Pacific Airshow Gold Coast

The Pacific Airshow is back on the Gold Coast this weekend, after an immensely successful sellout in its inaugural year last year. It’s held over three days. The rain, I know, is going to stop and the sun will come out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday all day so that we can be treated to what is going to be the sky show of the year in this country. Organisers are expecting to top last year’s 150,000 tickets sold. We’re likely to see up to 300,000 spectators line the beaches all the way from Main Beach down to Miami and all the surf clubs in between will be packed out to see this event in the skies. The restaurants will be absolutely bursting at the seams, and it will be great to see.

It’s a family-friendly airshow that has cemented itself as a must attend. Of course, it’s a unique annual event in South-East Queensland among residents and visitors alike and people will be coming from all over the world to the Pacific Airshow. We have wonderful veterans who are going to be there and some stunning acts in the sky. It will definitely feature the world’s best civilian performers, some military aviators and emerging aviation technology doing things that will make you turn your head and perhaps hold your stomach a little bit. When you see the loop-the-loops, the corkscrews, the up-agains and the upside-downs that the planes do, it’s quite incredible.

To all those incredibly talented pilots whom we’ll see in the sky over the next three days and their teams, thank you. The joy and entertainment you bring to hundreds of thousands of spectators is unmatched. We’ve been flown into a new era of spectacular global events, with the second Pacific Airshow, a sister event to the famous Pacific Airshow Huntington Beach in California, and its professional team from Code Four locked in for three more years of in-sky entertainment that Gold Coasters, Australians, Americans and the rest of the world will enjoy. A big congratulations to the Pacific Airshow team, Major Events Gold Coast, Experience Gold Coast and the Australian Defence Force for the incredible work that you’ve done in the lead-up to this event.

Some of the biggest drawcards at this year’s event are defence assets: the RAAF F-35A display; the USAF F-22 Raptors, which will be stunning; the US Navy’s P-8 Poseidon; the RAAF Roulettes, which are the upside-down ones I was talking about; the RAAF 100 Squadron; and Nitro Circus—and that’s just to name a few. Nothing compares to the joy and exhilaration that we are going to see this weekend on the Gold Coast.

This event also provides certainty to businesses that really need a lifeline, because so many businesses on the Gold Coast are struggling at the moment. At last year’s event I spoke with the operator of a food van that pulled up outside one of the surf clubs and took a huge amount of revenue just in a couple of days with coffees and sandwiches. That really did save them and kept them going in that post-COVID period when they were trying to come back. The surf clubs I’ve mentioned, all the way from North Burleigh surf club up the coast to Southport surf club, will all be absolutely stoked this weekend when the air show comes to town.

I just want to say a few thankyous to some people who have been in this from the beginning. Right at the very beginning, in October 2020, Jan McCormick from Major Events Gold Coast came to my office on Chevron Island to discuss how we were going to deliver this air show. To bring the Australian Defence Force to the table with this is no mean feat, and I would like to thank the cabinet minister Stuart Robert for his contribution to bring the Pacific Airshow to the Gold Coast but also the Leader of the Opposition, who was the Minister for Defence at that time and signed off on the Pacific Airshow and those defence assets. And it would be remiss of me not to thank the current Minister for Defence for his continuing support for the air show. This means a lot to my community. It means a lot to businesses. It is so very, very important. It’s the coalition that supports these events. The coalition supports free enterprise, reward for effort and small business. Just like Gold Coasters, the coalition backs all of the small businesses who will greatly benefit this weekend.

To finish, I would just like to say how important the Pacific Airshow is with regard to our relationship with the United States, our closest ally and our good friend since the ANZUS Treaty in 1951. We have been so very close. Just last night I was in the Deputy President’s courtyard, and we were meeting with congress men and women who are here in Canberra. We welcome those congress men and women who have taken the time to come to see our parliament, to visit our nation. I wish the US ambassador, Her Excellency Caroline Kennedy—who has gone home at the moment—all the best with the arrival of her new grandchild. I also thank the person acting in her role, Erika Olson, the Deputy Chief of Mission, for her contribution while Her Excellency Caroline Kennedy is not here.