can understand the sense of having a cruise ship port here rather than in a city that is obviously unsuitable.

A Report by The Mole and Gold Coast media