Dear Minister Plibersek,
I write to you in relation to your Ministry for the Environment and Water. Also, I write to you as a cultural geographer, cultural producer and researcher who has spent the past 25 years researching, placedness, placemaking and cultural landscaping, issues fundamentally relevant to your ministry. I also, write as someone whose HOMEplace is being adversely impacted upon by this ill-conceived ‘wallum’ development project.
Against this background, I ask you to consider, and urgently, exercising your ministerial authority under the EPBC Act, 1999 in regards to the development of “Wallum” – 15 Torakina Rd, Brunswick Heads NSW, 2483 ... See https://thewallum.blogspot.com/p/the-site.html – a critically important site containing elements of National Environmental Significance (MNES) - DA 10.2021.575.1.
“Wallum” consists of 30ha of irreplaceable and rare coastal ecosystems in the Byron Shire on Bundjalung country – https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bundjalung_people - and the ancestorial land of the Arakwal people – https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Arakwal_people. Also, it is home to threatened species and ecological communities including the Glossy Black Cockatoo, Long-nosed Potoroo, Koala, Wallum Sedge Frog, and no doubt many others that have survive environmental degradation elsewhere in the region. I submit that right now it is crucial that the laws that are applicable to the site and the Matters of National Environmental Significance are fully complied with along with the acknowledgement of the rights of the Arakwal people.
I am aware that your office reminded the developer of their legal obligation to refer the development to you, however, I understand that they refused to do so. I understand that the developer has formed the view that their development will not likely have a significant impact on the environment and the Matters of National Environmental Significance. On what evidence did they make this self-serving assertion? In any event, it needs to be openly tested and you are best placed to do this!.
Minister, please consider that it can't end there because there is a body of evidence from independent experts that says the development is likely to have a significant impact on Matters of National Environmental Significance. That advice needs to be heard and tested. I, along with the ‘activists’ on the ground now are challenging the veracity of the developer’s questionable assertions, I believe that it is therefore now up to you to take actions that will ensure natural justice prevails, and the law is complied with, before it's too late.
Therefore, I urge you to now use your power and request the developer to refer their development to you because it is likely to have a significant impact on the relevant Matters of National Environmental Significance. Clearly, the authority is in your hands to intervene and assure that due process is observed.
I submit that the risks to a unique and sensitive coastal ecosystem, and as a consequence of no mitigating action being taken, are far too high . We, and I speak of this place’s Community of Ownership and Interest in Australia and beyond, risk this important ecosystem and cultural landscape being bulldozed and trashed for the sake a ‘developer’s aspiration' to deliver a ‘dividend’ to their investors irrespective of its environmental and cultural consequences.
Furthermore, this ‘development’ will mean the further fragmentation of vital habitats and the further devastation of a critical habitat for a myriad threatened species which are Matters of National Environmental Significance – and that has only received nominal acknowledgement up to this point. Indeed, this land and adjoining ‘heathland’ and wetlands have since the ‘Cedar Getters’ abandoned their trade. In the1880s Brunswick Heads was a busy port with a robust little commercial centre, but since this land has been seen as ‘commercially useless’. That is not the case given the town's economic base.
With the clearing of ‘The Big Scrub’ and the supply of ‘Cedar/Red Gold’ exhausted, the settlers turned to agriculture. This ‘coastal heathland’ was considered “rubbish land”, such as has historically been the environmental havoc imposed upon this region. The ‘placedness’ that this ‘coastal country’ enjoys comes with salutary stories that need to be listened to in the context of there being no new stories except for those that have been forgotten – and they are there aplenty.
If fact Brunswick Heads’ placedness has been built upon it NOT being anything like ‘elsewhere’!
In a colonial context NE NSW has experienced the most diabolical consequences of unsustainable resource exploitation for the benefit of ‘elsewhere’ – basically Europe. Surely, we must now have the time to pay closer attention to our cultural landscaping and ‘wallum’ offers an exemplary opportunity to do just that.
With the exacerbating climate change and associated extreme weather events, which are increasingly upon us and prevalent within the Byron Shire and the Northern Rivers region, surely this is not the time to look away and hope for the best.
As a concerned Australian, I am deeply worried about the legacy that we will leave for future generations to come – our grandchildren and theirs. We all have the power to act right now in real time and you, with our support have been granted the authority to decide whether that legacy is one that includes thriving ecosystems supported by clean air, pristine water, and unpolluted land and viable cultural landscaping.
If we have come to be put off by generations of greed and inaction, this is tragic and together we are doomed. If natural processes can no longer sustain themselves and, as a result, neither can human populations, and together we will wither as we despoil our cultural landscapes.
Minister, please don't leave this particular community to the fate of engagement in onerous and resource intensive litigation in the Federal Court to seek an injunction to ensure our federal environmental laws are complied with. Concerned Australians beyond this precious place look to you to set examples that demonstrate that the ’greed is good’ era is stifled albeit in this case there is a somewhat hollow promise of 123 houses.
It is highly likely that none of houses will be affordable for those suffering housing stress and are now looking for a safe and secure 'home'. Their distress comes about through no fault of their own. The 'housing' being offered by the developer is fundamentally designed to be 'investment properties' rather than 'homes'.
Conceivably, this development has the makings to go down bin our history as an act of sanstioned environment vandalism. Interestingly, Queensland’s conscience towards heritage and conservation awoke in 1992 as irreplaceable buildings and environments were destroyed, when Queensland's cabinet minutes from 30 years ago were released to show the extent of the environmental and civic vandalism of the time. Curiously, when we destroy something created by man, we call it vandalism. When we destroy something created by nature, we call it progress.
So much for Byron Shire’s mayor, Cr Lyon, casting his deciding vote, and apparently with it being as an endorsement of the need for more housing in the shire. The question begging an answer here is at what environmental cost will this 'investment housing' be, should it proceed?
Reportedly, this development has already slipped through so many contemporary environmental safeguards and community consultation requirements at the state level because it is essentially a 'zombie DA'. The question hanging in the air here, is apparently, why weren’t Byron Shire’s councillors paying closer attention? Moreover, what part did they play in allowing this development to advance to its current point and apparently without meaningful community consultation.
Right now, we have the chance to properly and appropriately assess this development's impacts on the relevant Matters of National Environmental Significance. At face value it is clear it will require you to act if the law is to be acted upon. I urge you to do all that is within your power to immediately act and request that "Wallum Project" –15 Torakina Rd, Brunswick Heads, NSW – be referred to you under the EPBC Act, 1999.
Yours sincerely,
Ray Norman
Cultural Geographer and researcher
Ray Norman
eMAIL: raynorman7250@gmail.com
Delamere Crescent Trevally TAS 7250
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” Thomas Paine
“The standard you walk past is the standard you accept” David Morrison
I acknowledge the First Peoples – the Traditional Owners of the lands where we live and work, and recognise their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay respect to Elders – past, present and emerging – and acknowledge the important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within the research zingHOUSEunlimited undertakes.
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