Dear Redland City Reporter Editors
I was very excited to read QYAC CEO Cameron Costello’s explanation of  the formal position the  Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee people took on the Toondah Harbour development in your recent newsletter. I was not aware of it before this. It helped me in coming to terms with my own position on Toondah: a large highly impactful potentially beneficial development that will bring many economic and social benefits and seemingly many environmental harms. 

This development has great potential for benefits such as tourist facilities on the mainland, an upgraded port terminal going from the mainland to our islands and many new recreational and social facilities for Cleveland locals as well as high impacts on our fragile shore environment which are declared RAMSAR wetlands. These all need to be spelt out and analysed.

Toondah needs a cost-benefit analysis

Toondah is one of hundreds of large developments in mining, public transport in cities, connecting roads in regional cities, tourist developments, and infrastructure in ports and airports needed in Australia as we grow. Especially in Queensland because we are a huge decentralised State. Ports and airports are especially expensive facilities which governments are trying to build with public private partnerships when they can. Especially in Queensland because the government has promised (mistakenly in my view) to not sell existing public assets to private companies for fear of price hikes. This means the government doesn’t have the cash to build new public infrastructure such as the upgrading of our Cleveland ferry terminal, the lifeblood of our tourist industry and our only connection to the islands which comprise a vital part of Redlands.  Upgrading our port, as is promised by this developer Lang Walker, is urgent and is identity-maintaining for us. The government’s not able to do it for twenty or more years I  reckon because it’s not identity-making for them, it’s low priority.

I was in Federal and Local Governments for thirty years. I have studied government at Harvard. I am used to doing cost-benefit analyses of public policies and proposals. Toondah needs a rigorous analysis of its benefits as well as its disbenefits, or as rigorous as we can make it. I haven’t seen that happening here. Yes the environmental impacts are being addressed (and I am happy to leave that to the experts) but there has been woefully little assessment of the economic benefits and social benefits Toondah Harbour’s rebuilding would create.  And now we are reminded that of course another set of benefits must be assessed: that of the Native Title owners of the lands we’re discussing at Toondah shores. The rights and interests of the Quandamooka People are vital even above ours who have arrived only recently and have pushed them back and decided recently that their economic future in sand mining on North Stradbroke Island where most live, is over. We have been conducting a vigorous and sometimes vicious campaign on Toondah without them for five years now and there’s a lot of catch-up to be done. I would like to see us help Cameron Costello develop his people’s requests to be involved and to benefit in ways they choose from this Toondah project:

• QYAC has consistently supported an upgrade of Toondah Harbour but only if this brings about economic development opportunities for the Quandamooka People.
• The Quandamooka People as Traditional Owners for the area on which the PDA is proposed should be appropriately consulted on the development.
• QYAC was not consulted by either the Redland City Council or the State Government prior to the Toondah Harbour Priority Development Area being declared in 2013.

Meaningfully consulting and involving the traditional owners of these shore lands is a deal maker or breaker for me. And I hope it is also for you in the active community organisation Redlands 2030 opposing Toondah on environmental impact grounds.

Can we start a conversation on this in your newsletter?

By the way I think the rest of your last newsletter was great too, especially the advisings on candidates for the election. Not a bad effort by a bunch of volunteers. You certainly have sustained a credible quality of comment and investigation.

Zrinka 5 May 2019
Cleveland 

Toondah Harbour. The Toondah Harbour Priority Development Area (PDA) was declared at the request of Redland City Council (RCC) on 21 June 2013. Planning of the Toondah Harbour PDA is being managed by the Minister for Economic Development Queensland (MEDQ) in partnership with RCC.Dec 12, 2018

Toondah Harbour – Department of State Development

https://www.dsdmip.qld.gov.au/edq/toondah-harbour.html