By George Petersen
Shellharbour municipality, on the coast about 20 kilometres south of Wollongong, is virtually a dormitory suburb for workers in the Port Kembla industrial area, although a growing number of workers commute to Sydney. It has a 17% unemployment rate. The local municipal council has been controlled by the ALP right wing since 1977.
Past Shellharbour councils have shown little regard for coastal environment protection. This is particularly evident at the northern end of the municipality where the still water beach adjoining the entrance to Lake Illawarra was destroyed in the early '70s by the construction of a totally unnecessary ugly concrete embankment.
Going south from Lake Illawarra entrance, the long Warilla Beach is now a small fraction of its former size. In the 1950s Shellharbour Council and the Environment Court allowed a subdivision on the frontal dunes and then were required to dump rocks, which destroyed most of the beach, to stop the houses being washed away.
South of Warilla is the very popular North Shellharbour Beach, which is in very good condition because no housing was allowed near it. Next there is the little harbour from which the municipality takes its name.
Further south is South Shellharbour Beach, with limited access because of a residential subdivision covering about a third of the adjoining land. This is the beach through which the council proposes to carve a 200-metre channel, with breakwaters extending some hundreds of metres out to sea. It also proposes to destroy a 19 hectare wet land and an adjoining 50 hectare public golf course, in order to construct a boat harbour marina for 350 to 400 yachts.
This is a growing area with thousands of young children who see the beach as a prime recreation facility. It is an appalling abdication of its responsibility to the workers who elected it that a Labor-controlled council should want to reduce, perhaps even destroy, a beach now enjoyed by the 99.9% of us who do not own yachts.
To reduce opposition to the marina proposal, the council has a policy of dissuading the public from using South Shellharbour Beach. It has not planted any shade trees. The public toilet and change facilities are closed during winter and open only at weekends during most of summer. Alongside the toilet there are two picnic tables. There are no barbecue facilities. There are no public conveniences at all at the southern end of the beach.
The small lagoon which flows out of the wet land at the southern end of the beach is an ideal safe swimming place for small children. Despite an examination by council officers revealing that the water is not polluted, council has erected a sign forbidding swimming there.
Studies
No harbours have been constructed by the NSW government since before World War II, because there is little demand for harbours today except from owners of ocean-going pleasure yachts.
In 1981 the Public Works Department produced a report of proposed sites for a boat harbour between Wollongong and Kiama. The report favoured South Shellharbour only because there was sufficient adjoining publicly owned land available for development. The PWD bureaucrats knew that no state government would spend funds on a harbour; they sought to finance the construction by sale of public land.
Early in 1983 Shellharbour Council engaged the Geography Department of Wollongong University to prepare a feasibility study on construction of a harbour on the wet land adjoining South Shellharbour Beach. This report suggested that the evidence was unfavourable for a marina, based partly on ecological considerations but mainly on the perceived difficulties in keeping the entrance free from sand. The municipal librarian was directed by the ALP mayor, Bob Harrison, that the public were forbidden to photocopy the report. We obtained a copy in March 1993 under the 1989 Freedom of Information Act.
A new feasibility study was completed in December 1985. The only value of this study is that it gives the lie to any suggestion that the marina would create a great number of jobs; it estimates employment of only 14 permanent workers.
The study's scientific value can be judged by the fact that it completely omitted any reference to the offshore coral reef, probably the most southerly coral reef in the world. The study's fauna experts could find only 19 species of birds in the wet land adjoining the beach. In 1986 a local university student submitted a thesis on the wet land for his honours degree in environmental science. He listed 55 species of birds that he had observed, including seven protected under the 1981 Agreement on Migratory birds between Japan and Australia.
Opposition
When the Public Works study was released, we formed an ad hoc committee of local residents called Preserve South Shellharbour Beach Committee. In February 1986 we produced a 17-page analysis stating that the study was based on selling off 130 hectares of publicly owned land in order to get the finance to build, for $46 million, a 650 berth marina, in the process destroying a wet land and causing massive destruction to a beach. We condemned the proposed project as a blatant misallocation of financial resources and a gross misuse of natural resources.
Since that time the committee has continued in existence with regular meetings. We have held four public meetings in Shellharbour Village, each attended by about 200 people. We have also lobbied the unions affiliated to the South Coast Labour Council, which is opposed to any destruction of South Shellharbour Beach.
In July 1990 we were visited by a select committee of the NSW Legislative Council which was investigating coastal development. The whole committee, comprising Liberal, National, Labor and Democrat members, were generally in support of our aims. Democrat Richard Jones was then, and still is now, particularly enthusiastic in doing so. He has given us great help by raising the issue in parliament and lobbying ministers. He was particularly valuable in 1991 in exposing Shellharbour Council's motives in applying to the state government for exemption from its coastal lands policy and in persuading the Liberal government to refuse the application.
At the 1991 council elections we supported four independent anti-marina candidates. Two of these were elected, John Cowan and Michelle Greig.
Whilst none of the 10 Labour councillors support us, our support from other ALP members is growing. We have unanimous support for our campaign from the Shellharbour/Barrack Heights branch of the ALP. We also have supporters in the other two local branches of Oak Flats/Albion Park and Warilla/Mt Warrigal.
Because of this growing support, right-wing state MPs Bob Harrison and Terry Rumble asked their mates at ALP head office to ban ALP members from belonging to our Committee. On August 6, the NSW ALP Administrative Committee proscribed our committee, forbidding ALP members to belong to it.
Secrecy
In February 1986 the state minister for public works, Laurie Brereton, wrote to the mayor a secret letter, which was leaked to us. The letter confirmed our assessment that we would be required to pay for the boat harbour. It said: "It is essential that funds from any appreciation of land value caused by the project are returned to the project to ensure its viability". Since we publicised this statement, public and press have been barred from all council discussions of the marina.
Council's obsession with secrecy has been carried to absurd lengths. All relevant business is treated as confidential. With a minimum of notice, councillors are given papers dealing with marina matters on which they are required to vote in confidential meetings. They are required to return all such papers before leaving.
Between 1986 and 1990 the council engaged in secret negotiations with three developers in order to obtain a plan for a development similar to that in the Public Works Study. The only result was the appointment of a preferred developer who later withdrew.
On October 12, 1990, the then mayor, Bob Harrison, presented a new plan. This included moving the golf course, a canal development and reduction of the boat harbour to 350 berths.
Paying for it
On December 22, 1992, council appointed as preferred developer Walker Corporation Pty Ltd. On April 24, nine of us met with two company representatives. We learned facts which even the councillors did not know. Our newsletter Beachbeat exposed how ratepayers would pay for the marina:
"Shellharbour ratepayers ... own 180 hectares of land south of Shellharbour. This includes the Golf Course.
"The Developer is 'given' the land by the Council and begins to develop it for housing. At the same time earthworks are commenced at the wetland. This is done so that the Developer can show that the Marina is going ahead, and can hence charge more for the blocks of land.
"The profits from the sale of our land are then used to pay for the earthworks, build a new golf course on hilly land at Dunmore, finally complete the marina, repay the Developer's financial advances, and pay his management fees.
"The Marina is then given to Council to operate ...
"Having then used up all our land, the Developer, with our money, will then buy over 100 hectares from the Illawarra Electricity Authority at market value. He will subdivide, develop and sell this land at 200 lots a year over the next 7 years. Any after expense profits will be shared equally between the Developer and Council ...
"Any future profit will only come from buying land at market prices, developing it and giving the Developer half the profits."
Council's plans have about them an air of total unreality. Why are the councillors so determined to embark on a financial program that violates all common sense?
When one considers that Shellharbour Council could now sell off part of the land it now holds for about $25 million profit, one must wonder why it should engage in a project which, at best, would involve selling off all the land for a problematic profit of about $32 million over seven years beginning in at least five years. If it got the $25 million now, it could pay off council's $13 million debt and use the balance for inexpensive recreational facilities and income-generating accommodation which would achieve the aim of attracting tourists and visitors to the area.