MR ENTSCH: Recently, I had the absolute pleasure of attending the official launch of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair with my beautiful wife, Yolonde. The Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, or CIAF, as it’s known, is Australia’s premier Indigenous art fair. It celebrates the vibrancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. This year, the theme…
MR ENTSCH: I recently had the pleasure of attending the Cooktown and Cape York Expo with my beautiful wife and daughter, Yolonde and Mackenzie. Cook Shire Council had been planning to stage the event in 2020 to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s 1770 voyage to Australia. Unfortunately, it became a victim of…
MR ENTSCH: It gives me great pleasure to advise that the land required to build the Cairns university hospital has now been purchased. It’s a major step in ensuring the long-overdue and much-needed project becomes a reality. In 2019, the Morrison government, in partnership with James Cook University, announced a $60 million investment to get…
Mr ENTSCH: I recently visited an amazing tourism attraction in my electorate, Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures, where I was told I would be having the honour of naming two radiated tortoises, which originate from Madagascar. Little did I know that it was simply a ruse. Hartley’s owners, Angela and Peter Freeman, had other ideas. The real…
MR ENTSCH: I’m absolutely rapt to see the $19.3 million allocated in this year’s federal budget to stage 1 construction of the Daintree microgrid project. This is a project that’s very close to my heart and one that I’ve been working on delivering for close to 25 years. In fact, only last week I was…
Mr ENTSCH: It’s fantastic to be in a position to see a major event like the Rotary Far North Queensland Field Day going ahead as planned. The past year has been like no other. We have faced many challenges and continue to do so, but together as a community we’ve met those challenges head-on. Agriculture…
MR ENTSCH: I rise to support this motion but more importantly in support of a critical role that Indigenous people and culture play in our nation’s tourism offerings. It’s no more evident than in my vast electorate of Leichhardt that includes the Torres Strait, Cape York, Cooktown, Mossman, the Daintree, Kuranda and Cairns. All of…
MR ENTSCH: I recently attended a special event in my electorate to mark the start of the relocation of hundreds of agile wallabies to a safer habitat. It will be Australia’s largest ever macropod relocation. The Trinity Beach wallabies have become a much-loved part of our community but, sadly, have fallen victim to urban sprawl.…
Mr ENTSCH: Kuranda is a small community of around 4500 people located about 30 kilometres directly west of Cairns via the Kuranda Range. The Kuranda economy is heavily reliant on domestic and international tourism and the self-drive market that feeds into that tourism. It has been absolutely decimated by the ongoing effects of the pandemic.…
Mr ENTSCH: I rise in support of the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility Amendment (Extension and Other Measures) Bill 2021. The $5 billion Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility has certainly been a game changer for northern Australia. It was great to see this coming out of our Pivot north report, as a recommendation for a funding stream—a…