The much-hyped Queens Wharf Casino project originally promised
to lure thousands of high spending Asian tourists (and gamblers) to Brisbane every
week, injecting megadoses of energy (and cash) into our economy. The project,
it was promised, would ‘put Brisbane on the map.’
Sadly, for many reasons, the owners are now faced with the
need to radically rethink the entire rationale of the project. Gone are the
promised high-end retailers. Now, it will be McDonalds and Lululemon, with low-cost
cinemas and other budget-oriented offerings targeting locals instead of high-end
foreign tourists. They are doing what anyone in business would – look for an
alternative approach to save the business and get some return on the very
considerable capital invested.
For the wider society though, the question could be asked:
“when will we learn?” The cargo cult mentality seems irrevocably welded to big
shiny things that promise to “put our city on the map.” This is nothing new,
and almost every city in Australia seems to suffer the same affliction from
time to time. That history in Australia is no better told than through our
repeated fascination with casinos.
Where was the very first casino in Australia? It was Hobart,
at Wrest Point in 1972. This was going to lure tourists to the Tassie capital
in their droves. Hobart even got a new airport terminal because of it (1976).
But the cracks soon emerged – while pokies were initially prohibited under the
agreement, the license owners soon persuaded the government that a change was
needed and over 600 pokies were installed. The casino owners were also fined on
a number of occasions for machines that were not paying out as they should. Dishonesty
and casinos? Noooooo!
Even more counter-intuitive is where the next casino in
Australia opened. Any guess? It was in Launceston, also Tasmania. Opening as
the ‘Country Club’ in 1982 the license was granted in order to provide
competition to the owners of the Hobart license. And (let’s be honest), because
Hobart got one, Launceston should have one too! And guess what? Rather than
provide the promised competition, the owners of the Hobart License eventually
secured the Launceston license also. Oh, and over 500 pokies were soon
installed.
Neither has lived up to their ‘tourism magnet’ promise and
are basically now just down market pokie dens for punters and pensioners. The
term ‘casino’ is being generous.
Around the same time as Launceston opened its doors, two
more casinos opened, with a similar menu of exaggerated promises. This time it
was in the thriving tourism northern cities of Darwin and Alice Springs. Yes
folks, the Northern Territory opened two at once. Cop that the rest of Australia!
Shortly after Darwin’s casino made absolutely no splash in
the worldwide gambling community of high
rollers and big spenders, another one opened in … wait for it … Canberra! Wow,
by now Australia ought to be drawing in big spenders from all over the world.
Look out Vegas!
Hang on, what about the major centres in Australia, and the
big tourism towns? If casinos were to draw international tourist dollars to
Launceston and Canberra, surely they would be needed in places visitors actually
went to?
Correct, and so Brisbane got its Treasury Casino in 1985 and
shortly after the Gold Coast got Jupiter’s Casino in 1986. Townsville also got
one in 1986 because… well, why not?
Adelaide wasn’t going to miss out on the action: they got
their casino in 1985, while our mates out west got a Perth Casino in the same
year.
Cairns was feeling left out, so they got The Reef Casino in
1996. That was sure to steal all the attention back from Townsville!
Melbourne’s Southbank Casino opened in 1997 (there was a
temporary site before this) and so did Sydney’s in around the same year. Then,
Brisbane got its new Queens Wharf to replace The Treasury in 2024.
Has any of this in any state or city really
done anything for our international reputation? Has any of it produced plane
loads of foreign tourists weighed down with cash they want to splash throughout
our economy, creating jobs and opportunity in the process and adding to our
standards of living? Has any of it ‘put us on the map’?
No, not in my view at least. What made us famous, as a place
to visit and to dream of living here, was our natural beauty, environment and
lifestyle. And still is. We are the envy of the world not because there’s a casino
in every second town, but because we are (mostly) a safe, very liveable country
which isn’t badly overcrowded (with some exceptions) and with a good standard
of living. Access to quality healthcare and education are not (yet) the preserve
of the wealthy but accessible to the vast majority.
Will we learn though? If history is any judge, not likely. It
is sadly too easy to envisage another similar proposal one day for a big shiny
casino being proposed for yet another place on the map. Maybe even a floating
one on the barrier reef? Oh wait, we tried that one too! (In fairness, it was a
floating
hotel but a very flashy one with lots of sparkly lights).
As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
