Lucy Carne: Transparency is vital for North Stradbroke Island development to succeed
Of course a transparent development process is essential on North Stradbroke Island, but the hysterical fear over the Aboriginal community using their land is racism masquerading as eco-protection, writes Lucy Carne.
Opinion
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Living in New York and London in my 20s and 30s, I carried with me a small bottle of North Stradbroke Island’s Deadman’s Beach.
As I endured horizontal rain and temperatures so cold that dog urine would freeze on footpaths, it was a reminder of hot sand and warm waves to which I would one day return.
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As Clive James wrote in Unreliable Memoirs of Aussies overseas: “It would be churlish not to concede that the same abundance of natural blessings which gave us the energy to leave has every right to call us back.”
But it was not yachts “racing on the crushed diamond water under a sky the texture of powdered sapphires” in Sydney Harbour that lured me home.
It was a rusty barge crossing Moreton Bay.
It was the glorious “abundance of natural blessings” that is North Stradbroke Island.
I’ve been going to Straddie since I was in the womb. It’s where I learnt to fish and surf. It’s where I first met my future husband as kids on Cylinder Beach. It’s where I got married and where I christened my daughter. It is the same rock pools I played in as a toddler that my own children now enjoy. It’s where I cared for my mother through breast cancer and where my father-in-law is buried.
I may not have a bloodline claim to the island but, as it is for so many others, Straddie is my heartland.
So when it was revealed last week that the state government had “secretly” rezoned 300ha of land across North Stradbroke Island under Native Title for uses including residential, industrial and tourist development, many understandably freaked out.
You can’t blame Queenslanders for being hypersensitive to secret development deals. The pain is still raw from the midnight flattening of the National Trust-listed Cloudland Dance Hall 38 years ago.
The government’s covert Straddie rezoning (slipped in two weeks before entering caretaker mode) had the hallmarks of the white shoe brigade.
Yet instead of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen doing deals to the detriment of the state’s heritage and natural beauty, this time it’s Labor.
There’s a reason some locals call it “Trad-broke Island”.
But the secrecy of the land rezoning makes former treasurer Jackie Trad’s Woolloongabba house look as insignificant as buying an old Ikea wardrobe off Gumtree.
Sure, the idea may have first been mooted by the state government and Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation (QYAC) as part of the Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) in 2011.
But last week’s Government Gazette was the first time many – including the local council, residents, homeowners and some Aboriginal elders – had heard of it.
Rumours are rampant: the island with no traffic lights is now supposedly set for a major supermarket chain, a casino, high-rise hotels and housing estates in sand dunes.
But what is missing in the confusion and hysteria is clarity: no development deals have yet been made. To even sell land that belongs to thousands of people is complex and time consuming.
Yet the government, which enacted the deal, left QYAC to face the fallout.
The indigenous body corporate is not beyond criticism either. There are claims of a lack of community consultation and ignorance over mysterious land clearing, which has only fuelled public anxiety.
But QYAC, which is trying to move the island forward in a future without sand mining, has been thrown under the bus by Labor and suddenly become a pawn embroiled in an election campaign.
The LNP, who conveniently forgot they wanted sand mining to continue on the island until 2035, started flapping about at the lack of protection for the pristine wilderness. And the Greens? Suspiciously silent.
What head-spinning hypocrisy.
The demonising perception that Native Title somehow means people will lose their holiday homes, koalas will be killed or Chinese casinos will suddenly appear is madness.
A group of people, who have more than 2000 years of connection to the island, have the right to independently benefit from, live on and protect their sacred land.
Yet the Nimbys in their architecturally designed beach houses (in cleared bushland) are outraged that Native Title owners would possibly build some low-density housing? That’s just racism wrapped up in the koala suit of environmental activism.
Development is inevitable and essential. Drive through Dunwich to see how much it’s needed.
But the secrecy of ILUAs – not just on Straddie but across the country – must stop.
This process can only continue with honesty and transparency, not secret deals. That only breeds mistrust and misunderstanding.
This isn’t some small private business group doing a government deal.
This is the second-biggest sand island in the world and a vital treasure to rebuilding our post-COVID tourism economy. Indigenous prosperity and ecological sustainability both belong at the table.
I want to see Native Title succeed. I also want my kids to carry a love of their island with them wherever they go in the world, so that Straddie will hopefully one day call them home.