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MARCH 15, 2024
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Visitors offered discounts l FAR NORTH VISITORS to tropical north Queensland can reap $100 off hundreds of tours including Great Barrier Reef trips, scenic helicopter flights and guided rainforest adventures from this week with the national launch of the Tropical Dollars campaign. The initiative is jointly-funded by the Albanese and Miles governments, following Cyclone Jasper, to support the region’s tourism industry. Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive officer Mark Olsen said the $100 tropical dollars discount would be applied to tours booked through Experience Oz with a minimum spend of $200. “If you’ve never glided over the rainforest in a gondola or tried the adventure of white water rafting, now is the time to do it,” he said. “Tropical North Queensland’s waterfalls are flowing, and the world’s oldest rainforest is refreshed from the summer rains. “This is a great opportunity to pack more activities into your holiday, especially for families wanting to take the kids snorkelling for the first time or to visit the wildlife parks to feed a kangaroo and watch a crocodile leap from the water.” Mr Olsen said tour operators were ready to welcome visitors and there was plenty of accommodation. CONTINUED PAGE 2
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Clive bows out
Hospital chairman pays tribute to all employees l CAIRNS NORTH | Nick Dalton
Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service chairman Clive Skarott outside Cairns Hospital.
Picture: Nick Dalton
OUTGOING Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service (CHHHS) chairman Clive Skarott has paid tribute to the service’s staff as he prepares to hand over the reins in two weeks. The 80-year-old finishes a seven-year term on March 31, and, while he has a long list of achievements including boosting the budget from $730m a year to $1.3 billion, he has praised the staff and the creation of a mostly happy and safe working environment as his greatest legacy. “On one of my first days in the job, I went for a walk from Cairns Hospital’s A-block
through to D-block,” he told Cairns Local News. “There were staff hanging their heads because CHHHS had been the subject of negative media attention for many weeks. “The feeling I got was people were doing their job, but no one was happy. “Now I walk through the hospital, and everyone wants to say hello to me.” Mr Skarott said he was determined to turn that situation around and believed today the morale was high and whenever he went through Cairns Hospital and other hospitals and health care centres people greeted him by name – “It’s Clive, not Mr Skarott,” he prefers. CONTINUED PAGE 4