The Torquay Towers and The People of Hervey Bays struggle against it

 Written by: (Contributed) on 10 September 2024

 

(Above - The proposed development.  Photo: www.theurbandeveloper.com )

 

A coastal city with a focus on tourism must consistently strive in a capitalist economy to keep its worth for its profiteers. How can this city survive on tourism when what generates its worth in the for-profit economy will also inevitably destroy it? Tourism is not a sustainable pillar of a city's economy and is a short-term profitable source for its investors. There must be a focus on all essential factors to creating an effective and balanced economy that has its people in command. Only this can ensure health and longevity for the city and its population. 

Hervey Bay, the unceded and traditional land of the Badtjala People, is undergoing large developmental projects. Development is not necessarily bad, and Hervey Bay needs development, so what is creating uproar within the community? Why is it that there has been constant backlash against the local and state government for the developments in Hervey Bay? Should not the community be rejoicing in the city’s much needed development? The answer lies in the question and answer of who this development is for, and what its impacts are for both sides. 

The most recent construction that is affecting the people of Hervey Bay is the development of the 18 storeys ‘Torquay Towers’ or the Sheraton Resort. The people of Hervey Bay clearly see the destructive socioeconomic and environmental impacts of this construction and therefore are extremely concerned with the consequences it will bring. The Torquay Towers are not only destructive but are not in the interest of the people of Hervey Bay. 

The government, local profiteers and landlords have put a focus on Hervey Bay as a city for tourism and retirement. As a result, there are limited educational options past grade 12, and students pursuing an education are apt to leave and not come back.

When a city is built on being a place for tourism and retirement, gentrification Is inevitable and there is no mobilisation for its youth. The youth leave and there is more focus placed on tourism and retirement to combat this contradiction. As you would expect this further exacerbates the contradiction and more material and finances are contributed to the very thing creating the unevenness in the contradiction. 

The Torquay Towers are a prime example of this contradiction. This 18-storey monstrosity makes it “the ‘largest’ hotel development north of Brisbane”. Not only will this look ridiculous compared to all other buildings around it, with the current largest in the bay being 6 storeys, not even being close to its size and offensiveness, it will bring devastating environmental impacts to the reef due to its two towers that will shine over the reef causing coral bleaching it will almost be out of a Tolkien novel.

Mayor George Seymour is well aware of the public outrage to the point that at a council meeting with some of the public, due to heckling, he threatened to close the meeting. It has already been apparent Seymour doesn’t care for the residents of Hervey Bay or their wishes and demands with this being one of the most blatant, opportunistic and sell-out of his actions yet. It is clear that he will not be swayed in his convictions and the people must demonstrate their outrage of this. 

Hervey Bay is facing a housing crisis, the government and profiteers are struggling to house its own population, yet the profiteers and government have the audacity to green light its largest tourism project yet. Under capitalism housing becomes a commodity and becoming homeless, which despite the many injustices of past economic systems, becomes a possibility. Even under Feudal systems homelessness was not something the people had to face. Housing must not be a commodity; it is a right. 

Australia is facing a cost-of-living crisis nationwide and yet they have the audacity to greenlight a $450 million dollar tourist venture. 

We the people of Hervey Bay who are struggling in these desperate times must not relent in the struggle against this development. We have already been mobilised against it with an inspirational spirit, but we must not relent. 

The corrupt and bureaucratic Landlords, Profiteers, Government and Seymour must feel the power of the people in unity. They must be challenged. For the longevity of Hervey Bay and the spirit of resistance nationwide. 

We must challenge the development of the Sheraton Hotel/Torquay Towers and all future developments that are putting profit over people and environment. Be creative, be persistent and challenge the destructive status quo. Hervey Bay is symptomatic of a nation-wide issue of Capitalism and settler-colonialism and its destructive and irreversible effects we as a country must change. 

Do we really want the rich to sip champagne at the Sheraton while the people ponder prosperity?

 

Capitalism and climate change

Written by: Jed J. on 19 March 2020 

(Above: 500 gather in February 2020 to oppose the Walker Corporation’s development plans for the RAMSAR-listed Toondah Harbour wetlands in Queensland.)

Some people and societies have an investment in denying climate change. These include companies and societies that profit from extracting fossil fuels and selling them at a profit.

They have the backing of some media outlets such as News Corp to fool the population into believing that not only are people not responsible for climate change but that there isn’t any crisis at all. They claim that the changes to weather patterns are simply the result of natural causes.

In the recent devastating bush fires that ravaged parts of Australia the climate change deniers went so far as to deflect blame by suggesting that the bush fires were the result of lack of back burning or that arsonists were responsible.

 

They ignore the facts that science has made clear. Namely that climate change is a threat to our survival and that, since human behaviour is a major cause of it, we should make every effort to change the way we treat the environment.

 

The myth of endless resources

 

How then do the events such as unprecedented bush fires happen? They happen because the world economy is capitalist and the capitalist world view allow basically for only one kind of value - how much a product can be exchanged for.

 

This one-eyed view of the world also leads to the assumption that it is possible for the planet to cope with an endless consumption of products.

 

This view is clearly at odds with facts about the planet. Among the key premises which underpin the capitalist world view is that the earth’s resources are limitless. That there is an endless supply of fossil fuels, an endless supply of water, clean air, arable land, soil and animals for consumption at their disposal and that there is no limit to the amount of greenhouse gases the planet can absorb.

 

This idea of endless resources is a myth. The planet – its living and non- living things, ecological systems and atmosphere – is not limitless in the amount of raw materials that are available. 

 

For capitalism everything is a potential commodity

 

Moreover, there is a limit to the planet’s ability to deal with waste disposal most of which is the result capitalism’s unrestrained manufacture of products that we do not really need and which often have an inbuilt short life span.

 

At the heart of capitalism is the idea that the value of everything lies in its potential to be made into a commodity and that everything is a potential commodity. That is, that its value lies in its potential to be exchanged in the pursuit of profits.

 

This includes basic needs such water and energy which were once provided for by governments. However, since they have been privatised the costs have sky rocketed as they have become sources of profit for their new capitalist owners.

 

This core idea of capitalism that the value of everything lies in its potential to be made into a commodity even extends to the provision of health care and education which were – after long struggle by the people – once seen as rights. Now they are regarded as commodities and opportunities for private providers to make a profit.

 

Let climate scientists not governments decide!

 

The consequences for the planet and all that is on it, including people, are pollution, disease, deforestation, the extinction of species and climate change.

 

The myth of endless resources is false. The planet, its living and non living things, ecological systems and atmosphere is not a limitless store of raw materials nor is it capable of dealing with limitless amounts of waste disposal.

 

Unless capitalism is replaced by an economic system based on science and which takes into account the needs of the environment and all living creatures whose lives depend on it then the situation can only get worse.

 

Climate scientists not governments should be responsible for setting environmental protection guidelines for any proposed development to ensure that the guidelines are not influenced by vested interests.

 

Time is running out. There is no way the planet can continue forever to recuperate from the damage capitalist practices inflict on it.

Big Oil loses another round in Bight fight

Written by: Nick G. on 25 February 2020 

In a stunning victory for community organisations in South Australia, Norwegian giant Equinor today announced it had scrapped plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight.

The announcement, allegedly made on “commercial grounds”, comes just two months after the toothless regulator National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) granted Equinor approval for exploratory drilling in the Bight.

Equinor becomes the fourth big oil company to be forced from the pristine waters of the Bight.  The US Chevron Corporation went, the British BP went (Equinor took over their leases), Australian Kaorron Gas went (they have shifted their activities to Peru and Brazil) and now Norway’s Equinor has gone.

Wilderness Society SA Director Peter Owen said “People power is showing that business and government can’t keep going on this same path—not when it comes to the climate crisis and not when it comes to nature protection.”

He praised the community organisations, Traditional Owners, and 20 local government councils representing 600,000 South Australians for taking action against oil exploration in the Bight.  “Hands Across the Sands” beach rallies, surfing protests and Sea Shepherd’s Operation Jeedara  , involving its flagship M/V Steve Irwin, were important components as was the visit by Owen and Mirning elder and whale songman Bunna Lawrie, to the Equinor AGM in May 2019.

While the departure of Equinor from exploration leases EPP 39 and 40 removes a major threat to the Bight, there are still exploration tenement holders including Canada’s Bight Petroleum (EPP 41 and 42), the US Murphy Oil Corporation (EPP 43) and Santos in partnership with Japanese JX Nippon Oil and Gas on the Western Australian side of the Bight.

Our Party Program states: “The only two sources of wealth are human labour power and nature. Capitalism attacks, devalues and destroys both. In the early stages of the 21st century, the damage to the environment as a result of capitalist plunder has reached potentially catastrophic proportions for humanity and the planet. Over ninety percent of the world’s climate scientists agree that human induced climate change and global warming are approaching the point of no return.”

To that end we have called for transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables and phasing out the export of resources that contribute to global warming.

We will continue to support the fight for the Bight until the last of the tenement holders has gone.

First People’s cultural burning vs.climate change deniers

Written by: Louisa L. on 16 February 2020

Above: NOT a photo from the recent fire season. From a Rolling Stone article about frack fires

How does a climate change denialist group aligned with U.S. counterparts  and the Shooters Party  become “A Proud Supporter of Indigenous Burning Practices”? 

The so-called Volunteer Firefighters Association (VFFA) has for years promoted climate change denialist and scientist David Packham.  Packham developed and promotes ‘aerial ignition burns’ to reduce fuel load, literally firebombing areas from the air.

Packham is a Murdoch media regular with Sky, Herald Sun, The Australian, plus spots on the ABC, SBS and numerous online sites. In 2013, some of his work was reviewed in Quadrant by a likeminded fire activist from WA, where Packham’s method was most used. Quadrant, with CIA links going back decades, has published several Packham articles. 

He is also a key stakeholder in Firestick Estate Inc. The name appropriates a First Peoples’ term, “firestick”, to promote the opposite to the gentle, labour-intensive cultural burning practises of First Peoples. https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/land/aboriginal-fire-management

Knowledge holders

Firesticks Alliance builds on the burning practice of late Kuku Thaypan Elders, Dr George and Dr Musgrave.  A leading Firesticks practitioner, Victor Stephensen, criticises aerial ignition, which he describes as “flying in and dropping bombs”. 

Even the less extreme “hazard reduction burns” used by both the Rural Fire Service and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) come in for criticism by Stephensen. Fire scientists also point out the limitations of such burns. 

Stephensen speaks of past “fire knowledge holders” needed at every cultural burn. “That’s where we need to be again. We need these knowledge holders working with the mainstream and with the rural fire service,” he says. 

Learning goes both ways. Uncle Vic Sharmen, a Shoalhaven elder and former NPWS chief ranger with a degree in environmental science, says cultural burning is enriched by connection to western science.  He clearly didn’t mean the climate change denialism of David Packham. 

Like many of us, Victor Stephensen worries each time summer approaches.

But this year, unlike previous ones, had an impossibly narrow window for burning - given the lack of cultural burning for 230 years - because climate change made it hotter and drier, as 22 former fire chiefs stated. This has been canvassed in numerous places, but last December an ABC Fact Check, entitled  Are hazard reduction burns effective in reducing bushfires? The answer is complicated, comprehensively cut through the muck and lies. 

Captive

This brings us back to our original question. Why are climate change denialists and minimisers allegedly supporting “Indigenous burning practices”?
Divide and conquer remains a key colonialist and imperialist strategy.

 “The Biggest Estate on Earth” by Bill Gammage, brought to a wider audience the fire management tools that many First Peoples already understood – and in some places still practised – as their heritage. This audience eventually included far right climate denialists and minimisers, intent particularly on opening national parks to corporate exploitation.

A tiny handful of First Peoples are captive to the most aggressive section of U.S imperialism.

An attack from this source recently targeted the Aboriginality of Bruce Pascoe, who built on Gammage’s work in his bestseller Dark Emu. Pascoe is no climate change denier or friend of corporations.

The timing - just before flooding rains were predicted to extinguish most fires and wider analysis of causes increased - was no accident. Nor was its amplification across the media.

As the cultural burning story took hold, it aimed to undermine Pascoe’s ability to intervene against the avalanche of simplistic distortion surrounding its practice.

Murdoch’s mantra against “morons”

Several other captives are would-be parliamentarians, prominently and repeatedly featured in Murdoch publications and broadcasts. Despite this massive promotion, they failed to gains seats in the landslide Coalition federal election victory. Although they have some supporters, overwhelmingly First Peoples organised against them.

Add to this mix a dying fossil fuel industry determined to dress up its deathly image with First Peoples’ credibility. Climate change deniers seized on Gammage’s work.

Last November “Indigenous burning practices can help fight the bushfires” - by one of those receiving the Murdoch star treatment - appeared in the Daily Telegraph and was recycled by the VFFA. 

This media personality minimises climate change, the possible role for renewable energy, and Australia’s contribution to emissions. 

He chants Murdoch’s mantra against ‘Greenies and Lefties’ – an ‘elite’ who “carp on about climate change” (Daily Telegraph 8/8/19). He suggests nuclear energy as an instant fix, unlike what he describes as the prohibitively “long term goal” of renewables. 

Andrew Bolt – suddenly a new-born embracer of human made climate change – loves to quote this man’s support for Adani and the coal seam gas industry, which like nuclear energy – ‘our’ man alleges - is “safe”. Any “moron” (Bolt’s descriptor) opposing those industries is practising “Green Sabotage”. 

Just add 900 gas wells

Well, these “morons” and “saboteurs” include plenty of First Peoples. For years they’ve fought nuclear waste dumps on Country, most notably at Muckaty in the NT.  And an anti-fracking backlash is building in the Northern Territory, led by First Peoples. 

Even as the bushfires were burning, PM Scummo, with support from NSW Premier Berejiklian, was announcing that $2 billion in joint government grants may come to Santos’s plan to build 900 coal seam gas wells in the Pilliga on Gamilaraay land. 

Above: Gamilaraay man and anti-fracking activist, Nathan Leslie, speaking at a 2018 forum

Gamilaraay men, Nathan Leslie and Paul Spearim, locked on in protest against fracking on their Country, as did a group of young farmers.  The brilliant doco, Sacrifice Zone, details the extraordinary strength and breadth of anti-fracking forces in the proposed Narrabri gas field, as well as its dangers – including bushfires. 

Coal seam gas is highly flammable. Try typing “fracking well fires” into a search engine, click “images”, and take your pick of the shocking array of fires and stories.

Bolt’s “morons” know the Gosper Mountain mega blaze ignited two fires in coal seams near Lithgow  this fire season. And they know much more. 

According to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration there were 285 “significant incidents” involving the gas industry in the U.S. in 2018 – many of them fires and explosions. 

A sovereign right

Cultural burning is a sovereign right for First Peoples, like learning or re-learning Language. These growing movements link young with elders in an unbreakable bond. Both come from Lore which comes from Country.

This respectful relationship is a world away from the simplistic slogans of fuel load reduction as the be all and end all, of climate denial, of logging and hard hooved stock in national parks, of more dams and all the other Murdoch shock jock mumbo jumbo. No doubt such enemies of the people will seek to co-opt or profit from them.

Cultural burning is immensely powerful for First Peoples and for the future of what we now call Australia. It’s no quick fix. It can only be fully exercised when First Peoples have economic control over their Countries and their lives. Its effective practice relies on land rights. Colonialism and imperialism will never allow this. Their systems have proved it since the invasion began in 1788.

First Peoples and the working class lead the struggles to rid this continent and its islands from the brutal vestiges of colonialism and from the jackboot of U.S. imperialism.

Explosive wildfire does not discriminate as it destroys. First Peoples and Australian working people, rural and city dwellers alike, are affected by the bushfires.

Unity is the only way forward.

Kimba fights nuclear waste dump

Written by: Nick G. on 16 February 2020

The central Eyre Peninsula farming town of Kimba has “won” the dubious honour of having been selected as the site for an Australian nuclear waste dump.

Symbolically perhaps, visitors to the town 461 kms northwest of Adelaide are greeted by an 8-metre tall Big Galah, a garrulous and somewhat random bird that has become synonymous with a fool in Aussie vernacular.

The dump is primarily for low-level waste  (paper, plastic, gloves, cloths and filters which contain small amounts of radioactivity commonly associated with nuclear medicine) but it will also store, for the time being, intermediate level waste (typically  more highly radioactive and consisting primarily of used reactor core components and resins and filters used to purify reactor water systems).

The proposal and subsequent decision have divided the town and its adjacent community and angered the traditional owners, the Barngarla First Peoples.
There is an element of “payback” in the selection of an SA site for a national low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste dump: in 1998, the Howard government proposed that a site be selected from within an area including the Woomera Prohibited Area, but a campaign by about a dozen senior Anangu women, the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, lasting seven years, not only saw the federal government abandon its plans, but saw the State Liberal government break ranks with its federal counterpart and introduce legislation against an SA nuclear dump.

This time, a large number of places around the country were listed for consideration, but it was whittled down to just three: one, near Hawker in the Flinders Ranges, and two near Kimba (“half-way across Australia”) in the central Eyre Peninsula.

First Peoples very quickly took the lead in the fight against the waste dump proposals. The Barngarla from the Kimba area and the Adnyamathanha from the Flinders Ranges brought on board a wide range of allies in the No Dump Alliance. Protest rallies (see Hundreds rally against nuclear dump proposal )  were organised and a range of other activities undertaken.

The federal government saw the need to throw money at the communities concerned - $4 million for Hawker and $2 million for Kimba for “social and economic development” while the communities were being “consulted”.  The money was good.  Various items of much-needed maintenance and infrastructure were undertaken and a further $31 million was pledged to whichever community supported the nuclear dump. These were bribes, pure and simple.

The so-called “community consultation” culminated in a vote.  It was “for” or “against” the dump.  Kimba went first and the ballot was carried with 62% in favour; Hawker voted against it with a 52% margin. The proposed Hawker site was withdrawn and one of the Kimba sites selected.

However, the Kimba vote was suspect from the outset.

In the first place, the Federal Court upheld a decision by the Kimba Council that the Barngala should not be allowed to vote.  Most live in the larger regional cities of Port Augusta and Port Lincoln, and the Council said they would be difficult to identify.  Federal Court Judge White agreed (see A First Peoples’ Voice Silenced in NAIDOC Week  ).

An enlargement of the franchise for the purpose of the ballot would have required a number of subjective judgments about the extent of the enlargement and raised issues concerning the proper identification of those within the expanded franchise,” the judge said.

The Barngarla had had to wait twenty years to win their native title over Barngarla land. That decision was handed down in 2018 and politicians fell over themselves to congratulate the community. We wonder whether the Council meeting that decided to disenfranchise this community began with an Acknowledgement of Country. The word “hypocrisy” is written in white letters on Black land

To add insult to injury, the Council decision to confine the ballot to Kimba ratepayers and near neighbours of the Napandee farm, 23 kms south-west of Kimba, chosen for the site has allowed non-resident speculators to have a vote despite their not living anywhere near the site. 

And there are a few such people.  There had been a proposal for a magnetite (iron ore) mine at Wilcherry Hill, 40 kms north of Kimba. When this project was announced and approval given in 2011, the owners said they expected to employ 160 workers and promised not to use a “fly-in fly-out” workforce. They announced plans for a modular mining village to accommodate 80 people, whilst an Adelaide University study found that the existing housing stock in Kimba would not be sufficient to handle the population increase. “Once existing housing stock has been filled,” the report said, “then construction of new houses along with physical infrastructures such as roads, footpaths etc. will be required.”

The value of house blocks in Kimba soared as investors sought to make a killing.  However, the mine operators lost interest in iron ore and decided to look for gold instead; the mining village was never built; and the flood of newcomers to the town evaporated. The value of vacant blocks of land plummeted and speculators faced sizeable losses. The Napandee nuclear waste dump promises to employ 45 people, so absentee landowners had a slight bit of candle-light at the end of their investment tunnel and thus had an incentive, and Council endorsement as rate-payers, to vote for the dump.

Meanwhile, the Barngarla showed just how specious was the Council argument that they were too difficult to identify and had no right to vote as native title holders. After being excluded from the Kimba Council ballot, the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation (BDAC) engaged the Australian Election Company, an independent ballot agent, to conduct a confidential postal ballot of BDAC members regarding the national radioactive waste dump.
Of 209 eligible voters (all of whom are Barngarla native title holders), 83 cast valid “No” votes. Zero “Yes” votes were returned.

This unanimous “No” vote demonstrated that there is absolutely no support at all within the Barngarla community for the nuclear waste dump.

The Barngarla vote is significant in other ways.  The rate-payer and near-neighbour vote (Kimba’s community of 1300 people was reduced to 800 for the ballot) was carried by 70 votes.  Had the Barngarla been enfranchised, their vote combined with the rest of the community’s would have been similar to Hawker’s – a no vote by a small majority, but enough to put the kybosh on the dump.

In any case, the Act governing site selection requires “broad community support” for any proposed dump. The Act does not quantify “broad”, but former Minister Canavan said on several occasions that it should be around 65%. The Kimba “yes” vote was 61.58%.

A mischievous new Resources Minister Keith Pitt is now trying to muddy the waters by claiming that Barngarla native title has been “extinguished”.  It is a lie that has been picked up by lazy non-investigative journalists in the capitalist press content to regurgitate Ministerial press releases as “fact”. This “fake news” is fake because the extinguishment related to the Napandee farm site only and took place after the vote. The government’s Radioactive Waste Management Task Force said in a submission to a Senate Enquiry into the Site Selection Process in 2018 that "If the Minister declares land nominated under the Act as the site selected for the Facility, the Commonwealth may acquire the land or extinguish or affect existing rights and interests.”

There is a lot more to this story.  The Napandee site is just 2 kms from the extensive Pinkawillinie Conservation Park, a 130,000 hectares or 1307 sq kms native bush zone between Kimba and Wudinna, home to many state listed flora and fauna. The nearby farmland is used for broad-acre cropping and with above-ground storage, in drums, of low-level and intermediate-level nuclear waste, the possibility of bushfires, especially after this year’s catastrophic fire season, cannot be eliminated.

Transportation of low-level and intermediate-level nuclear waste is still prohibited by SA legislation following a more inclusive definition of waste inserted in the original Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000.  The federal government is relaying on Commonwealth law taking precedence over State law to get its way.

A broad front of organisations (No Dump Alliance, the Barngarla traditional owners, the No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA committee, the Greens and local ALP member Eddie Hughes, the two Centre Alliance SA Senators, the Conservation Council, Friends of the Earth, the Wilderness Society and others) will not let this matter rest.

To those politicians who say that a dump is needed somewhere, so it may as well be at remote Kimba, we say that the lawns outside the federal parliament would be an ideal site for an 8-metre Big Waste Drum and above-ground dump. Canberra is also a remote location – from Kimba at least.

The flawed Kimba decision is an injustice that needs to be righted.

People power will win out in the end!