Beach club storm with Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate branding opponents ‘a bunch of whingers’

Mayor Tom Tate has branded opponents of future beach bars as “whingers’ and told community leaders to leave the Gold Coast if they cannot embrace new tourism ideas.

Mayor Tom Tate has branded opponents of future beach bars as “whingers’ and told community leaders to leave the Gold Coast if they cannot embrace new tourism ideas.

The City’s push for beach clubs is sparking a political war with resident and environmental groups digging in for a long battle, poised to ramp up their protest campaigns.

Mr Tate has launched an unprecedented personal attack on Community Alliance leader John Hicks after he sent out an email to him and councillors protesting against the lack of transparency with the City’s nature tourism policy.

Mr Hicks called on council to dump its beach bar plan and not pursue projects like the cableway which can impact on endangered flora and fauna in the hinterland.

“Happy to buy him a beer. Never turned up,” Mr Tate told the Bulletin.

“So how passionate can you be, if you turn up and say it’s not good here, not good there. Give us first hand experience of why it’s wrong, then I will listen. But if you don’t do that – mate, what do they call it in Australia – whingers.”

Mr Hicks responded by saying it was disappointing when politicians resort to personal attacks.

The Community Alliance is warning the Gold Coast City Council about ensuring consultation about plans for more beach bars.

Mr Tate said he had to congratulate Mr Hicks on his consistency because his position was “no” to every new idea put forward by council.

“He hasn’t looked at the detail. It’s like ‘no – we don’t want anything’,” he said.

“Well, when someone keeps saying we don’t want anything, progression and new industry and broaden our tourism economy, it means this – it’s time for them to move out of here.

“Because the Gold Coast is a progressive city, we broaden our economy, especially for the next generation.

“He’s at his stage of life that he has done well, he’s got his house, and he doesn’t want anything else to change. What about our kids. They want to have a crack too.”

Mr Hicks said Community Alliance was not opposed to development or new tourism offerings provided they do not impact negatively on the natural environment.

He said the council push for nature-based tourism was seeking to benefit from the decades of efforts by community organisations to protect that natural environment.

“This effort has been almost entirely driven by volunteers not those seeking commercial benefits. Once again Community Alliance members call on the Mayor to be more transparent and accountable and release the NBT guidelines,” Mr Hicks said.

“It is difficult for community members to understand why they are ‘secret’ and why residents have had no say in their creation, after all they are the ones who have been paying the conservation levy for decades to buy the land Council now wants to market.”

Mr Hicks said a Sunrise poll on November 14 showed at least 63 per cent were opposed to beach clubs on public Aussie beaches.

Community leader John Hicks at a public meeting.

Meanwhile, members of the Main Beach Association have backed a motion which voiced their disappointment at “a perceived lack of transparency” on the nature-based tourism program.

The MBA endorsed the letter sent by Mr Hicks protesting about the lack of safeguards to prevent inappropriate privatisation of council-controlled public open space.

“In particular, we oppose the potential commercialisation of our beaches and Philip Park (at The Spit). We deplore that fact that council has failed to engage in community consultation prior to approving these controversial guidelines,” MBA leader Sue Donovan said.

The Bulletin has obtained a letter sent from Save Our Spit to Labor state Resources Minister Scott Stewart just prior to the October election warning about a political storm on beaches.

SOS president Dr Steve Gration said his members had no trust or confidence in the recent survey design and data collection method by the City on its community consultation.

The beach bar at Kurrawa on the Gold Coast after the council staged a trial.

Residents were only able to participate in the surveying after pressure on the council to extend the closing date from June to July.

Councillor Peter Young, at the time, was the only representative opposed to the nature tourism strategy, saying it would lead to beach bars and more commercial invasion in the hinterland.

An independent report commissioned by council into the 2021-22 Kurrawa beach bar trial had been “hidden and is no longer available to the public on the council website”, Dr Gration said.

He told the Minister that beach bars in Melbourne and Adelaide had encouraged a culture of “fast and potentially excessive drinking”.

“This is the existing business model for Australian beach bars that advertise “open to the public” but with the catch being, it costs a hefty price to stay within strictly timed sessions behind fenced-off, annexed public beach spaces,” Dr Gration said.

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