$2.7 million grant for koala research facility reallocated for Steel Taipan construction

[Guest 239]

3 minutes ago, joz said:

They diverted funds away from Koala Research.

It's splitting hairs, but it was a research facility, not research. Dreamworld would have still been required to fit the bill when it came to employment, research, and conservation - I believe they already do this via the DWF.

[joz]

5 minutes ago, New display name said:

Or did the QLD Gov divert the funds when DW said they were no longer building the Future Lab.

Wait did the government make them?

[New display name]

1 minute ago, joz said:

Wait did the government make them?

Make them do what?

[joz]

Did the government cancel and divert funds away from the Koala Research facility, and did they refuse the money back and insist that DW use it for a ride instead?

[Brad2912]

Just now, joz said:

did they refuse the money back and insist that DW use it for a ride instead?

None of us know that, including you. DW may have offered it back and been told to utilise it on something that would assist them in bouncing back and in turn assist tourism and the economy 

[Rivals]

15 minutes ago, joz said:

DW got the same deal, that's not what people are talking about. They diverted funds away from Koala Research. That's what we're talking about.

the original funds were for a proposed project which was dropped and were no longer able to be used for the initial project, so they used that funding to prioritise another project. it’s not a big ass conspiracy like you’re trying to make it out to be. 

[Slick]

Silver lining: good to finally see Steel Taipan get national coverage.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

It's important to note that the Future Lab grant wasn't a "native animals need our help" initiative, it was a "improve international tourism" strategy. Don't cry for the Koalas - they weren't the intention of the grant in the first place.

Quote

 

1.    The Advance Queensland: Connecting with Asia Strategy forms an important part of the Advance Queensland agenda and aims to increase total overnight visitor expenditure.

2.    The Strategy builds on the success achieved in securing new and additional flights from China, Hong Kong and Canada into the Gold Coast, Cairns and Brisbane under the Attracting Aviation Investment Fund (AAIF).

 

So its arguable that "keeping one of the biggest tourism operators on the gold coast operating" well and truly meets the aims of this grant.

[joz]

Far out I'm going to explain this very clearly.

 

This issue is that DW got a grant of about $3million for a thing. They then said 'we aren't doing that thing anymore. Can we use the money for building this thing instead?'. Government said 'Yes'.

 

That is what it is, it's not about the merits of public funding for private works. It's not about the validity of this project v that project, it's about the apparent taking of funds for something altruistic, and changing it so you can build a ride. 

 

Also according to the articles at the time, Village got access to a $70million loan, Ardent got access to $66.9 loan, and a $3million grant. So 'it's the same!!1!' isn't true, and even if it was, you wouldn't have the issue of changing what the money was for.

 

You can argue how big a deal it is, personally I don't think it's a massive deal, but it's probably not something you can just dismiss as clickbait.

[Slick]

TLDR; just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

11 minutes ago, joz said:

This issue is that DW got a grant of about $3million for a thing. They then said 'we aren't doing that thing anymore. Can we use the money for building this thing instead?'. Government said 'Yes'.

...and people are carrying on like this is a new thing.

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13 minutes ago, joz said:

Village got access to a $70million loan, Ardent got access to $66.9 loan, and a $3million grant.

I wonder why Dreamworld's loan was precisely $3.1Million less than Village's loan? 

[Guest 239]

11 minutes ago, joz said:

This issue is that DW got a grant of about $3million for a thing. They then said 'we aren't doing that thing anymore. Can we use the money for building this thing instead?'. Government said 'Yes'.

This relies heavily off Dreamworld being the ones who asked for the money to be changed to a different project, but it's not clear that happened. This is the timeline as per the guardian article:

The Queensland government provided $2.7m to build the Future Lab wildlife research centre at Dreamworld, on the Gold Coast, in 2019.

“In early 2020, Dreamworld requested that the project be placed on hold while it focused its future investment activities on new rides and attractions,” Hinchliffe told the estimates hearing.

In a bid to kickstart the tourist industry, the government launched the $25m Growing Tourism Infrastructure Fund to accelerate its recovery from Covid-19.

“Under that fund, we saw Dreamworld seeking assistance for the support and construction of a new multi-launch rollercoaster ride,” Hinchliffe said.

The park was given the green light to “repurpose” the funding.

From what I can gather here, Dreamworld put the project on hold and therefore so were the funds. They then requested funds from the 'Growing Tourism Infrastructure Fund' and the government instead decided to repurpose their existing fund to become part of the GTIF.

This is very different from them saying "Can we take our Koala money and build a roller coaster, please?"

[joz]

"We're not doing the Koala thing. Can we keep the money anyway?"

[New display name]

1 minute ago, joz said:

Did the government cancel and divert funds away from the Koala Research facility, and did they refuse the money back and insist that DW use it for a ride instead?

I believe DW cancelled the project.

 

I don't think you understand how funding within the Government works and are getting hung up on where you think the money came from.

Different departments share money every day, this is how they guarantee they get at least the same budget next year.

If you haven’t spent all of you allocated money, it’s hard to demonstrate you need that money the next year.   (Creative bookkeeping because in the end all the money comes from one place)

It’s not uncommon practise for the Main roads department to fund an addition to a school just to spend their allocated budget.

 

 

 

[Slick]

2 minutes ago, New display name said:

It’s not uncommon practise for the Main roads department to fund an addition to a school just to spend their allocated budget.

What's your stance on governments re-allocating funds from public education and putting it into the Department of Defence for the purposes of a weapons manufacturing grants program?

[aussienetman]

Woah this blew up.

I have a background in applying for and using government grants for admittedly a non-profit company but similar situation.

Over the last few years both state and federal grants have been extremely relaxed about usage of funds. In the climate we are in, getting approval for extensions or even wholesale changes to the purpose of the funding hasn't been hard.

Does it look bad from a #koalasmatter point of view. Yeah for sure, I don't deny that. 

The comment about autism is not needed nor indicative of what should be acceptable communication here and I sincerely doubt it will stay up much longer.

 

[Moderator]

Just a simple reminder for everyone to be respectful of one another. By all means debate this vigorously, but please don't take differing opinions personally. Likewise don't make personal insults or try to make this about anything other than the direct topic at hand.

We will continue to moderate this topic and remove posts that go against our Community Guidelines, or are causing things to veer off-track.

[Cactus_Matt]

Maybe they should let the koalas ride Steel Taipan after hours to make up for it.

[New display name]

1 hour ago, Slick said:

What's your stance on governments re-allocating funds from public education and putting it into the Department of Defence for the purposes of a weapons manufacturing grants program?

 

The penny just dropped; people believe the Koala's got nought because DW spent the money on ST.

That probably couldn’t be further from the truth

If DW didn't spend the money on ST the Koala still would have got zero and another department within the Government would have seized the money.

It’s simple

You have to spend your money to get the money again.

DW giving the money back was unforeseen by the Government so the department who received the money back probably had no proposal in place on how to spend the $3m.

What you don’t want is a department spending money just because they have money to spend.  (This is why they share money around)

People being upset DW got 3m more than Village aren’t upset the Government gave away 100m to the film industry that film their movies at the studios.   It all washes out in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

The Government support the whole theme park industry and that is a good thing.

[joz]

16 minutes ago, New display name said:

People being upset DW got 3m more than Village

What people are they?

[New display name]

That's how I read it because the difference between what the parks got has mentioned a few times.  If you're saying people don't have issue with it, I will go with that.

 

[rappa]

I have zero issue with them getting money others didn’t fwiw. 
 

I also don’t ‘hate’ DW either just to be clear 

[bladex]

it got the rollercoaster built which is way better than koalas 😏

[Naazon]

3 hours ago, New display name said:

That's how I read it because the difference between what the parks got has mentioned a few times.  If you're saying people don't have issue with it, I will go with that.

 

Can someone clear this up for me? the $3m was a grant right? doesn't need to be paid back? Village $70mill was a loan? and DW $67million was a loan also? (numbers rounded) Is that right?

I also have no opinion on this, I just pay my taxes, use services available to me and like theme parks. 

[joz]

In other words the government extended a line of $70million credit to both, but part of what was offered to Ardent was a grant which didn't have to be repaid. So village could get a loan of $70million, Ardent could get a loan of $67million, and $3million was just there's to keep.

 

My point in pointing this out isn't to cry unfair, but to point out to those that were trying to defend Ardent by saying 'Village got the same!' that it's not true. It also has zero relevance even if it were true btw, but as it an aside, it's not.