Indigenous owners launch bid to take over all of Great Keppel Island
Traditional owners of a former tourist mecca in Queensland that has fallen into disrepair over the past 15 years have lodged a fresh native title claim for exclusive use of the island.
Traditional owners of Great Keppel Island, the troubled former tourist mecca in Queensland, have lodged a fresh native title claim for exclusive ownership and use of key parts of the island after the state government cancelled the lease for its dilapidated resort.
The Woppaburra people were formally recognised in 2021 as the native title holders of 570 square kilometres of land and sea off the coast of Yeppoon on the Capricorn Coast and are now seeking exclusive possession over the former resort site and airstrip, The Courier-Mail reports.
The claim, which remains in pre-notification stage, covers nine lots and one partial lot covering a total 9.1 square kilometres, and has raised concerns among locals and other stakeholders over the future of tourism on the island.
It comes after the Queensland government last year cancelled the existing private lease held by Tower Holdings due to nearly $900,000 in unpaid rent.
The former resort, operated by Contiki and later Mercure, was once a popular destination for high-school students and known as a party paradise in the 1980s, but had fallen into disrepair after Tower Holdings bought the lease in 2006 and shut the doors two years later.
Successive attempts to revive the site over the years failed. In 2022, Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart pulled out of buying the resort for a rumoured $50 million.
Footage of the abandoned resort last year showed trashed hotel rooms, debris piled up and pools filled with green, mosquito-ridden sludge.
The cancellation of the lease means the Woppaburra people are entitled to submit a second native title claim that includes the resort area.
But the Queensland government will challenge the claim, according to The Courier-Mail, which reports the Department of Resources may classify the area as a strategic land management reserve rather than vacant land.
“Parts of Great Keppel Island have already been ruled to have native title extinguished in a previous ruling,” Resources Minister Scott Stewart told the newspaper.
“This will form part of the government’s response moving forward. As a respondent to the claim the government will be asked to provide its views and will challenge the claim regarding the extinguished areas. Until the claim is registered it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Capricorn Enterprise, the region’s tourism and economic development organisation, said it was unsure what effect the application would have on recently announced plans to revitalise the island, which came after “nearly two years with open and honest communication” between stakeholders including the business operators and the Livingstone Shire Council.
The council has been contacted for comment.
Capricorn Enterprise chief executive Mary Carroll said in a statement that she was only made aware of the native title claim on Thursday and followed the Woppaburra communication protocol by emailing the chairs of the Woppaburra Land Trust (WLT), the Woppaburra Saltwater Aboriginal Corporation (WSAC) and Woppaburra Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreement (TUMRA).
“I have not been able to gather enough factual information at this stage from either the applicant/s or government representatives to comment on what effect this may, or may not, have on our existing or future tourism industry for Great Keppel Island and our Capricorn Coast, Southern Great Barrier Reef destination,” she said.
“I am unsure at this stage how the [new native title application] made to the Federal court in May 2024, will affect, or not, the Great Keppel Island (Woppa) Concept Master Plan launched a month prior, which had the full endorsement of the Project Reference Group which included representation from the three official Woppaburra groups.”
Ms Carroll added, “We all spent nearly two years with open and honest communication, gaining trust and understanding, to produce a shared vision and master plan for a genuine way forward to realise a new era of sustainable tourism and investment on this magnificent island. One quarter of the economy on the Capricorn Coast is because of Great Keppel Island, increasing to 50 per cent, with the realisation of resort accommodation.”
The Great Keppel Island Concept Master Plan, released by the state government earlier this year, would see $25 million spent on cleaning up and restoring the site. The plan includes a new sewerage treatment plant, new and upgraded boardwalks, gateway precinct for visitors, key technical and feasibility studies for maritime access and cultural centre.
Queensland announced a further $5 million in this month’s state budget to undertake site security and safety works, and pest and vegetation management.
“The clean up of the old resort site and the construction of the new sewerage treatment plant on Great Keppel Island is of the utmost urgency, so we look forward to completion of both within six to twelve months maximum,” Ms Carroll said last week.
“Great Keppel Island is our hero tourism attraction responsible for one quarter of the coast’s economy and deserves critical enabling infrastructure by government to not only attract new resort investment but maintain and support existing accommodation and tour operators who have had more than their fair share of challenges and frustrations over the past decade.”
The master plan also confirmed the government was considering changing the island’s name to Woppa, after similarly renaming Fraser Island as K’Gari.
WSAC said in a statement on Sunday that the Woppaburra people had been involved in and had supported the master plan, and the native title application “will not cease progress towards implementation of the concept plan”.
“We are committed to working with supportive departments and collaborators giving us the ability to access and rehabilitate our country and as a result rejuvenate and revitalise the island environment including the Fisherman’s Beach precinct,” WSAC said.
“To date there has been no restrictions placed on any Woppaburra lands acquired through native title. Discussion towards initiation of the first NT claim commenced in 1993, with success 28 years later in 2021. Should this current claim be successful, it may be decades before any change in tenure is recognised. Even a relatively quick determination, would simply allow us to access these land parcels to assist with the clean-up of the contaminated landscape, progress water testing including ground bodies, rehabilitate the lands and engage in fire and pest management.”
WSAC chairperson Fred Saunders added, “We are protective of our sacred areas and will maintain our cultural responsibilities, but the Woppaburra people are not about restriction, anti-development and locking up lands. We are about sustainable environmental approaches to safeguard the islands beauty to make it an attractive destination for all visitors.”
Originally published as Indigenous owners launch bid to take over all of Great Keppel Island
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