With summer behind us, it’s time for a critically endangered bird, the Eastern curlew, to depart Australia’s shores. They do so every year, flying halfway around the world to breed. It’s one of the most epic animal journeys on earth, and, incredibly, after it’s over, they do it again, flying back to Australia to spend another summer so they can fatten up for their next long-haul flight.
But as I wait to see these incredible birds return to our shores, I do so with great apprehension. While they’re gone, the fate of one of the important wetlands they depend on will be decided. Walker Corporation, one of Australia’s largest private developers, is proposing to build a $1.4 billion complex comprising 3,600 apartments, a hotel, restaurants and marinas on the mudflats of Toondah Harbour, about 30 km southeast of Brisbane.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will soon announce the final verdict — almost a decade in the making — as to whether these internationally important wetlands will be saved from an inappropriate and unnecessary mega-project. Her decision will have real consequences both here and abroad, either reaffirming Australia’s commitment and leadership in conservation, or signalling that our — and indeed the world’s — most precious natural areas are open to be plundered.
This decision is Plibersek’s because this massive real estate project occurs within the boundaries of the Moreton Bay Ramsar site — one of Australia’s 66 wetlands recognised under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Significance. The Ramsar Convention was established to halt and reverse the worldwide loss of wetlands, and in 1993, the majority of Queensland’s Moreton Bay — including the mudflats and sandflats of Toondah Harbour — were designated as a Ramsar site for their outstanding conservation value and biological diversity.
This conservational recognition was not imposed on Australia. Both Queensland and Australia nominated Moreton Bay for listing; in so doing, we willingly and knowingly accepted the responsibility to protect its natural values. That is why when I, as the official responsible for the administration of the Ramsar Convention in Australia, was asked in 2017 by the then minister for the environment Josh Frydenberg to review Walker Corporation’s proposed real estate project, I advised it was “clearly unacceptable” in a Ramsar wetland and he should reject it.
He chose not to.
That decision has led to this point. Walker Corporation’s final environmental impact statement admits that the project will destroy a significant part of the Ramsar wetlands and feeding habitat for critically endangered birds. But unsurprisingly, consultants paid by Walker Corporation claim that this destruction is essentially benign and a “wise use” of the wetlands (which can be allowed under the convention) and so should be given the green light.
I don’t accept this and neither should any fair-minded Australian. There is no good faith interpretation of Australia’s responsibilities under the Ramsar Convention that would suggest such a massive development is wise use.
The threat of this monstrous development casts a dark shadow over Australia’s international reputation. A private residential and commercial development of this scale has never been approved within the boundaries of a Ramsar site in Australia. If Plibersek decides that the Toondah project is to go ahead, it will not only destroy the wetlands — it would set a dangerous precedent that undermines the protection of Ramsar sites both in Australia and internationally.
As the Eastern curlews embark on their migration, we find ourselves confronted by a test of our own: can Australia be trusted to uphold international obligations to care for our unique places and animals? Or will we show the world and other developers that even our most iconic protected wetlands can be trashed?
Should Plibersek prevent the destruction of the Toondah Harbour mudflats? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
My reflex to reach for a f!rearm is triggered every time I see the term “wise use” in relation to the Environment. The “wise use” movement was founded by the US-based Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise a few decades ago and is an insidious anti-conservation ethic in the service of the development lobby. Its proponents never saw an expanse of natural environment that couldn’t be improved by profitable “wise use”. Developers behind extractive industries and assorted ecotourism proposals in ecologically sensitive areas have liberally promoted this “idea” to weak minded Ministers in Australia for years now.
The ‘wise use’ ideology is older than that, a favourite of that great conservationist Theodore Roosevelt who never saw a wild animal he didn’t want to shoot and hang its head from a wall in his hunting lodge. It is, as you say, a cover for much very destructive development.
Well the counter argument might be that, in an extremely high migration scenario, this tradeoff of housing to keep up with demand vs the environment is the predictable tradeoff.
Perhaps instead environment groups can protest against this extreme migration and fight the causes (rather than the symptoms).
This high end housing for the uber wealthy, to enjoy the natural surroundings that the development will wreck the majority o. There’s a threshold for many species remove habitat and it will crash then disappear.
Well I guess then if we cancel this project, the 120,000 who moved to Qld last year will just need to move in somewhere else. That sub 1% vacancy rate looks pretty tempting for a cashed up property investor.
Albo new this would happen, but he still refuses to stop trashing the place.
We have to build in this one place then?
Yes, the water is relatively clean as far as visual rubbish goes in the goldy waterways, far better to refit mc mansions with more effective accommodation, those wetlands were trashed decades ago.
yes sort of – i mean 1.6 million in 3 years ! But women over 45 after having families grow up are told work in the lowest or volunteer dumb jobs ; free shlep work as indentured breeders ; ” hey love we can use cheap labour to compete to take ya housing , health , education- the business lobby; health corps and property developers and tech platforms want the gig economy to line their greedy coffers ” You’re too old to look like our company type women ” … Right is wrong and left are serving only echo chsmbers
And just exactly how do you propose to stop the birds migrating??
When the birds come back and find their habitat trashed they will DIE. And soon become EXTINCT. Then they won’t migrate anymore, ever.
https://youtu.be/F6z0Cv4PYvs
The Environment Dept under Frydenberg when he was ‘Environment’ Minister recommended refusal, as impacts can’t be mitigated. International agreements here too, not just our (dodgy) environmental law.
Frydenberg, of course, refused and continued the assessment process. Walker is a huge donor.
Given this, it would be outrageous if Plibersek approves. Presumably departmental advice hasn’t changed.
It should be a flat no. As in a mud flat no.
Totally unacceptable to approve any building work or any other so called wise use. This place is much more than that.
This area is not ‘beautiful’ to most peoples eyes but it’s value to the environment is clear to see.
If this development gets a green light, I look forward to protesting with the many thousands of others who will also not let physical work commence.
Back in the 80s days, and the Brisbane airport was being redeveloped, and the sea walls went up to clear the mangrove, well underneath the mangrove mud, on the hard pack, they found sites of cultural significance. So the local tribes had camps there but with rising sea levels due to natural climate change, befor white man, they had to move inland.
Just throwing this into the argument to add weight to the conservation argument. Somehow. Anyway, it’s all in the records of the airport redevelopment files. Stop the development nonsense.. please.
This is one of those moments that define the intentions of a political party. You can go with what is inconvenient, but right, or you can go with the money. The choice to downplay the curlew’s potential extinction and up-play the importance of the Walker Corp project will be strong, but it will be evil, or a step towards evil. Should Plibersek go for the money, I will have nothing more to do with Labor.
Folks should have realised years ago which side of Labor’s bread is buttered. I for one won’t be surprised in the slightest when Plibberz betrays her professed ideals here.
Anyone care to remember how the Labor party turned Peter Garrett’s soul into used toilet paper?
Yup. I was posting in the Oz jack the insider blog. I commented how Pete should have been able to see this coming and run away before the got trash canned. Pink batts killed the good oil. Untrained installers, confined spaces and electricity, what could go wrong.
The pink batts thing was quite the beat-up; the tragedies were as much a function of the scale of the policy as any amount of incompetence. It’s a shame people are so innumerable, otherwise it might been more obvious that here was a bold, sweeping, positive step forward, of the kind we’re not used to seeing from the Australian government, which amounted more or less to making a million omelettes, and the media campaign against it was cynical opportunism by the same crew who’ve brought us decades of inaction to benefit a mob who are responsible for vast amounts of death. Then Krudd hung him out to dry as a scapegoat, after micromanaging the thing and ignoring Garrett’s concerns. It was a bit steep.
I was thinking more of stuff like how he accused the Greens of being in league with the LNP(!) while in opposition; how in government he approved dredging Port Phillip Bay; approved uranium mining expansion; pulled bulk funding from the National Academy of Music, that sort of crap.
He had a much better time of it under Gillard in the education portfolio.
Such a shame it wasn’t Gillard who led Howard’s defeat in the first place… She deserved it after tearing so many bloody shreds from him in Parliament, what a champ.
Thanks kimmo, a quite entertaining take on it all. Yes, the micromanagement. Gillard was quite adept at parliamentary performance art.
Whoops, ‘innumerable’ should’ve been ‘innumerate,’ which isn’t in my illiterate keyboard’s dictionary