While collaboration will play a lead role in rallying funding interest for stage three of the Cape York Region Package, editor Lyndon Keane says communities will also need to work together to dangle the carrot of commercial diversity in front of government and private investors if long-term prosperity is also to be realised. Photo: Cape York Weekly.
The buzzword resonating around the room at last week’s Cape York Region Package (CYRP) taskforce meeting in Cairns was impossible to ignore: collaboration.
The word has been served and volleyed across meeting rooms more than “synergy” and “new normal” in recent years, and is generally taken to mean a stakeholder is happy to participate in a process if someone else is willing to do the heavy lifting and then share the kudos. But make no mistake, a genuine collaboration is going to be needed between not only stakeholders on Cape York, but also those in other regional and remote parts of Queensland, if we’re ever going to be able to rally enough political will to secure the funding needed to seal a road infrastructure success story.
The road to remote prosperity is seldom paved – let alone dotted with public amenities – by communities singing from their own song sheet, which boils down to political mathematics, and a single electorate’s historical inability to be an enticing enough carrot to those with a predilection for pork barrelling. In simple terms, despite its geography, Cape York represents merely a single state and federal win to jousting political parties, which is why we tend to miss out on all the big ticket funding promises come election time.
CYRP taskforce co-chair Professor Allan Dale is spot on when he says it’s going to be like pushing the proverbial wheelbarrow with a flat tyre up a hill for Cape York stakeholders to get the hundreds of millions of dollars required to complete stage three of the plan to seal the Peninsula Developmental Road (PDR) on our own. If we work with other regional and remote stakeholders to secure a bulk piece of the funding pie to share, our collective bargaining power suddenly allows us to dangle a political carrot with enough economy of scale to get even the most disinterested party policy boffins licking their lips. As an example, if our own Regional Development Australia (RDA) Tropical North works with the RDA committees to its immediate south and west, the collaboration morphs from a Cape York-centric one seat into a politically muscular 10 seats.
However, one area Cape York can’t afford to be herded into a single pen with is what we offer Brisbane and Canberra economically. Our economy needs to be as rich and diverse as the people who make up Cape York and, while collaboration will still play a vital role, communities are going to need to identify a commercial point of difference that benefits them, Cape York and our political masters down south. We can’t all be doing the same thing. We need to identify niches that only Cape York can do well and run with them.
We’re off to a reasonable start, with Weipa turning its mind towards opportunities outside mining through a potential freight hub, James Palmer’s Space Centre Australia seemingly gaining momentum for a local spaceport, and primary producers in southern Cape York chomping at the bit to trial new and unusual agricultural products if the $1.6 billion Lakeland Irrigation Area Scheme gets off the ground. I’ve also spoken to operators looking at unique tourism offerings only our region can support, and stakeholders in the Northern Area Peninsula exploring opportunities to launch enterprises that will potentially provide food security for the entire Cape and Torres Strait. It’s a diverse mix from a passionate, innovative group of stakeholders – and it’s exactly what we need.
It’s going to be an uncertain six months for our region, with a new State Government and what will likely be a new Federal Government by March or April. Our long-serving federal MP is hanging up his hat, and taking with him the knowledge, respect and advocacy muscle it takes years to cement. What it all means for us remains to be seen. What we can’t be uncertain about is that for us to continue pushing forwards towards a bright – and sealed – future for Cape York, we’re going to have to embrace “collaborative diversity” as our buzzword for 2025.
