By HARRY CLARKE | EXCLUSIVE
THE sudden resignation of Cairns mayor Bob Manning has brought to an end a long and diverse career which took the proud North Queenslander from Cairns to the Darling Downs and from Longreach to the Mediterranean, leaving a litany of well recognised achievements along the way.
But Manning says it was the three years he served as a young man in the Australian Army, including a year in Vietnam, which shaped him most greatly, imparting a work ethic which has seen the 78-year-old become Cairns’ second longest serving mayor and a widely respected veteran of Queensland local government.
Manning was this week interviewed exclusively by the Caller after announcing he’d be retiring effective immediately for health reasons, after nearly 12 years at the helm of Cairns Regional Council.
“We all get older and none of us can run from that,” he said over the phone from he and wife Claire’s backyard garden in suburban Cairns.
Manning, a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) recipient and graduate of the University of Southern Queensland’s business school, is credited as a key facilitator of Far North Queensland’s tropical tourism industry boom.
As Cairns mayor Manning drove several large city beautification projects such as the Esplanade Dining Precinct, Munro Martin Park redevelopment and a major streetscape upgrade in the city’s bustling centre.
Before running for politics, Manning spent 18 years as CEO of the Cairns Ports Authority which oversaw seaport and airport development in the city.
The local Cairns Post newspaper noted this week that since 1984, the number of domestic and international passengers passing through Cairns Airport had risen tenfold from 1,500 per day to 15,000 per day currently.
After resigning from the Cairns Ports Authority, Bob and Claire Manning lived in Cyprus where Bob worked as CEO of Hermes Airports Ltd, a multinational consortium established to set up new international airports in the republic.
Upon his return he found a calling in local government and was elected Cairns Regional Council mayor in 2012.
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“That was a time when tourism really started to hit Cairns, so it was an exciting time,” Manning told the Caller.
“We realised that Cairns was very much a tropical tourism city that depends on tourism. It’s not our biggest industry, but it’s what makes us tick. We needed to stay attractive, we needed people to be interested in us and how pretty our city is, and we needed to maintain it.
“We moved more into cultural activities. We now have three art gallery buildings and a fourth will go up. It’s helped to change the character of the city and what makes it appealing to people.”
With a combined population of 255,000 people, the tropical Far North coast and Atherton Tableland region is Queensland’s largest Statistical Area north of Wide Bay.
Cairns Regional Council commands an annual budget averaging about $450 million, and Manning said he was proud to have led an administration that managed its finances responsibly and effectively.
“We started off with a whole set of fresh new ideas, and those ideas were to get jobs done and not to just talk about them – get them done and get them done as quickly as possible,” Manning said.
“We worked our way through the program and we kept our rates fairly low. It was only during the Covid years that we took a couple of hits.
“I’m pretty proud of the way the council’s maintained its low-rate incomes. We’ve always said that for our ratepayers, we’re not going to put any debt on them. I think overall we’ve been very responsible financially and we’ve had some darn good financial people working for us.”
Manning’s career in local government began in Longreach in the late 1970s when he because Shire Clerk, remaining in the role for eight years.
Manning said the mentorship he received from Longreach council doyen Charlie Palmer, who famously arrived in the office at 3am daily, stuck with him throughout his career.
“That’s the way it was out there – everybody started work early,” Manning said.
“It was something different. Claire and I had never met people like that before – people who were real people, who really took you in and liked you. We were both in our late 20s and we’d just never struck people like that before. It was just wonderful.”
SLIDESHOW: Mayor Bob Manning’s 12 colourful years in office
There was a discomforting silence when, for editorial accuracy, the Caller sought confirmation that Manning’s three years Australian Army during the Vietnam War years include a year-long overseas tour of duty.
“Yep,” he replied, without elaborating.
Then, after a pause, Manning added: “There’s good and bad in the world all the time. These days there seems to be more bad than good. At that time, that was a big issue”.
In 1968 Manning was conscripted for National Service and graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant following a six-month course with the Officer Training Unit.
That course, Manning said, was the highlight of his professional life, and the fondest memory of his military service.
“I got straightened up a bit when I got called into the army,” he said.
“You get a lot of kicks in the backside, especially from the higher ranking officers. They say you’re all bloody hopeless, but I didn’t mind that.
“That course that we were subjected to, and the bastardry that went with it – which we enjoyed every bit of – was a wonderful experience and it certainly changed my life and the way I think. We loved that course. They certainly changed us, toughened us up and we certainly looked after our mates.
“It was certainly something that bonded us guys together forever. That’s what we did – we looked after our mates. Our numbers are starting to thin out a bit now and I’ve got no intentions to add to that, but we’re in contact from time to time.
“I’d have to be the last Vietnam bloke who was still serving in government. I don’t know of any others.”
