The Gold Coast is unlikely to get a cruise ship terminal until at least 2018 with both the Government and the city council in dispute about how to deliver key elements of the project, confidential documents reveal.
Mayor Tom Tate maintains cruise ships will dock on the Coast in two years, previously announcing a Carnival liner is set to dock on September 30, 2015.
Documents obtained under Right To Information show his determination to achieve the deadline, with council officers being secretly briefed on investigating an interim terminal north of Sea World Nara Resort.
But the Government has opposed the move, concerned it could torpedo the bid for a permanent facility.
Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney has privately told the Mayor it will be left to the market place to determine a more realistic date.
State planning bureaucrats list the delivery date as 2018.
They have also warned Mr Seeney of five major risks for the Coast terminal, including potential competition from a cruise ship terminal earmarked for Luggage Point at the mouth of the Brisbane River.
A Gold Coast Bulletin report in November last year detailed how the Brisbane City Council in its Neighbourhood Plan for Pinkenba-Eagle Farm had set aside a future area for a deep-water cruise ship terminal at the mouth of the Brisbane River.
Other major risks, provided in documents, show government planners have questioned the commitment of the cruise ship industry to a Broadwater port.
They have also acknowledged “community concerns about environmental harm” to the development of Crown land north of Sea World and on Wavebreak Island.
Read more at Gold Coast Bulletin