Dear all:

Please do not get carried away with Aquis.  

We need to assess the social risks of Aquis before we continue.

First of all, the State Government press release by LNP Jeff Seeney MP says that to construct Aquis, ‘Aquis still needs to receive a gaming licence if their projects proceeded and met all the necessary environmental, planning and gaming licensing approvals’. 

So, Aquis has not received any of these approvals.  

To expect this to happen is to expect that the outcomes of these approval processes are pre-approved.  

This is not an appropriate position for responsible people to take.  

It is an appropriate position of people who expect to make a lot of money out of the Aquis proposal if it occurs. 

Our civic leaders in Cairns, Douglas and Brisbane need to take this approval processes seriously and ask serious and honest questions before they are passed.  

Otherwise the development process for this region is not being respected by our civic leaders. 

In many ways, this is not the transparent process that is needed by ordinary people.

We need an approval process that we can trust.

That is what a community will always need. 

It is essential.

It is very important to remember that there are social risks for Aquis that are not promoted by our MPs and the Cairns developer lobby. 

Many of these are listed below.

People raise these risks all the time.

Proponents of Aquis must address these risks otherwise the people of this region are being duped, no question about it.

These risks may not be a risk but we must know if they are - surely this is reasonable. 

There needs to be a public and independent assessment of these risks. 

We need to ask why our politicians are not publically asking questions about these risks.

Imagine a giant Chinese gambling city being set up in your town, and your local MPs and Cairns Mayor not querying some or all of the risks on the behalf of the local population, especially when they know there are risks.

Well, that is where we are. 

Without addressing these risks, our civic leaders are irresponsible and leading us into probably dangerous waters.

To address these risks we need an independent social impact study.

Not an EIS with a limited social impacts section, which is the current irresponsible arrangement.  Jobs are good but the risks need to be discussed by honest people and people with a conscious need to address them.

So, we need more transparency on Aquis by our civic leaders instead of a ‘develop at all costs’ approach and disregard of the clear and well known social risks of Aquis-like developments.

It is very much worthwhile to note that support for Aquis by Cairns population has not been established.

No report has occurred about what the diverse people of Cairns and this region think.

Instead, Aquis is being championed by a small group - yes, just a small group of people made up of the developer, State Government, and CEOs of Chamber of Commerce, Local government Advance Cairns, Tourism tropical North Queensland, Urban Planners Association, and Master Builders Association. 

These people are mostly not from Cairns and therefore decisions on Aquis are being made by those who do not know the people of this region.

Hence, they are not concerned enough about the social risks of Aquis to democratically discuss them in public and resolve them.

We need a social impact assessment so that the people of this region know about the many risks of Aquis, and that the social risks of Aquis are resolved before we build a new $8.4B casino city in our region.

Surely, we must all demand this.

Or is it OK to accept these risks without question? 

People with good sense to understand to understand what is going would not agree with that.

It is up to good people to demand that the social risks of Aquis be addressed and resolved before it continues - otherwise we will be affected by some or all of these risks.

Lastly, people of this region need to ask why these risks are being ignored by our political and business leaders.

We need to politely ask them to be our friends and act responsibly and sensibly to publicly address these risks on our behalf.

As they should. 

Aquis risks include:

1.   Wrong size of development –even too big for Melbourne or Sydney. It is twice the size of two James Price point gas refineries proposed for Broome in WA.  It is too big!  Have the local people been asked if they want this? If so, where is the report on this?

2.   Displacement the local Yorkeys community and way of life 

3.   Aquis to be built on a flood plain, exposing it to mega cyclones, floods and climate change – ignored by proponents as ‘controllable’

4.   Damage to local coastline and offshore environment – inevitable with a development the size of Aquis

5.   Unplanned and unsustainable growth on northern on suburbs - 50,000 people over first four years. That is upwards of 15,000 per year.

6.   Bypassing existing planning laws -  Is this an appropriate path for the State government to be taking?  What does that mean for future of governance in Queensland?

7.   Where the money is coming from - Will it be reliable over the period of construction?  Is that money appropriate for use in Australia? For example, is it laundered money?

8.   A gambling corporation owned by one person taking over Cairns region - becoming the main business in the region, and influencing the selection of our politicians and therefore policies and laws

9.   The well-known dangerous effects of casinos on vulnerable people in local populations

10. AQUIS GBR casino brand drowning of North Queensland’s ecotourism brand and market attractiveness, the downturn in the non-mainstream ecotourism industry

11.   Money-laundering from casinos

12.   Crime from casinos - Why is the Australian Federal Police not assessing the risk?

13.   Can the owners of the Casino be influenced by Chinese government and hence affect Australia’s defence planning?  Why is the Australian Strategic Policy institute not looking at this?

14.   Should we ignore that China is a totalitarian state that locks people up if they disagree with the State?  Or is that part of the culture we are importing?  This may not be a risk but we must know if it is.

15.   A private security police state that will be created in Cairns northern beaches due to presence of this casino

16.   Excluding locals from the casino like they do in Singapore.  Is the appropriate thing to do in Australia?

17.   Growth in prostitution in the Northern beaches due to 10,000 new tourists per day

18.   The change in culture for all that live in the Cairns northern beaches and many in the wider Cairns region

19.   The growing very divisive nature of the Aquis proposal and ignorance of this risk by the Government and local newspapers.  This divisive nature will sadly turn friends against friends.

20.   How many of those working on Aquis construction will be local?

21.   What type of construction jobs will be available to locals?

22.   How will the local population deal with an unexpected group of thousands of non-English speaking workers living close by?  Probably well, but has anyone been asked? No.

23.   Where will all the sewage go for 10,000 people?  Do we have water for this?

24.   How will the lagoon be sustainable for the local rivers and coasts?

25.   What will the road traffic be like during construction?

26.   Are the developers committed to other developments such as the football stadium, entertainment centre, and so on instead of just a casino?

27.    The negative effects of this complex on smaller independent businesses in the Cairns city area - it could take passing tourism business away from them for quite a few years.

28.   No publicly released market assessment for 10,000 gambling tourists per day?

a.   What happens to that market if there is a downturn in tourism due to virus outbreaks (e.g. SARS, bird flu), financial crisis, internal dissent in China, or regional conflict?

b.   What happens to that market when air prices increase due to inevitable increases in oil?

c.   What happens to the market when more casinos are built across Southeast Asia?

d.   Why will people fly nine hours to see a casino when they can fly one hour to see one nearer China?

e.   What will happen to the development if the market fails?

29.   Finally, what happens if you are a business that, due to Aquis, borrows and invests substantially in new infrastructure (e.g. boats, buses, hotels) and people and there is a market failure due to one the above market risks, and these gambling tourists no longer turn up?