Opinion: Time to end rot as Queensland’s resort islands left in ruins

Opinion: If the land-bankers and big promisers who hold the tourism leases of some of Queensland’s best known island resorts can’t be made to do what’s right, it’s time for the Queensland Government to get in and do it, writes Leisa Scott.

Clean them up.

If the land-bankers and big promisers who hold the tourism leases of some of Queensland’s best known island resorts can’t be made to do what’s right, it’s time for the Queensland Government to get in and do it.

For too long - 15 years in the case of Great Keppel Island - these jewels off our coast have been left to rot as developers and bureaucrats dance around each other, ending up in the same spot. The place where nothing happens.

Locals have been saying it for years: if we let our properties become a junk heap, overrun with weeds and infested with pests and feral animals, there’d be a government official on our doorstep quick smart.

The resort on South Molle Island in the Whitsundays. Picture: Allards Across Oz

Yet these wealthy developers with a hold on some of the State’s most stunning places have been allowed to get away with doing almost nothing to care for the sites. By their landlord - the Queensland Government.

Now a parliamentary inquiry has laid bare part of the problem: the laws to regulate compliance with lease conditions are not up for the job.

Fix the laws so that the embarrassing stalemate that has stalled the rejuvenation of these crumbling resorts for way too long can never be repeated. Make leaseholders pay a bond, just like regular renters.

But that’s for the future. Right now, the old resorts on the islands of Brampton, Great Keppel, Double, South Molle and Lindeman (the sale of which recently fell through) remain eyesores.

The Resources Minister, Scott Stewart, has maintained it’s not the government’s job to spend the substantial dollars it will take to clean up these sites. That might be so on paper but this is our environment, our playground, our natural heritage, our tourism potential.

As the inquiry found, given the deficiencies of the legislation, bearing the cost of remediation might be an “unfortunate reality” for some of the existing tourism leases.

Cancel the leases of do-nothing developers. Get workers onto these slices of paradise. And clean them up.