Billionaire Clive Palmer has always had the people's approval for his dinosaur park, but now he has the Sunshine Coast council's approval as well.
The Courier Mail reports that the council took just 30 minutes — which, honestly, seems like 30 minutes too many — to discuss Palmer's development application to build the "world's biggest" dinosaur park, which somehow attracted almost 200 objections from dinosaur-hating wowsers.
Councillor Jason O'Pray said he believed the dinosaur park will be "very good"; in a remarkable display of irony for such a formal occasion, he went on to describe the proposal as "classy", "subtle" and "nothing like Disneyland".
The dinosaur exhibit (and vintage car museum, because, sure, why not) will include up to 160 animatronic dinosaurs, which will roar and move, across 1.3ha of the 150ha Palmer Coolum Resort. Not one to wait for approval, Australia's answer to John Hammond started rolling out the dinosaurs a while ago — infamous T-Rex "Jeff" sits on the golf course.
In a letter to councillors, Brian Raison (from Coolum community organisation Development Watch) pleaded for the proposal to be rejected, stating the resort had suffered "catastrophic degradation under Mr Palmer's stewardship".
"You will be aware of the loss of the PGA, the probable loss of the Maroons training camp and the severe reduction in guest occupancy rates," Mr Raison wrote.
PGA? Boring. Maroons? Overrated. Guests? Who needs 'em. Dinosaurs? Essential, obviously.
Even when if the Palmer United Party fails to win a single seat at the election, it won't matter, because Palmer has already won the real victory — for himself, for mankind, and for dinosaurs.
Now can we get a progress report on the Titanic II?
