NSW Liberals caught between a rock and a teal race

At least four Liberal seats on Sydney’s Northern Beaches are under threat from teal independent candidates who plan to target a massive housing estate proposed by an Aboriginal land council.

From left, teal candidates for Sydney’s Northern Beaches seats Jacqui Scruby and Joeline Hackman, with Northern Beaches Bushland Guardian spokesperson Sarah Baker, at Lizard Rock in Belrose. Picture: John Feder

At least four Liberal seats on Sydney’s Northern Beaches are under threat from teal independent candidates who plan to target a massive 450-dwelling housing estate proposed by an Aboriginal land council under controversial planning laws introduced by the ­Perrottet government.

Despite fierce objections from local residents and the Northern Beaches Council, plans for the 71-hectare Lizard Rock site in Belrose are being fast-tracked under new rules promoted by NSW Planning Minister Anthony Roberts that allow Indigenous-owned projects to bypass local council approval.

The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council owns the site and eight others on the Northern Beaches totalling 912ha, making it by far the largest single landowner in the region.

The MLALC is pushing ahead with the proposal despite previous developments on the site being ­rejected by the Northern Beaches Council due to the loss of bushland, extreme bushfire risks, threats to rare species of flora and fauna and a complete absence of basic infrastructure.

Members of the Northern Beaches Indigenous community who are not associated with the MLALC have opposed the development on environmental grounds and because it increases the risk to Aboriginal heritage sites, which have been vandalised in the past.

Now teal independents in the traditionally safe Liberal seats surrounding the prized bushland site – Wakehurst, Davidson, Pittwater and Manly – intend to make the development a major focus of their campaigns against the Perrottet Liberal government at the March state election.

“This proposal, if it’s approved, will be a death knell for the Liberal Party across the Northern Beaches and the north shore,” predicted Northern Beaches Bushland Guardian spokesperson, Sarah Baker.

“Lizard Rock sits within the Wakehurst electorate so we are very, very clued up to this. We really love the environment, we’re very aware of it, and it’s going to be a hot election issue.”

Liberal Party strategists acknowledge Northern Beaches seats are vulnerable to a campaign on the issue, with teal candidates Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggall winning the federal seats of Mackellar and Warringah earlier this year on the back of strong environmental and integrity campaigns.

Environment lawyer Jacqui Scruby, who ran Ms Scamp’s campaign and has the backing of Simon Holmes a Court’s fundraising group Climate 200, will run as the teal candidate for Pittwater, currently held by retiring Infrastructure Minister Rob Stokes.

 

“One of the biggest things that activate the community is that there’s a special beauty up here that people want to preserve,” Ms Scruby said.

“The community is loud and clear: they don’t want this devel­opment, which keeps popping its head up with the same issues it had previously: the incredibly high bushfire risk and the loss of conservation zones to make way for residential zones.

“Party politics means that representatives such as Rob Stokes are very limited and hamstrung in terms of the advocacy and how they can determine things in a party setting.”

Senior Liberal figures on the Northern Beaches are angry the planning rules were changed to enable Aboriginal land council projects to sidestep local council approval if they are deemed to be “regionally significant”.

Local residents lodged 986 objections when the plan was first put up for discussion at the start of the year. But many observers believe approval for the development is a foregone conclusion, as the Department of Planning and Environment, which has enthusias­tically collaborated with the MLALC in preparing the plan, is also the determining authority.

“We’ve shot ourselves in the foot”, one senior Liberal figure told The Australian, expressing astonishment Mr Roberts approved the first step in the process, the Northern Beaches Aboriginal Development Delivery Plan.

“It will have a huge impact in some of these seats because Lizard Rock is located right in the middle of bushland that all those communities are familiar with,” another prominent local Liberal said.

“People know that if Lizard Rock goes ahead then it can happen in any of the other bushland the Metro land council owns – which is 10 times the total of Lizard Rock, he said.

“It may not go ahead but locals are terrified it’s going to happen. The rules may have been well-­intentioned – giving Aboriginal people a development pathway – but in Sydney land values are so high, you’ve got people next door saying ‘why don’t we have access to the same pathway?’ ”

Both Ms Scruby and the newly preselected teal candidate in Manly, Joeline Hackman, said they were already signing up campaign volunteers driven by opposition to the Lizard Rock development.

“This is just another example of how the environment is not being prioritised,” said Ms Hackman, who is taking on Environment Minister James Griffin in Manly.

“Watching the NSW Environment Minister, one of four MPs overseeing the department responsible for any approval of this proposal, defend his record on the environment in NSW is an absolute joke. We’re talking 45 football fields of bushland to be cleared for a development in a bushfire zone that isn’t even needed to meet planned housing targets,” Ms Hackman said.

The state government says the plan, if approved, will mean new homes and jobs for the area as well as stronger self-determination for the Indigenous community.

“This proposal is about Aboriginal people taking charge of using their land in ways that best supports their communities and protects their heritage,” Mr Roberts said.

The MLALC has not clarified how much, if any, of the housing development would be reserved for First Nations people but says it will develop the land itself or in a joint venture with a developer.

MLALC chief executive Nathan Moran said the council was entitled to pursue the development to fund housing for its stakeholders. “I don’t think it’s right to complain that we’ve got millions of dollars in land back (under the ­Aboriginal Land Rights Act) when we’ve had trillions of dollars in land taken,” he said.

“The council is proposing to use less than 1 per cent of its estate to be potentially developed, to fund itself – I think that’s an admirable model for any landowner.”

Mr Moran has suggested race is playing a part in objections to the development, a claim the teals are anxious to dispel.

“It’s not about race, it’s not about First Nations autonomy,” Ms Hackman said. “It’s about planning and development and about a lack of transparency and probity in … approval.”

All the sitting northern beaches MPs have expressed reservations about the Lizard Rock project.

And bitter preselection battles in the Liberal Party have placed male candidates in Pittwater and Davidson ahead of women – a headache for moderate Liberals and a further gift to the teals.