Comment
Julia flounders in flood waters
Volume 3 #21
February 3, 2011
Not on the beachfront It was never a good idea to propose a new caravan park on beachfront land, not in this day and age when such beachfront amenity is at a premium and conservation is seen as a higher priority than recreation for travellers. The Echo is not surprised then that a groundswell of opposition is growing against the plans to build a 200-plus site caravan park on the southern side of Norries Headland at Bogangar/Cabarita and a residential subdivision for 37 new homes across the road. The main driver for both these plans seems to be a moneymaking one for the Tweed Coast Holiday Park’s Reserve Trust (run by Tweed councillors on behalf of the state government) to, ostensibly, maintain the shire’s crown reserves for the NSW Land and Property Management Authority (the old Crown lands department). Along the eastern seaboard, caravan parks were mainly built by private or government operators next to a beach or waterway for recreation, but natural erosion and floods since have played havoc with many and they are not such a good idea anymore. A case in point is the Kingscliff Beach caravan park run by the trust, which is facing severe erosion from storm surges and may have to be protected with controversial and expensive groynes. This was a big worry a couple of months ago, so what have councillors learnt from this? Zilch, as this new proposal seems to indicate. Cabarita business people obviously want more customers through their doors and some see these new proposals as a boon for the future, but if they’re not making ends meet now then there’s no hope for them if they have to rely on something yet unbuilt. People will still stay in caravan parks away from the beachfront; the successfully run private ones dotted throughout the Tweed, especially in Chinderah, attest to this. Now we have the locals, instead of the state’s ‘land management’ authority, telling us the biodiverse wallum heathland is one of the shire’s last remnants of such an ecosystem and is therefore too valuable to be lost, with more than 500 species of plants. The local school and Dunecare groups also have spent much time and effort replanting the once-degraded northern end of the beachfront site which will also no doubt suffer from hundreds of caravan park residents and their dogs trampling through it. The reserve trust should take a reality check on this plan and look at another entirely different location for such a tourist park. It won’t stop people wanting to visit the Tweed Coast. Centralised town caravan parks are also popular. The land in question should be preserved as a buffer for conservation and to act as a break from the urban sprawl/ribbon development fast encroaching along the Tweed Coast.
Tweed Shire Echo Publisher David Lovejoy Editor Luis Feliu Advertising Manager Angela Cornell Accounts Manager Simon Haslam Production Manager Ziggi Browning ‘The job of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’ – Finley Peter Dunne 1867–1936 © 2011 Echo Publications Pty Ltd PO Box 545, Murwillumbah 2484 Phone 02 6672 2280 email: editor@tweedecho.com.au Printer: Horton Media Australia Ltd
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nce again, our Prime Minister has done a reverse King Midas; it was meant to be a gold nugget, but instead it’s just a turd. Presented by the floods with an opportunity for the kind of national leadership and decisive action that could have reinvigorated her floundering government, she has once again opted for caution, compromise and timidity. Her embrace of a levy to pay for a portion – not all – of the Commonwealth’s reconstruction program is not only bad economics, but utterly misguided politics. She has opted for a large amount of pain with the prospect of very little gain. The levy is expected to raise just $1.8 billion – a piddling amount in the overall budget context, and less than a third of the projected $5.6 billion the Commonwealth will actually spend on rebuilding roads, railways, bridges and other essential infrastructure. Given that the other $3.8 billion is to come out of cutting or deferring current programs it is simply not credible that further savings could not be found – indeed, Julia Gillard has said that they will be, if, as is likely, the $5.6 billion estimate blows out. Well, if then, why not now? Tony Abbott has cheekily offered his help in locating the extra dollars, but it is surely a job Wayne Swan and Penny Wong could manage on their own. Instead, they have the unpalatable task of selling the idea of a levy which most commentators regard as unnecessary and which the public clearly resents – although it will cost voters next to nothing. For starters, most people – those earning less than $1000 a week – won’t pay it at all and it is only those who are getting close to $2000 a week who will
be up for the cost of a cup of coffee. At $3000 a week the long-suffering punters will pay a princely $15, leaving a bare $2985 for the necessities of life. Yet the tabloids, and even the ABC, insist on describing it as a ‘tax slug’. Give us a break. But this featherweight impost is widely resented by large sections of the population. Abbott describes it as a ‘tax on mateship’, which is clearly
aster fund. They will probably come to the party eventually, but there will, as always, be a price. Once again Gillard will end up looking weak. She was, of course, supposed to look tough and in control. Her Australia Day message was: ‘Don’t let go.’ And she hasn’t – the promise to get the budget back into surplus by 2013 is still immutable, no matter what. This commitment has received
There is no doubt that many of those who have contributed to the various relief appeals resent the idea that they are being asked to pay twice.
by Mungo MacCallum absurd; but there is no doubt that many of those who have contributed to the various relief appeals resent the idea that they are being asked to pay twice. It is no good explaining, as Gillard has attempted to, that the new levy is for an entirely different purpose; the charities are for direct assistance to flood victims while the Commonwealth has to cover the less glamorous task of rebuilding the public infrastructure. It still feels like double dipping, and we all know that’s unAustralian. And all this, of course, assumes that the levy is going to get through the parliament; incredibly it now appears that Gillard failed to negotiate with the Greens and independents before announcing it, and they are now engaged in a barrage of public nit-picking, using the issue to push their power agendas. The Greens are angry that the savings have concentrated on knocking off climate change projects and the independents want a permanent natural dis-
praise from conservative commentators and The Australian, thus proving conclusively that it is not in Labor’s best interests. Once again, the government has submitted to fighting on its opponents’ ground. But at least she does not suffer from the full-blown death wish which afflicts her state counterpart, Kristina Keneally. The NSW Premier greeted the announcement of a levy with a plea for the poor, put-upon residents of her home state. They were suffering, she explained, from the high cost of living, especially in Sydney; surely they could be spared the levy on compassionate grounds? Decades of Labor government in what was once the premier state have stuffed up land policy, transport policy, tax policy and everything else so badly that conditions are now truly desperate; the residents are no longer able to forgo that extra weekly cup of coffee to help repair the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.
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nteresting as all this is, it seems somewhat parochial compared to what is happening overseas, especially in Egypt. The immediate reaction is one of pleasure and hope; at last the oppressed are rising against the loathsome and corrupt Hosni Mubarak and his murderers and torturers. Long live people power. But unhappily it is not quite as simple as that. We have been here before. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran seemed, at the time, like a pretty good idea – until his replacement, the Ayatollah Khomeini, set up a religious dictatorship that has proved even more oppressive than its predecessor and considerably more dangerous to the rest of the world. Nobody liked Saddam Hussein in Iraq much, either; but his removal has resulted not in democracy, but in an ongoing struggle between religious sects seeking absolute power. The same could easily happen in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood, a gang (there is no other word) of fundamentalists, looks the only group sufficiently organised to fill the power vacuum which would result from the downfall of Mubarak. And this is the catch. However horrible the current tyrant of Egypt may be, he is (like his equally unlovable counterparts in Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and even Pakistan), essentially a secular ruler; he has to be, to retain power. He is, of course, a Muslim, but he is not an extremist; indeed, he is a bulwark against extremism, which is one reason (though not the only one) why he retains the support of the United States. The lesser of two evils; better the devil we know… it may be questionable morality, but it is Realpolitik.
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6 February 3, 2011 The Tweed Shire Echo
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