RSPCA swayed $6m deal for koalas

Graham Quirk has put responsibility for buying a treeless Brisbane block as a ‘koala corridor’ on an unnamed RSPCA officer.

Former Brisbane lord mayor Graham Quirk. Picture: Tara Croser

Former Brisbane lord mayor Graham Quirk has put responsibility for his controversial decision to spend $6.2m of ratepayers’ money on the purchase of a treeless suburban block as a “koala corridor’’ on an unnamed RSPCA officer he met visiting a wildlife hospital.

The recently retired Liberal mayor, who now works as an auctioneer, on Monday answered only a few questions about this year’s purchase of the 6500sq m block, which weeks earlier he dismissed as not being a koala habitat and having “no connectivity to nearby bushland’’.

Last week, RSPCA chief executive Mark Townend, who heads Queensland’s Koala Advisory Council, said the land in Brisbane’s south was “not a koala corridor’’ and that he feared the organisation was “being roped in” to justify the purchase using Bushland Acquisition Program levy funds.

The block was already cleared for a townhouse development, and a community group had threatened to campaign against local councillor and deputy mayor Krista Adams, who holds the division on a slim margin, ahead of next year’s election.

The purchase was announced by Mr Quirk and Ms Adams last November, just days before a planned demonstration over the proposed 29-townhouse development. Asked about what expert ­advice or scientific assessment had informed his decision, Mr Quirk said he had been convinced by an RSPCA officer he previously met at a wildlife hospital and called for a meeting at city hall.

A one-page note of the meeting, which is not on the council file for the purchase but was supplied to The Australian last week by its media team, shows it took place the day before Mr Quirk ­announced the decision to buy the land.

There is no other evidence on the file that council received any expert advice ahead of the purchase, which delivered a $1.79m profit to the developers, who bought the land only 10 months earlier. “I met her at the wildlife hospital,’’ Mr Quirk said when contacted by The Australian. “She then came to city hall for a meeting that lasted a bit over half an hour.

“She made it clear there was two significant areas of land (for koalas) and that it (the block) was a bit of a corridor linking the two.’’

The block is surrounded by houses, and there are number of other suburban blocks and major roads between it and bushland that has been officially mapped as containing koala populations.

Just weeks before he announced council was buying the block in Mount Gravatt East, Mr Quirk wrote to a Senate committee saying the block was not a koala habitat or corridor.

“The site is private property, surrounded by typical low-density suburban houses and with no connectivity to nearby bushland,’’ the then mayor wrote, in response to the community group’s submission to the Senate inquiry into the nation’s faunal extinction crisis. Asked about the contradiction, Mr Quirk said his submission was “separate altogether’’. Mr Quirk said he could not recall the timing of the meeting, and would not answer any further questions.

Mr Townend said last night he doubted the RSPCA officer would have backed the purchase.

“She would have given general advice about koalas and the hotspots in the region, and if she was asked where the best place would be to buy, I doubt it would be that parcel of land.’’

It was revealed on Monday the initial $5.2m cost of the purchase had blown out by $1m, which ­included council pocketing $750,000 in charges for its own admini­strative and legal work.

University of Queensland associate professor Jonathon Rhodes, who is on the Koala Advisory Council, has also joined experts who have raised doubts that the block is a “koala corridor’’.

“It doesn’t look like an obvious corridor to me, and given the land has been cleared and there isn’t connected vegetation, any benefit is small,” he said.