By Jolene Ogle
NUDE beach supporters will gather on Hastings Street tomorrow (Saturday, 3 December) to protest the alleged unfair treatment of naked bathers at A-Bay.
Protest organiser and Australian Sex Party secretary Robin Bristow said he expected about 15 protesters to gather at the unmanned Hastings Street Police Beat on Saturday at 12noon to demand police issue warnings to nude bathers instead of fining them.
The uproar started when bathers at A-Bay accused the police of hiding in the bushes before leaping out to fine them. Police have responded to the accusation saying they increased patrols of A-Bay in response to complaints of a man running through the National Park, who has since been arrested.
Mr Bristow has sent a recording of a phone conversation between himself and Noosa Heads officer in charge Senior Sergeant Steve McReight to the media, in which Mr Bristow questioned the police response.
In the recording Mr Bristow asks if Sen Sgt McReight is responsible for the 11 fines at A-Bay, to which he said: “Ultimately as the OIC (officer in charge) of the station I am”.
“We did have complaints about a naked jogger and I went away (for eight weeks). We do do targeted areas in and around that area. I must admit, I would have briefed the boys differently on what was happening … but it’s for the courts to decide if what they did was unlawful,” he said.
“As an old-school policeman I probably would have done it differently.”
Mr Bristow said the group wanted police to warn people, not fine them.
“It would be the most fantastic thing if you had police walking up and down the beach, approaching these people with smiles on their faces … you issue a warning and people put their clothes back on. It’s very simple,” he said.
“What you are doing now is you’re upsetting a lot of people, you’re damaging the tourist industry in Noosa.”
Mr Bristow said he questioned the police’s claim the onslaught of fines were in response to complaints of the naked jogger in Noosa National Park.
“There were no complaints on the day these 11 people were booked. Why do you claim you only react on complaints?” he said.
“The gentleman was running along the paths and not at A-Bay so why were the officers patrolling A-Bay and not the paths?”
Sen Sgt McReight said he couldn’t answer that question and would need to speak to the officers involved.
Noosa Today asked Noosa Council if they supported A-Bay as a nude beach, whether any councillors would attend the protest and if council supported the Australian Sex Party’s push for State Government to give local councils the power to designate nude beaches.
A council spokesperson said: “Alexandria Bay is in the Noosa National Park which is a State Government responsibility. Currently there are no legal nude beaches in Queensland. If Alexandria Bay was to be designated as a clothing optional beach, such a decision would have to be made at the state level as local government does not have any jurisdiction to regulate nude bathing.”
The protest will take place tomorrow, Saturday 3 December, at 12noon outside the Hastings Street Police Beat, Noosa Heads, and while Mr Bristow wouldn’t confirm if the protesters would be naked, he did say he believed it was not illegal for women to be naked.
