Over the years, Cairns' once thriving shipbuilding industry has copped the rough end of the Canberra pineapple but Malcolm Turnbull arrived on Wednesday with a gift.
He's promising $24 million to upgrade Cairns' port and shipyard facilities, which longtime shipyard worker John Taifalos says means they can take on more work and employ more people.
In prime ministerial terms that means jobs and growth.
Mr Taifalos, 49 years in the shipbuilding and ship maintenance business and now operations manager of Norship Marine, said this funding meant they could install better facilities for support work.
"We then can have some confidence to increase our workforce, increasing apprentices, to bring together the skills we require that are no longer available in Cairns because of the lack of shipbuilding," he said.
Cairns missed out on building hull sections for the navy's three air warfare destroyers and more recently, lost out to Austal in Perth on the deal to build up to 21 new Pacific Patrol Boats.
Losing the PPB deal so annoyed federal MP Warren Entsch that he declared it "stupid", but now reckons Cairns will be a big winner from performing PPB maintenance work.
He said construction of the PPBs was worth $280 million over three-four years, whereas maintenance was worth some $400 million over decades.
As well, Cairns would be well placed to maintain a wide range of other vessels.
"We have the winning ticket here," he said.
Mr Turnbull said this investment plus $1 billion long-term spending in Cairns would create great opportunities.
"We've got great opportunities here with defence, with border protection, with commercial vessels, with super yachts, fishing vessels, reef operators," he said.
Mr Turnbull was also offering government largesse in Townsville - $150 million for a rail freight line upgrade to improve access to the city's port.
Although about rail, Mr Turnbull made his announcement at the port - the fourth maritime flavoured campaign event in three days. That followed a visit to the Austal shipyard in Perth on Monday and an Australian Border Force patrol boat in Darwin on Tuesday.
He said the Townsville rail project would create massive economic benefits and had been identified by successive Queensland governments as a priority project.
"Its time has come," he said.
Mr Turnbull has been accused of sidelining local MPs and candidates in his campaign media events, but both were in abundance in his stops in North Queensland.
That included outspoken Liberal MP George Christensen, who declined to go before the cameras and face a grilling on the issue of immigration.
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