Letter from Kerry Riella

• In reply to Alex Blair’s feature letter about the fate of the old Cairns Yacht Club building (Cairns Post 31st Jan).
  
  Indeed it is a crying shame to see what has become of the so-called “win-win” claimed by our State Member for Barron River, Steve Wettenhall.
  
  A building that withstood the ordeals of 103 years, has in just three months been reduced to a warped, sagging mess of boards and beams due to this Labor government’s attitude to the people of Cairns.
  
  My advice to all who lament the unnecessary and horrible demise of the grand old building, and indeed, all who signed the petition to save it, is not to get mad...get even!
  
  Vote for ANYONE except Labor in the next State election. Vote for a drover’s dog, I don’t care, just don’t vote for the party that deliberately put our history and heritage on the rubbish dump.
  
  These so called representatives of ours, unapologetically and unceremoniously ignored the wishes of a vast number of Queenslanders, from the Torres Strait to the Toona Gate, along with a lot of interstate and overseas people who wished they could also have signed the petition to try and save her.
  
  Not only did this Labor Government deliberately ignore quite a substantial petition, they ignored two others before that! Then they ignored the resolution from the Cairns Regional Council to stop and re-assess the situation. They also ignored The National Trust of Queensland’s urgent pleas to save the building and they aided and abetted the process by which its State Heritage listing was overturned. They achieved this by ignoring the Heritage Council’s own professional assessor who was paid to decide, and his decision was preserve it!
  
  They ignored the 2003 Wet Tropical Coast Regional Coastal Management Plan which listed both the building and site as heritage to be preserved, AND they ignored all links the building had to any Maritime history in BOTH World Wars. They even ignored the Burrup Charter!
  
  Hell seems like the State Labor Government is an ignorant bunch, wouldn’t you say?
  
  Vote Labor? After this obscene debacle you’d have to have rocks in your head, or have had your head in the sand for the past ten years!
  
  Yours sincerely
  
  Kerry Riella
  Stratford,
  Cairns 4870