Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Flying into Brisbane international airport you cannot help but notice Moreton Bay and the archipelago of islands flanked by the beautiful North Stradbroke Island: a 60-kilometre-long sand island with extraordinary ecology, freshwater lakes, pandanus-framed beaches and, of course, tourism. Being an island, it needs a hub—and that is Toondah Harbour, where around 7,000 maritime services leave each year to reach North Stradbroke Island. This makes it the second-busiest port in this nation, carrying over half a million visitors and 200,000 vehicles. The Toondah Harbour area is a Newman government Priority Development Area—a very important initiative that allows us to envision what this incredible gem could look like with a common-sense approach to development and to allowing additional features over and above the current area for vehicle departures. This area is potentially a place for residential, tourism, maritime and wharf development, for light retail and other activities.

The idea of a PDA is to leave options open to people and to entities with great ideas. The PDA process is an idea of the Newman government that I support entirely. But, to do it right, you often get only one shot. To do it right, you need all three levels of government working together, and I am confident that, with the work of Redland City Council and the Queensland state government, and even with the overlying federal legislation through the EPBCA, we can get to that place.

Major strategic assets on our coastline are truly rare things. In my area of Redlands, with a coastline of over 150 kilometres, mostly mangrove and beach, there is barely one or two kilometres of actual development. Most of our 'emerald fringe', as we like to refer to it, has been preserved. In the case of Toondah Harbour we are talking about not 200 kilometres but about 200 metres of currently untouched foreshore that is part of the PDA process.

It is important that—as the three levels of government work together to get it right—we look to the future. It is important that whatever does happen there is economically conceived and sustainable and can actually be built. Otherwise there is no point in starting. Finally, we need to remember that, no matter how attractive a beautiful natural asset is, just because we live next to it gives us no right to refuse others the right to visit and enjoy it. When we are looking at what we can do on our foreshore, we need to ask these questions on behalf of those who will follow us decades later: how do we best capture the utility of this place? How do we best optimise its use? How do we make it available to more than just the people who live around it and love it? Sure, by being near it and close to it, as my constituents are, we have a vested interest in doing it right. To that end, I lived on Shore Street North. My immediate neighbour is the Toondah area and, in fact, GJ Walter Park.

There are three great concerns that my constituents have about this development, and that is what I would like to address today. If we are doing anything on Queensland's beautiful coastline, and certainly on the delicate Moreton Bay ecology—that is already a Ramsar site of national significance—we need to be mindful about what we do. We need to be mindful about dredging, we need to be mindful about what we do with changing the foreshore coastline, and we need to be mindful about the built infrastructure that we create and that necessarily affects people who live behind what we are doing. On those three fronts I would like to elaborate a little further.

This part of Moreton Bay is a Ramsar site and subject to EPBCA review. It is so because of migratory seabirds, green turtles, loggerhead turtles and, of course, seagrass that dugongs feed on. This is an extraordinary place just 30 kilometres from one of the world's most exciting and fast-growing cities, Brisbane. It is an amazing place because you can live on an island and commute to work in a major city—such a rare thing worldwide. There are not one, not two but six or seven of these populated islands where amazing people have built up incredible communities surrounded by an emerald fringe. Each island has its own particular characteristics and personalities, and each island has its own dreams for the future. But all of them rely on those vehicle and passenger movement services. There is Wynnum Creek in the south and Toondah Harbour in the north.

Building heights will always be a sensitive issue along Australia's coastline, and I am confident that through the PDA process there will be an absolute insistence that any proposal for built infrastructure be mindful of views, heights and the open spaces around them. If we are going to be dredging, we have to be mindful about what we do with the spoil, where it comes from, whether it affects migratory seabird areas and, of course, the long-term impacts on hydrology; whether it affects coasts north and south and whether it leads to erosion or to storm surges or other threats that we can have during Queensland's storm season.

Finally, to open space: I do not blame any local for saying, 'I don't mind what plans you have for development, but don't take away the very precious access that my family and friends have to Moreton Bay.' Believe me, so much of it is mangrove fringe that it is actually very hard to take your dogs and your kids down to much of Moreton Bay in my area and to be able to enjoy the water. Whoever comes up with a concept for the development of the Toondah Harbour PDA, we will by necessity have to consider those demands of locals. We cannot afford to have a development that cuts off that access to the water; we cannot afford to have a development that makes it impossible for dog owners to take their pets to the beach. These are things that are now absolutely woven into the lifestyles of those of us who live along the bay.

I do want to respond by quoting into Hansard some of the important comments made by Mark Robinson MP. In a recent letter to the editor he has pointed out to Redlanders in particular how seriously he takes building heights, open space and any proposal to dredge in this area:

With respect to building heights, I can reassure the community that proposed development applications will have to demonstrate how building structures will protect views …

I make this comment because in parts of the Sunshine Coast building height limits have simply led to long horizontal proliferations of high-rise buildings just under the maximum height that absolutely obliterate views for all of the residents behind. Sometimes, having a slightly higher high-rise building limit allows what we refer to as view corridors that improve the amenity for people who live in the area. Robinson goes on to emphasise the need for the provision of open space and good urban design outcomes, and says:

While maps in the PDA documents have indicated building heights of up to 15 levels could be considered in the Toondah Harbour proposed scheme, any buildings considered will need to meet this strict criteria.

Robinson also points out, regarding open space:

A continuous public space link along the Toondah Harbour foreshore is proposed to provide new recreational opportunities for the community.

While some current open space at Toondah Harbour may need to be partly used for development, the proposed development scheme will provide better access to the foreshore, land reclamation and the possible relocation of an existing car park currently taking up prime land close to the foreshore.

Robinson's point is a simple one: if we are going to improve this Toondah Harbour area, there are many opportunities not just for focusing purely on preservation but for increasing and optimising the use of this area. Having large concrete car parks along our foreshore is not ideal. Reopening these areas to the public and liberating them should be our goal. You only need to visit other major regional cities up the Queensland coastline like Mackay, Townsville and Cairns to know that that is possible.

The last thing we want in our community is to have empty foreshore areas that have virtually no utility because nothing can be built, nothing can be designed and nothing can be improved. That is not my vision as a local member from my area. My job is not to make sure that nothing changes; my job is to make sure that the world knows that my area is one of the world's greatest places to live, to visit, to spend money, to stay and to consider becoming a local. I know it is a very special place and I know that our community is smart enough to identify what makes it special, to identify what caused us to move there in the first place and to preserve it and show it off; to be proud of it and make it more easily accessible. I know every blade of grass at GJ Walter Park. My daughter Sophie's first birthday party was held in the rotunda. Living across the road from it, I know exactly how many people use the park at every hour of the day, 24 hours a day. It is still one of the best kept secrets in Redlands, and it is virtually unknown to people who are not from Redlands. I know we can do better than that.

What we do not need is a small minority utterly insistent that nothing can change. Every person in my community should have a voice. They have a right to a say. No individual in my community has a right to say to others that they cannot have what they want. We want equal voices, with everyone having a say. If I make one commitment today it is that I will go broadly to my community and talk to them about how they would like to see Toondah Harbour a decade and two decades from now. We will not have a repeat of Labor consultation processes where 100 people turn up and tell us what the community is thinking. I am afraid 100 people, as much as I respect their points of view as individuals, do not cut it as community consultation. Not everyone wants to turn up at a rally and tell you exactly what they want, and in many cases we need to be much more imaginative about how we ask our community what they want. Social media will give us this opportunity, phone polling will give us this opportunity, telephone town halls will open up new possibilities and of course the traditional written surveys are also important. In many cases there is only a 10 per cent return on those surveys, and for me the challenge is to do better: to motivate people to complete surveys and tell me what they think.

The PDA process in Cleveland is an example of how we can do far better. I am confident that both the Queensland state government and Redlands City Council can do that. I am confident that, despite submissions closing on 24 February this year, there will be ample opportunities once submissions are received to examine them, to scrutinise them, to critique them, to debate them and to inspire our friends and neighbours to get involved and improve those missions where we can. But—let us have considered, informed debate once those submissions are received. It is almost impossible to prejudge submissions that have not yet come to hand. Let us move away from the old ways of getting 100 people around a piece of paper and deciding what the community will get. Let us move away from the old ways where we used bureaucrats to make it impossible to develop areas simply because of the layers and layers of legislative and regulatory impediment. Now is the time that ordinary people should get together and formulate a clear vision of what they love and what they want to see their children enjoying.

I make it very clear that my job in an outer metropolitan community is, above all things, to protect the local ecology while making jobs available to my local families. If my people trust that levels of government can achieve those two goals by working together, then I ask them to join me in that communication and that process in a constructive way. To people on both sides of the debate, I say that if you come to the debate wanting the place levelled and covered in high-rise buildings, or if you come to the debate wanting absolutely not a blade of grass touched, then be prepared to conciliate. Be prepared to open your mind to the possibilities; be prepared to look around the world and see how other places have done it right and let us make sure that Cleveland is added to that list in the years to come.

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