Queensland Premier calls on Dreamworld owners to spend allocated funds on koala conservation

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has today called on Dreamworld owners, Ardent Leisure Group, to spend allocated funds on koala conservation after the theme park spent $2.7 million in government funding on a roller-coaster instead of conservation work.

The state government funding allocated to Dreamworld for a state-of-the-art facility to protect endangered koalas is reported to have been diverted to build the theme park’s Steel Taipan rollercoaster.

During Queensland Government budget estimates hearings last week, the Queensland Tourism Minister, Stirling Hinchliffe says funds were diverted to the theme park ride after koala project delayed.

Minister Hinchliffe confirmed that Dreamworld asked to repurpose the money for the new ride in early 2020 and that the request was approved.

Advising that Dreamworld’s owner the Ardent Leisure Group was given approval to “repurpose” the funding, Minister Hinchliffe added “the Queensland government approved that the funding previously approved for the research facility be repurposed to support the construction of the new ride, taking into consideration the immediate impacts of the pandemic and the appeal of new tourism offers likely to attract returning domestic visitors and international tourists when borders reopened.

Announced in 2019, Dreamworld's Future Lab was to become Queensland's first genome research facility for native animals and was designed to boost conservation efforts against threats to koalas like chlamydia.

Today Minister Palaszczuk is calling on Dreamworld to put its own money back into the Future Lab project noting "the tourism department gave money, through grants, to places like Dreamworld to expand their offerings to the public.

"We had COVID and we weren't having the international tourists and only domestic tourism was starting up again, so they chose to rechannel that money into another item.

"I'm hoping Dreamworld will now do the right thing and invest their money into that project."

In August 2020, Ardent Leisure Group secured a $70 million financial assistance package from the Queensland Government.

In a statement provided to the Australian Stock Exchange on 7th August 2020, the company said it had secured a three-year loan valued at $66.9 million and a $3 million grant that will be used to fund working capital and approved capital expenditure.