Mossman sugar mill faces liquidation vote as government offers flood-affected town $12m lifeline to save it

A busload of Mossman residents travelled to Cairns to hold a demonstration outside of the town hall meeting. (ABC Far North: Christopher Testa)

The Queensland government has offered a cyclone-affected community a $12 million lifeline as their town’s major employer, a historic sugar mill, faces liquidation.

Residents of Mossman in Far North Queensland confronted Premier Steven Miles with a protest before a town hall meeting in Cairns late Wednesday, pleading for financial help to save the 127-year-old mill.

Mr Miles offered the community an unexpected reprieve, announcing a funding package aimed at attracting a viable buyer to take the mill over.

Should that be unsuccessful, Mr Miles said the $12 million would instead be used to help the Mossman workforce transition away from the sugar industry.

Administrators last week recommended the mill’s parent company, Far Northern Milling, be wound up, jeopardising the town’s economic future just weeks after it was flooded following Tropical Cyclone Jasper.

Lifeblood of a town

Locals say closure of the mill would separate families and devastate the businesses that remain.

Creditors will vote on liquidation at a meeting today.

“The mill is like the heart and soul of the town,” said Jeanie Haydon, one of dozens who protested outside the Cairns State High School ahead of the Miles cabinet’s first regional town hall meeting.

“[It’s] the reason Mossman started and, really, exists.”

Long-time Mossman resident Jenny Atkins said without a lifeline the end of sugar milling in Mossman would trigger a “massive domino effect”, affecting small businesses “beyond what you can imagine”.

“It would mean that three of my kids would have to relocate to find work and probably suffer a loss in value of their homes, that each of them own,” she said.

“And I wouldn’t get to see my grandkids.”

Growers live in hope

About 80 canegrowers supply the grower-owned mill which employs about 150 people.

While it has received a combined $45 million in state and federal funding in recent years, more would be needed if a new investor is to take over the site.

Mossman sugar cane farmers were concerned the government lifeline would come too late to help get their cane out of the ground this year.

Kirsty Mackay said her family may look at selling part of their farm so that they have enough money to transition into cattle grazing and fruit growing, but they remain hopeful the Mossman mill will survive.

“We’ve fertilised, we’ve poisoned, we’ve planted, so we’re in for this year’s crop to be cut,” she said.

Daintree fruitgrower Jeremy Blockey said the community had “$12 million more than was on the table this morning”.

“The devil is going to be in the detail,” he said.

“Having 50 people outside with placards saying save our town, save our shire … [the premier] knew he had to do something.”