Tensions erupt during ‘excellent’ Great Keppel Island planning meeting held at Yeppoon’s Queen Street Community Hall

A late location change and the public berating of a local MP by one attendee began a meeting about the future of Great Keppel Island otherwise described as “excellent”. Read what unfolded here.

A group of 26 met in Yeppoon on Tuesday to try to reach a consensus on the future of Great Keppel Island. Photo: Tourism and Events Queensland.

A meeting held in Yeppoon on Tuesday as part of a continuing effort by the State Government to figure out what it should do on Great Keppel Island was punctated in its early minutes by an attendee reproaching Keppel MP Brittany Lauga for interfering with the process, and abruptly leaving.

State Development Department, Tourism Department, and Livingstone Shire Council workers, Woppaburra representatives, tourism businesses, island residents, and other interested parties made up the group of 26 working towards a “master plan” for the island.

They were led by Department of State Development regional director Nikki Wright.

Originally they were to meet at Beaches Restaurant at Rosslyn Bay, but ended up at the Queen Street Community Hall in Yeppoon as that location was considered “neutral ground” by more than one attendee.

It was the third meeting, but the first “workshop” of the group, which met first on Great Keppel Island and for the second time over Zoom.

On this occasion, attendees were asked to think about the future of the island and write their ideas on paper stuck to the walls of the hall.

The Queen Street Community Hall in Yeppoon.

Member for Keppel Brittany Lauga gave an interview outside the hall prior to the gatherers getting stuck into things, saying that “a lot of change in opinion between stakeholders” had held up State Government spending of the $26 million remaining from its initial $30 million commitment to GKI.

“Only six months ago we were hearing stakeholders saying they needed a break wall and marina; now those same stakeholders are saying that they want to see the infrastructure spent on other things,” she said, naming the following as possible ways forward:

In the short term, walking trails and “amenities”; in the medium term, a jetty (now the predominant option regarding access, she said) and a sewage treatment plant; and further off, work on the island’s runway and possible changes to the geographical boundaries of leases on the island.

Keppel MP Brittany Lauga.

“The stakeholders’ opinions do tend to change over the years depending on what the predominant developer who’s interested in developing the island is keen to do,” Ms Lauga said.

“It's not necessarily just on Tower: this is a whole-of-island master plan that we’re working on, and we also need to make sure that whatever the master plan looks like will actually meet the market.

“Tower Holdings is very much under scrutiny by the Department of Resources, who oversees the leases, and the Department of Resources is working closely with them.

“There are representatives with the Department of Resources here today, and I understand that they’ll be answering some questions about non-compliance with the leases today.”

At first, elected representatives were unwelcome at the workshop, but Livingstone Shire Council sent a letter to Tourism Industry Development and Innovation Minister Stirling Hinchliffe expressing disappointment at its exclusion.

It received a reply last week that it would be included.

No Livingstone Shire councillors attended Tuesday’s workshop, but Russell Claus and Sonia Barber, both of whom are involved in economic planning at the council, were sent in their stead; most of the councillors themselves met with stakeholders later in the afternoon.

Ms Lauga was invited by the Tourism Department too, but the stakeholders seemed not have been informed of this, nor of the media attention.

Media were therefore asked to leave.

The Keppel MP’s appearance infuriated group member Michael Powell, who publicly berated her for what he considered grandstanding when she began to make remarks inside the hall.

“I know exactly what’s been going on,” Mr Powell told Ms Lauga.

“You have caused the problem. You have made the promises. Power, water, jetty.

“You can have the whole meeting to yourself.”

Mr Powell temporarily left the workshop in protest and told The Morning Bulletin that he thought the consultation would be corrupted if Ms Lauga, as a representative of the government for which it was begun, got in the way of Ms Wright’s independence or attempted to steer the conversation towards her own agenda.

He said that Ms Lauga should not be interfering by proposing what to do on the island when he and other attendees had their own clear suggestions - an all-purpose amenities block, for instance, with showers, toilets, a first aid station, and more - and that it was untrue to say stakeholders’ opinions often changed, only that prospective GKI developers changed.

Mr Powell considered some of Ms Lauga’s submissions completely different from what the attending group had in mind, such as her focus on the runway, and in the case of the lease boundaries, not in accordance with the island’s actual lease conditions.

He said could not get a straight answer as to why Tower’s possession of the island leases had not been challenged by the government after so many years.

“We’ve been through this process before, many times,” he said.

“Brittany’s appearance had proven to me that nothing had changed.

“I like Nikki, and I think that she intends to do her job with integrity, but what will happen to the information that she puts together in this master plan when it goes to government?

“We’re all united behind Nikki because she was undermined by Brittany.”

Nevertheless, he called Tuesday’s catch-up an “excellent meeting”.

“I have a greater understand of the landscape than I did when I got down there,” Mr Powell said.

“It was a very successful day.”

At least three other attendees agreed with Mr Powell’s position, but did not speak on the record.

Ms Lauga also left the meeting after its introductory period, but returned towards its conclusion.

Livingstone Shire mayor Andy Ireland said the council was “delighted now to be back at the table”.

“Not only are we members of the community here, we also have a fairly good view of what the community view on GKI is,” he said.

“What council’s position has been all along is that the priority for GKI is all-tide, all-weather access.

“Whatever form that takes to make it happen, whether that‘s a marina, whether that’s a jetty, whether that’s a breakwall.

“At the moment people with a disability are almost excluded from visiting the island.”

A draft master plan is expected by the end of this year.