Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility is delivering for the city and people of Townsville. The NAIF, as it's more commonly known, is supporting three major projects in my electorate of Herbert. The most recent, which I had the pleasure of announcing a couple of weeks ago, is the North Queensland Cowboys community, training and high-performance centre, which will be co-located with the North Queensland Stadium. This will be an amazing facility that will be the envy of the nation and the sporting world at large. It will be utilised by the Cowboys, Townsville Fire, James Cook University, Mater Health and other community groups. James Cook University will host the cutting-edge sports science and research facility and Mater Health will provide consulting and rehabilitation services at the centre. The multisport, high-performance training spaces will aim to attract touring sporting teams and their fans to our great city. This project will see 200 construction jobs created and over 60 ongoing jobs after the project is complete.

Townsville will also soon be benefiting from the extra construction and ongoing jobs of two other projects: $98 million to build a technology innovation complex at JCU; $50 million to expand the upgrade to the Townsville Airport terminal to ensure it can accommodate the needs of the diverse community. The NAIF is delivering for Townsville, and I thank the minister for signing off on this project.