Caleb Bond: The community won on sand carting, but why did it take so long?
The State Government’s backflip on sand carting from Semaphore caught everyone by surprise. But if they can make the decision after community backlash, why didn’t they do it in the first place, Caleb Bond asks.
Opinion
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What a backflip from David Speirs on sand carting.
One minute he’s saying the State Government is deadset on taking sand from Semaphore. Months, in fact, he’s been saying it. There would be no changing of the mind. The minister is not for turning. The sand-laden trucks were going to stream through the streets of Semaphore whether the residents liked it or not.
Then it was all off. In a flash. The backflip quietly dropped at 3.30pm on Friday – the oldest trick in the book when it comes to burying a story.
A strange move, I thought, given it’s essentially a case of the Government actually listening to the people it works for and finding an alternative solution to keep everyone happy. It’s the kind of stuff governments ought to do more of. It wouldn’t have been hard to spin as a positive yarn.
Now, the majority of sand to be sent to the ailing West Beach will come from Point Malcolm, where sand carting has been going on for yonks. There’s a breakwater there to make it easier.
It’s a solution no one is opposed to.
Perhaps they don’t want to admit they’ve made the changes, as though it’s some kind of bruise to their ego. But whatever. That’s their business.
What is stranger is that there was no indication the Government might backflip. It was, it would appear, a decision made entirely on Friday.
I stood there at West Beach on Wednesday as Mr Speirs told reporters the Opposition had to “get their heads out of the sand”. The same night he responded to a Facebook message from a member of the public upset with those words, branding the protesters who blocked the building of a concrete road through the dunes at Semaphore a “noisy minority”.
No indication of any change of heart whatsoever. He had the chance to backtrack again when questions were put to him about that message on Thursday. No such sign. Business as usual.
Then, on Friday morning, someone from an outfit called Promanage went down to Semaphore and tapped a number of people prominent in the protests on the shoulder. They were there on behalf of the Government and they wanted to meet.
Along with a representative of the Environment Department, they thrashed out their alternative plan in about three hours. It was announced quietly that afternoon with a press release.
No more concrete road through the dunes and far less sand to be taken from Semaphore.
It is hard to understand why such a sudden decision was made, particularly given there had been a steadfast commitment from Speirs to take large amounts of sand from Semaphore. And if it’s now possible to take the sand from Point Malcolm, why was that decision not made in the first place – or at least shortly after Semaphore residents started kicking up a fuss?
It caught everyone by surprise – not least the people summoned to the meeting. They were obviously pleased, but none the wiser as to why any of this actually happened.
One can only deduce there was an intervention from someone senior within the Government or they had been given information that threw the original plans out the window.
It’s quite an extraordinary move to chuck out plans the Government had been selling and working on for months, in a matter of hours.
While this is a win for the community, it leaves more questions than it answers.
Regardless, the Government deserves credit for listening to the people.
The protesters – about a hundred of them – were a well-organised group that peacefully prosecuted their case. While you might have taken their opposition as NIMBYism, you couldn’t accuse them of being militant.
Which is likely part of the reason they achieved their goal (note to nutters of Extinction Rebellion, et al).
The most important thing, of course, is that West Beach gets the sand it needs to actually still be a beach. Like it or not, sand carting is a fact of life if we are to maintain our beaches.