Perth’s lost tourism opportunity: The report ignored until penguins paid the price

West Australian businesses, taxpayers and wild animals have paid the price after the state government failed to act on a decade of clear advice that a Penguin Island discovery centre south of Perth was falling apart and should not be located there.

While the state sat for years on reports recommending the island centre close and be replaced by a mainland centre, five little penguins died awaiting a new home that “met animal ethics standards”.

Traditionally, any penguins rehabilitated from illness or injury but not suitable for release were displayed in the island discovery centre, which tourists visited by a five-minute ferry from Mersey Point in the City of Rockingham.

When the centre closed each winter, the captive penguins were relocated to a mainland enclosure in the area, which 2019 advice urged needed a speedy rebuild.

But it was only in 2021 that a rebuild was completed, too late to save five captive penguins that died in their grim enclosure after a pump failure.

The $120,000 replacement enclosure now sits empty, the surviving penguins rehomed to Perth Zoo and Caversham Wildlife Park, with their permanent home, the discovery centre, condemned and awaiting demolition with no replacement in sight.

The government made a $3.3 million election commitment to build a new discovery centre on the island, despite consistent advice that this would be bad for the penguin population and it should be built at Mersey Point. The government then backflipped on this decision only months later.

The money has now been diverted to cover secondary island infrastructure including toilets, staff buildings, picnic tables and shade structures and a new centre remains unfunded.

Documents obtained by this masthead under Freedom of Information laws showed that as early as 2014, engineers were warning of rotting poles, a corroding roof and a short lifespan at the discovery centre.

The state spent $80,000 on a business analysis in 2016, which took a year to complete, to help decide what to do.

The 85-page report investigated a replacement discovery centre at Penguin Island, Mersey Point and Point Peron, dismissed Point Peron because of significant logistical constraints and all but dismissed the island as well, noting that while an on-island rebuild would be cheapest, it would have a significant environmental impact, limited ability to grow without worsening this impact and would never be able to open in winter.

Mersey Point was deemed the most viable option for reasons including lessening pressure on the island and being able to open year-round.

The report thus focused on detailed recommendations for Mersey Point, providing options for three price points, starting at $6.5 million.

It also recommended limiting visitor numbers to the island itself to lessen pressure on the penguin population. This recommendation has never been implemented.

The FOI documents show that department staff briefed then-director general Jim Sharp in late 2016 that Mersey Point was the recommended option and that the City of Rockingham had given in-principle support.

There was apparently no departmental-ministerial dialogue regarding the matter for the next three years.

In desperation, Rockingham Wild Encounters, the region’s primary main tourism operator, wrote to then-premier and member for Rockingham Mark McGowan pleading for action.

The company’s managing director was told to develop a “more detailed business case” himself in a letter back that also showed Mersey Point was still the accepted location.

Annual engineering reports costing thousands continued to roll in confirming the island building was rapidly deteriorating, specifying minimum repairs to kick the can down the road.

Public servants held a “review of options” in 2019, creating a document essentially summarising the same options presented in the $80,000 report from three years earlier.

To the shock of all stakeholders, the state government decided in 2020 the centre would be rebuilt on the island, promising $3.3 million as part of a $227 million tourism funding package in its 2021 re-election campaign.

The public outcry about the impact on the penguins that followed led to Environment Minister Reece Whitby scuttling the plan in 2022, the same summer half the penguin chicks on the island died from extreme heat without human intervention to save them.

Rockingham Wild Encounters has taken tourists to the island for nearly 20 years. Manager Chad D’Souza said with the discovery centre shuttered, business this school holidays had already dropped 50 per cent.

He said tourists believed the whole island was closed despite their efforts to promote the possibility of still seeing a penguin in the wild. For the first summer in decades, the business would not be able to offer tourists a guaranteed little penguin sighting – a sad prospect.

As this masthead has been lodging its inquiries, Whitby has set up a meeting with D’Souza to discuss the situation.

Now, seven years after the initial analysis, the department has ordered another report costing a further $90,000, again looking at options on the mainland including Mersey Point.

A department spokesperson said the 2016 study “did not address site planning for a centre on the mainland or provide detailed financial feasibility” and was also “now seven years old”.

City of Rockingham councillor and Save the Little Penguins convenor Dawn Jecks said the state government’s failure to act showed tourism and making money appeared “to be the priority over conserving a species, one that is so important to the community in Rockingham”.

She felt both the government and the department had shown “indifference and sometimes even irritation” towards the little penguin population.

“This signals to the community that the state government are not all that serious about Rockingham as a tourist destination, which is a huge shame because our region has much to offer,” she said.

“This seems to influence their approach, which is to block and delay suggestions put forward by scientists who study and know [the penguins] best.”

Where is the money going?

Shoalwater marine park, in which Penguin Island sits, is the focus of multiple ecotourism businesses. Credit: Getty

Two months after Whitby scrapped the on-island plan, the FOI documents show a meeting of departmental staff noted the $3 million “remainder” of the election commitment funding (minus the $90,000 spent on the new study) was to be spent on “required upgrades to facilities on the island” and “as such, any mainland centre, if feasible, would require funding to be identified.”

The island now has a new $385,000 toilet block, new southern stairs, shed upgrades and power system upgrades.

By next year, $1.64 million will have been spent on the operations centre for staff and researchers, picnic tables, boardwalks, shade structures and educational signage.

An unspecified portion of an anticipated $400,000 discovery centre demolition bill is budgeted for site rehabilitation.

Further upgrades to the toilet block and power system are mooted.

A department spokeswoman said the upgrades were important to provide ongoing visitor access to the island, ensuring volunteers and staff had suitable facilities to maintain an ongoing presence to manage and educate visitors, and to facilitate research on little penguins.

The future is bleak and uncertain for Perth’s little penguins.Credit: Rockingham Wild Encounters

She said the latest report was due to be completed by the end of the year, and would include expanded location options for the new mainland centre, including discussing the possibility of it being relocated to Rockingham foreshore.

Asked about the impact of the government’s delays over the past seven years, before he had the portfolio, Whitby stressed that climate change and extreme weather was causing the decimation of the island’s penguin population above all else.

He pointed to the government’s decision to close the island to all visitors on days above 35 degrees as evidence of its actions to support the population.

Neither the department nor minister’s office responded to questions about the delay between the 2016 recommendations and its 2021 funding commitment, or the lack of any kind of recovery plan for the penguin population other than vegetation rehabilitation at the demolition site.

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