The battle for Currawong has finally taken wing

AFTER years of complacency, Sydneysiders are finally fighting for their beaches.After a 12-year struggle, Northern Beaches residents have finally convinced NSW Planning Minister Kristina Keneally to refuse an application to subdivide the historic Currawong site within Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, on Pittwater's western foreshore.

Keneally cited environmental concerns about the plan by developers Allen Linz Eduard Litver to dump massive amounts of fill into the park-bound site and erect 25 modern homes. The fight for Currawong would rival the script for the hit Australian film The Castle, with the baddies being a succession of State Labor ministers and, in a surprise twist, the White Knight being the newest State Planning Minister. Over a decade ago, then NSW Labor Council secretary Michael Costa saw the sale of Currawong as a means to two ends close to his heart. He and his wife had become converts to the Guru Maharishi Yogi and his squad of bum-bouncing fans and the Labor Council wanted an infusion of cash. A sale to the transcendental meditationistas would give them an exquisite site from which to see the sunrise and the cash would be a sublime gift to the union movement. Unfortunately, the Maharishi's local representatives proved to be less than they initially seemed and the deal attracted nothing but bad press before evaporating. Costa moved on to become Treasurer of NSW but the lure of converting Currawong into cash still fascinated John Robertson, his successor at the Labor Council -- now rebadged as Unions NSW. He found, or was approached by, Linz and Litver, who control several companies, one of which had been involved in a failed computer operation in concert with the Labor Council. Their interlocking company accounts appear ultimately to disappear into the secrecy of the British Virgin Islands, a notorious tax haven. After a curious process in which another of their companies vetted tender proposals for the sale, another Linz and Litver company was the successful tenderer with an offer of $15 million, much less than the reported $50million tendered by another party and $25 million reportedly bid by a third. In due course, then Planning Minister Frank Sartor removed the approval process from Pittwater Council and took it upon himself to make the final decision -- although he left the portfolio before acting. Local activists, including a formerly stalwart Labor supporter, the actor Shane Withington, were disgusted but they were to be snubbed again when the federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts Peter Garrett reneged on a pledge to protect the site from development. Keneally has found a face-saving means of extricating the Labor Party from this mess but the pusillanimous Independent Commission Against Corruption has yet to ask any hard questions about the smelly affair -- least of all whether Unions NSW received any money for the site? The fight to preserve Currawong is not yet over but the ministerial decision marks one small victory.