Dear Folks, An announcement on who has "won" the battle for Point Nepean is expected any day now. Every letter, phone call and e-mail (in that order) is critical and will help.
While the following e-mail is lengthy, one of the principles involved was nicely ennumerated by the Herald Sun's editorial this week. It read..... Beach betrayal Not only Victorians but all Australians, should rally to express their anger at the prospect that Point Nepean's beach could be sold to private buyers. The federal Government confirms that the beach and foreshore are included in the 90ha of land it has on the market. This outrageous prospect is totally contrary to the Australian tradition that the beaches belong to the people. Beaches are alienated in only a very few coastal areas where very old titles, which should have been rescinded long ago, continue to exist. The local community fears Point Nepean beach could become, like many European beaches, cut off from the public by fences and the access commercialised. As developers join the seagulls seeking to scavenge this public land, the federal and state governments play politics. But this is not the politicians' land. It belongs to the people who pay them. In brief, our land and our beach is still up 'For Sale'. Please help us if you can and visit the VNPA website for the entire background. (If you are really bored, you can read my article on why Nepean must be a National Park). Please circulate to your friends and colleagues as you see fit. Best Wishes, Neil. PS. Please let me know if you would prefer not to receive further information regarding Point Nepean.. ----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Smyth <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 7:59 AM Subject: Saving Point Nepean E-letter No 1 Saving Point Nepean E-letter No 1 Dear members and supporters, The community-based campaign by the Victorian National Parks Association and National Trust of Australia (Victoria) to stop the sale of Point Nepean has reached a very critical stage, with an expectation of a Commonwealth Government announcement soon. What that announcement will be is unclear, but with continued pressure we believe that the Commonwealth Government will stop the sale and return Point Nepean to Victoria. Over the coming weeks we plan to send you regular Saving Point Nepean E-letters, this being the first. The E-letters will give you the latest news and help you become involved in the Victorian community's campaign to Save Point Nepean. You are on our email database because you are a member or supporter of the Victorian National Parks Association and the National Trust of Australia (Victoria), or have supported our campaigns for the protection of natural and cultural heritage in the past. We hope that you continue to support our work, and in particular our campaign for Point Nepean, and find the Saving Point Nepean E-letter a great way to stay informed and to get involved. Point Nepean is too valuable to be lost. With your help we will save it. Yours sincerely, Dianne Weidner Chairman, National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Ian Harris President, Victorian National Parks Association PS: So please keep sending those emails, letters and faxes, and making those phone calls, to our federal Members of Parliament. PPS: Should you not wish to receive the Saving Point Nepean E-letter, please reply to this email with the word 'Unsubscribe' in the subject box. The Victorian Community Expression of Interest in Point Nepean The Victorian National Parks Association and the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) have joined forces to work with the Victorian community to Save Point Nepean. Point Nepean is a national treasure, a unique blend of cultural and natural heritage on the doorstep of Melbourne. But it is now in grave danger because the Commonwealth Government is selling 91.8 hectares of Defence Department land at Portsea containing the Quarantine Station/Norris Barracks area with its 19th century and early 20th century buildings of exceptional heritage significance, as well as around 50 hectares of threatened coastal moonah woodlands. As part of our community-based campaign we are facilitating the Victorian Community Expression of Interest in Point Nepean, which was submitted on 2 June 2003 to the Commonwealth Government (you can see it at vnpa.org.au and nattrust.com.au). It is a formal request for the return of the Defence land to Victoria, after which it would then be included within a reborn Point Nepean National Park and managed by Parks Victoria in partnership with the community and the Point Nepean LivingMuseum. The Point Nepean LivingMuseum would protect, manage and restore the built heritage precinct and in the process provide many environmental, economic and social benefits including those associated with research, education, conservation, management, tourism, employment and training. The Victorian Community Expression of Interest in Point Nepean is receiving widespread community support from individuals and groups deeply concerned about Point Nepean's future and wishing to see a national park at Point Nepean that would provide 100 per cent public ownership, management, control and accountability. You can see the full list on our websites. Individual supporters include Warwick Anderson, Kate Baillieu, Tracy Bartram, John Button, John Clarke, Laurence Cox, Perri Cutten, Kate Fitzpatrick, Carrillo Gantner, Peter Garrett, Sir Rupert Hamer, Sir John Holland and Lady Holland, Brian Howe, Peter Isaacson, Barry Jones, Joan Kirner, Mick Malloy, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Baillieu Myer, Olivia Newton-John, Bruce Ruxton, Tom Uren and Ron Walker. Group supporters include the Australian Conservation Foundation, Australian Marine Conservation Society, Australian Marine Education Alliance, Bird Observers Club of Australia, Birds Australia, Dolphin Research Institute, Geelong Environment Council, Marine and Coastal Community Network (Victoria), Marine Education Society of Australia, Master Builders Association, Mornington Peninsula Beachside Tourism Association, Nepean Conservation Group, Nepean Historical Society, Port Phillip Conservation Council, Returned and Services League of Australia Victorian Branch, Surfrider Foundation - Australia, The Wilderness Society, Victorian Association for Environmental Education, Victorian Federation of Walking Clubs, Victorian Field Naturalist Clubs Association, Victorian Local Governance Association, Victorian Tourism Industry Council, Westernport & Peninsula Protection Council and the World Wide Fund for Nature. On 25 June 2003, the Australia Senate passed a motion of support for the Victorian Community Expression of Interest and urged the federal government to return the land to Victoria to enable the establishment of the Point Nepean National Park and LivingMuseum. On 29 June the VNPA and the National Trust and other partners in the Victorian Community Expression of Interest met with then Acting Premier, John Thwaites, to discuss the future of Point Nepean. The State Government has since committed to cover the ongoing management and restoration costs at Point Nepean and to include all of the Defence land within a national park once it its returned to Victoria. On the same day VNPA and National Trust invited the Prime Minister to visit Point Nepean and see for himself the significance of the area, and to form a partnership with the Victorian Government and the Victorian community to protect Point Nepean in a national park. The Prime Minister later declined the invitation. The VNPA and National Trust are continuing to promote the community vision for Point Nepean and to urge the Commonwealth Government to join in a partnership with the Victorian community and its government to protect Point Nepean in the Point Nepean National Park and LivingMuseum. The Victorian community would bring in-kind and financial contributions to the partnership, the Victorian Government would provide the ongoing funding for management and restorative work, and the Commonwealth Government, would, as its contribution, provide the land. August is a crucial month in the campaign to Save Point Nepean as the Commonwealth Government draws closer to making an announcement. Watch out for the next Saving Point Nepean E-letter in a few days time. Commonwealth Government responses to your emails, letters and phone calls Many people have received responses from the Commonwealth Government to their emails, letters, phone calls and faxes urging it to stop the sale of Point Nepean and to return the land to Victoria. There is a fairly standard Government response being sent out and here below are its main points (in italics) with our comments. The Commonwealth Government has banned housing on Point Nepean Subdivision into allotments would be permissible around the dwellings and other buildings existing on the site (which could then be sold again separately), as would subdivision into allotments for use as hotels, conference and education facilities, tourist accommodations and other non-residential purposes. This would split the land into smaller and smaller blocks, with a further fragmentation of management and control. Whether it's 100 new houses or 100 new holiday apartments or cabins, the environmental and cultural impacts on Point Nepean will be similar. The Commonwealth Government has protected Point Nepean's bushland. Not so. The 50 hectares of coastal moonah woodland, the threatened vegetation community found behind the Quarantine Station, is up for sale. Coastal moonah woodland is listed as threatened under Victoria's Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. The Commonwealth Government will clean up all unexploded ordnance and give 205 hectares of clifftop land to the state for a national park. The Defence Department created this problem, and it is only proper that it clean it up. However, in its proposal for clean-up, the Defence Department will make extensive use of fire that will impact upon native fauna and fauna and also lead to long-term problems for weed and erosion management that will inevitably become the financial responsibility of the Victorian Government. The Commonwealth Government will give the 20 hectares of clifftop land at Police Point to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council for open space. This further fragments management and would appear to have no protection by any caveats, covenants or other mechanisms. The local council will find that its ownership of Police Point will be a huge policy and budgetary burden that could encourage a desire to sell it in the future. The Defence Department's sale of Point Nepean would create at least three separate areas under three different managers for three different purposes: a national park managed by Parks Victoria, Police Point managed by the local council, and exclusive ownership, management and use of the Quarantine Station by private and commercial operators. The Commonwealth Government is spending $4 million on the restoration of the Norris Barracks and heritage precinct. This is welcome. There will still be considerable costs associated with the restoration and upgrade of the built-heritage area, but the State Government has committed to covering these. The Commonwealth Government's approach is consistent with the Portsea Defence Land Community Master Plan prepared by the community-based Community Reference Group. No, the Master Plan's vision for Point Nepean is for a 'public park managed as a whole and integrated with the Point Nepean coastal and marine environments to enhance its special sense of place'. The selling of Point Nepean will: * disintegrate the ownership and management of the land * threaten the fabric, integrity, spatial association and sense of place of the Quarantine Station buildings * privatise the ownership and/or management of what is currently publicly-owned and managed foreshore (Victoria takes pride in that nearly all of its foreshore is Crown Land. This must be defended and whenever possible extended) * encourage linear development and overdevelopment along the shoreline of this national coastal treasure (inappropriate development is quite possible at a number of sites in the area for sale) * contradict the underlying principles of the Victorian Coastal Strategy. In contrast to this, the Victorian Community Expression of Interest in Point Nepean upholds the principles of the Community Master Plan, the Victorian Coastal Strategy, and the spirit and practice of proper coastal planning and management. It will prevent exclusivity of use, incremental development, ad hoc planning and the setting of very dangerous precedents for the Australian coast. The Commonwealth Government has established stringent environmental and heritage conditions for the sale of the Defence land at Point Nepean. No. The heritage conditions are weak and environmental conditions are not described. The weakness of the heritage conditions could allow many new buildings in the built-heritage precinct, and the development of the area's threatened coastal moonah woodlands, as well as the extensive playing fields. And substantive studies recommended by heritage experts have not been carried out but are urgently needed to properly assess the impact of proposals for Point Nepean. It appears that there will be no assessment of environmental impacts and ecological sustainability issues associated with the use of the site (issues such as access provision, traffic, water management, energy conservation, coastal protection, crowding) and the numbers of site visitors due to development. The heritage conditions, no matter how weak or strong they are, should be just one element of a comprehensive environmental analysis of the individual and cumulative impacts of proposed uses at Point Nepean. The Victorian Government bought land at Point Nepean from the Commonwealth Government in 1988, so why not now? This was not a land purchase, it was a land swap of Commonwealth-owned land at Point Nepean and at the Drill Hall on Batman Avenue for state-owned Fishermens Bend land and Flagstaff Hill land. The remaining Commonwealth land at Point Nepean is owned by all of us. None of it should be sold. The current Victorian Government declined the offer of land at Point Nepean in 2001 so it really isn't interested in Point Nepean. Premier Jeff Kennett was, in 1999, the first to whom this offer was made. In a letter to the then Defence Minister, Mr John Moore, Premier Kennett was clearly concerned about the exclusion of 40 hectares of clifftop real estate from the offer, and the lack of UXO clean-up. The 40 hectares had been tagged for a residential sell-off by the Defence Department. Mr Kennett lost office before replying to the offer. The 40 hectares of cliff-top land were still missing when Premier Bracks declined the offer and has now been increased by the Defence Department to 91.8 hectares. Since then the Victorian Government has on two occasions in 2003 indicated to the Commonwealth Government that it would accept all 311 hectares of Commonwealth land at Point Nepean and cover the ongoing management and restoration costs if the Commonwealth Government was prepared to return it. In a TV debate during the last state election Steve Bracks promised to buy the land if it was cleaned up. This he did although it was not part of the Government's election policy platform. Since then the State Government has stated that it will not pay for the land because it is already community-owned, but that it will cover the costs of ongoing management and restorative works for management within a national park. In the political sparring over Point Nepean there have been claims and counter claims about whether past and current state governments lost opportunities to secure Point Nepean, how much money and land has passed between the State and Commonwealth governments, and whether offers included clean-up and prime clifftop real estate. But Point Nepean's natural and cultural heritage significance and its long-term future protection is a decision for the here and now; past dealings are irrelevant. Once Point Nepean is gone it can never be recreated; it is lost forever. There is no excuse for the Defence Department's sale of the land, and a reason has never been given for its action. Don't let the Commonwealth Government responses to your emails, phone calls, faxes and letters put you off. Please keep sending them and encourage your relatives, friends and colleagues to do the same. For all the latest on the Save Point Nepean Campaign go to vnpa.org.au or nattrust.com.au On the websites and using the link between them you can: * read the full Victorian Community Expression of Interest * download and print a postcard for sending to the Prime Minister * order bumper stickers * view photographs of Point Nepean * see the list of people and groups supporting the Victorian Community Expression of Interest and add your name to the list * read about Point Nepean's unique natural and cultural heritage * find out why Point Nepean must not be sold and why it should be protected in a national park * read recent media releases on the issue. -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
