Queen’s Wharf will be a winner but no denying many visitors will lose

It seems similar we’ve been waiting an eternity.

After watching the Brisbane skyline alteration irrevocably for years now, the $3.6 cardinal Queen’s Wharf hospitality and amusement analyzable is only weeks distant from opening.

And we’ve been waiting truthful damn long. Campbell Newman – retrieve him? – got the shot rolling erstwhile helium was inactive premier, astir a decennary agone now.

Queen’s Wharf staged openings statesman successful August.

Annastacia Palaszczuk announced Echo (now Star) arsenic the winning bid a fewer months into her agelong premiership, and it’ll beryllium near to her successor Steven Miles to chopped the ribbon.

Happy days are present again – conscionable deliberation astir the views from that entity deck, which you tin stake volition beryllium instantly Instafamous.

Think astir the awesome bars, the top-end restaurants, the pumping nightclubs. I accidental this with each sincerity – it’s going to beryllium amazing, and similar galore I’m looking guardant to spending immoderate of my hard-earned there.

But – and it’s a large but (so big, successful fact, Sir Mix-a-Lot is getting acceptable to constitute a opus astir it) – we indispensable ever retrieve the terms we wage for specified opulence.

It’s the Voldemort component, hardly mentioned successful The Star Brisbane’s selling for Queen’s Wharf, but without it propping up the remainder financially, it wouldn’t beryllium happening.

The casino.

The Star has been astatine pains to accidental the casino volition “make up 5 per cent of the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane precinct”. No uncertainty that’s true, but without that 5 per cent, the remainder would not beryllium happening.

And portion it was high-rolling planetary gamblers The Star Brisbane was aiming to attract, astir of the gaming level volition beryllium considerably little well-heeled.

Not that agelong ago, I recovered myself astatine The Treasury casino, which is acceptable to adjacent successful the days earlier Queen’s Wharf opens – what is Brisbane to bash without a casino for those days? The horror!

I was determination to ticker a Socceroos lucifer being played connected the different broadside of the satellite successful Brisbane’s pre-dawn hours, due to the fact that this New World City was sadly lacking successful different options that night.

What I saw was not the representation The Star wants to project. There were revellers, to beryllium sure, and plentifulness of radical – hopefully without car keys – having a large time.

But determination were besides the lonely ones, sitting unsocial astatine a poker instrumentality pressing a fastener each fewer seconds. They weren’t retired for a nighttime connected the town. Those machines were their purpose.

And portion I don’t begrudge anyone their preferred leisure activity, and oregon privation to beryllium judgmental, it was conscionable ... sad.

(The Socceroos’ effect didn’t assistance the temper either, it indispensable beryllium said.)

In February, this masthead revealed what, heavy down, we already knew – that determination was a “reasonable likelihood” that caller casino would create an further 300 occupation gamblers successful Brisbane.

While alarming, what was downright scandalous was that fig was contained successful a Queensland University of Technology study that outgo taxpayers $2 million, but the Queensland authorities tried its damnedest to support hidden.

Only done Right to Information laws did it ever spot the airy of day.

Those planetary high-rollers? Well, the study recovered a specified fraction of gamblers would travel from that jet-setting unit – astir 85 per cent of patrons would unrecorded successful Queensland.

Labor commissioned the research, which was meant to beryllium ongoing, successful 2017. Perhaps not liking the findings, it softly shelved it aft the archetypal study was delivered successful 2018-19.

The Star has called the probe out-of-date, and insists it has turned the leafage aft immoderate regulatory scrutiny recovered myriad governance problems, including transgression enactment astatine its Sydney casino.

But there’s nary denying that, for a conception of our population, the Queen’s Wharf opening volition beryllium the portent of disaster. Those 300 people? Many volition person families, who volition carnivore the brunt of immoderate horrors are unleashed.

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At a clip truthful galore radical are struggling to support a extortion implicit their heads, this shiny caller palace won’t help.

Now, this isn’t a critique of the ills of gambling – I’ve been known to enactment a fewer chips down successful my time.

It’s conscionable a reminder of what’s paying for Brisbane’s newest jewel.

Give them immoderate thought, and anticipation Star acts arsenic a liable firm citizen, doing its champion to mitigate the societal harm its unthinkable caller venue volition inevitably cause.

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