Kathy Sweet
Once again we are being regaled with rhetoric, spin and a monstrous amount of back patting by Michael Gloster.
The very large elephant in the room here is the fact that all our national parks face an immediate threat of private land leases and development for commercial purposes. National parks are the only places left where nature can exist without the threat of private commercial industry.
Private leases and development in our national parks are a line in the sand which, when crossed, would come at great expense to both ecological integrity and public equity. It is time to say no.
The Palaszczuk Government promised, when elected, to return the Nature Conservation Act to pre-2013 form by removing provisions at Section 35(1)(a) and (c) that allow this type of development within Queensland’s National Parks.
Sadly this promise hasn’t been fulfilled and tourism operators are moving in while the going’s good. The Palaszczuk Government needs to be called out on this gross neglect of responsible governance.
Many groups in our community are supporting this push to protect our parks. These include Keep Cooloola Cool, Protect Our Parks, Cooloola Coastcare Association, Australian Rainforest Conservation Society, Noosa Integrated Catchment Assn, Coolum and North Shore Coast Care, Wide Bay Burnett Environment Council, Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee, Gympie and District Field Naturalists Club, and Great Sandy Strait Saviours.
It astonishes me that Noosa Parks Association is not on this list, considering it has worked so hard in the creation of Cooloola and Great Sandy National Park.
Michael Gloster continues to emphasise personal attacks directed at NPA, Sandy Bolton and the Kabi Kabi leadership.
He fails to mention similar attacks on those who have a perfect and legitimate right to be disputing the Cooloola Great Walk project. Perhaps if he and the others mentioned actually engaged with the community, especially Noosa Parks Association members, there could be a more favourable outcome .
Secrecy, untruths and spin are unacceptable. No one is attacking reconciliation, just the very corrupt and coercive way this so-called reconciliation is taking place.
Concerning Cooloola and the Indigenous Land Use Agreement, now signed, the meeting dealt only with matters related to the commercial deal with CABN. No resolutions or business were undertaken specifying any partnerships or arrangements with the state regarding Cooloola National Park.
The ILUA gives the Kabi Corporation a 10 per cent stake in the Cooloola segment of the CABN operation and an employment target of 10 per cent during construction and 25 per cent during operations.
Make what you will of that.
During the ILUA meeting, an officiating applicant member (one of the seven “authorised to do business on behalf of the Claim Group”) made repeated assertions to the meeting that if it returned a no vote the development would proceed anyway and they’d all get nothing. This was highly coercive and also not correct, given the political reliance on Kabi support to gain social license.
Before the vote took place, 20 people were bussed in from Cherbourg to boost the yes outcome.
Votes were also counted individually by show of hands of all attendees instead of from just two delegates per family, which is the meeting precedent for voting on substantive motions. This enabled vote stacking and a disproportionate vote by some families.
The printed sheet with eight resolutions was distributed to attendees only minutes ahead of the votes being taken. The correct rules have procedural requirements for discussion within and between Claim Group families.
The whole process of the ILUA Meeting has left the Kabi Kabi grossly under-informed and disconnected on the issue of the Cooloola Great Walk.
Even though Michael Gloster continues to maintain that the Kabi Kabi are being attacked, this is far from the truth.
I am greatly concerned about the justice issues here and how exactly the seven member Claim Group were chosen and what part did the state government, CABN and NPA have in this process. Many Kabi are very opposed to the CGW project, but their questions and concerns are left unheeded and unheard.
Ecotourism is not the only pathway for Indigenous commercial ventures. There are so many alternative pathways that could be followed. Read about Bruce Pascoe and what he is achieving at Mallacoota, for an example. CABN has imposed a project upon Indigenous people . They were not consulted to propose a project of their own choosing. It’s the same old story that has played out over the decades: do the white man’s bidding or suffer the consequences. I wonder if the tables will ever really turn.
Phil Jarratt’s article really speaks for itself when we read of CABN’s partnership with Intrepid Travel. The spin around the obvious appetite to extend so-called ecotourism as much as possible is quite nauseating. Big pressure on CABN to deliver here.
As Phil says, “Great Walk: what’s next?” Yes, exactly. Maybe we’ll see a few eco-huts dropped in at Alexandria Bay, or even in the Noosa National Park. Great views up there. The sky is the limit really. If CABN think they have a social license to carry out this abomination of our beautiful Cooloola, then it is our fault because we have done nothing.
If we sit back and accept and swallow the spin, then be it on our heads. If we sit back and just let it all happen and do nothing, say nothing and don’t write letters, then we are all complicit. You can write to CABN by getting on the CABN Queensland website. You can write to Palaszczuk, the Environment Minister, the Department of Environment and Science, our local and federal members and Noosa Parks Association.
If you care, just do it.
