[pete55]

I think you are missing my point Peckstar. Where you live there is a three or four circuits within a couple of hours drive. In North Qld. (Townsville in this case) there is not another circuit for over 1200km's. My point is also that major capital cities and their near neighbours have plenty of places to have advanced driver training etc but Townsville and places like it don't. Why don't you think they don't deserve this.
About the money side of things, i think that if the Qld. Government sat down and looked at what a permanent circuit could provide over what a street circuit does then i think that they would view it more favourably. As for your tourist figures i find them a bit unbelievable in this case. There maybe a couple of thousand that would come from places over 400km's away. Darwin is a good example of how a permanent circuit can benefit an area, especially one that is a thousand or so kilometres away from a capital city.