Council calls for main st promise
WHITSUNDAY Regional Council Mayor Mike Brunker is calling on the LNP to provide a firm commitment to the upgrade of Airlie's main street before council is forced to hold an extraordinary meeting that could potentially halt the redevelopment plan.
Cr Brunker says with the state government elections just nine days away, "the biggest predicament we have is we've got a commitment from one side of politics but not the other".
"The worst-case scenario is after the election [if the LNP wins] we continue thinking everything's ok, then the LNP says "no, we're not honouring that because it wasn't a pledge of ours".
"Then our contractors would have to stop work costing us millions of dollars in penalties," he said. Cr Brunker says he needs to know where the LNP stands by tomorrow (Friday) and has tried to contact the Whitsunday candidate Jason Costigan, without success.
Whitsunday MP Jan Jarratt said no further negotiations with the landholder could occur while the government was in caretaker mode "but Labor's commitment to funding for the redevelopment remains unchanged". "The real question is will the LNP make a similar commitment?" Ms Jarratt said.
"Frankly a vote for the LNP is a vote to keep the Whitsundays in limbo.
"It's not good enough for Jason Costigan to just "fight" for funding. Either Campbell Newman will invest in the Whitsundays or he won't. It's that's simple.
"It's time to tell locals what's in and what's out." Mr Costigan told the Whitsunday Times yesterday he had never been in favour of the land swap and was referring this matter to his LNP colleagues "at the highest level."
"Hey guess what - my position hasn't changed. I said, on the record, more than once last year the common sense approach was to resume the Davey building.
"I can assure people if I am elected we will sort out this mess once and for all in the interests of the Airlie community.
"I would expect us to continue negotiations with the land owner in good faith," he said.
"It's a bit rich to ask someone not in government to clean up the mess that Labor's Jan Jarratt and Mike Brunker have created," he said.
