Protests Over Plan To Sell Wilderness To Us
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday August 8, 1993
CANBERRA: Conservationists will "auction off" the Opera House and Museum of Victoria today as part of a national day of protest over plans to sell more than 24,000 hectares of Queensland wilderness for $US18 million.
The area, known as the Starcke Wilderness, has been advertised for sale in the US by a North Queensland property developer, Mr George Quaid.
Mr Quaid was sold the freehold to the land in 1989 for about $30,000 -$1.25 per hectare - during the dying days of the Bjelke-Petersen Government.
The Wilderness Society (TWS) which, with other conservation groups, has fought losing battles against other huge Quaid developments over recent years, has protests planned in major cities today.
Apart from the "auctions" in Sydney and Melbourne, banners will be hung in Canberra, and there will be a march in Brisbane.
The Starcke Wilderness stretches along 80 kilometres of coastline, beginning 60 kilometres north of Cairns. Conservationists have formed an alliance with two Aboriginal groups who claim traditional title to the area.
The major environmental concern is the effect any development might have on the marine environment. Offshore from Starcke are the largest sea-grass beds on the Australian east coast, which support the largest dugong population in Australian waters. The dugong, or sea cow, is an internationally threatened mammal.
Because the area was formerly a leasehold cattle station, no comprehensive biological studies have ever been conducted into the terrestrial ecology.
Although Mr Quaid appears not to have any offers yet on the area, and so has not yet had to face the Foreign Investment Review Board, TWS is demanding a commitment from the Federal Government that a foreign sale will not be permitted.
Among national conservation groups, Mr Quaid has long been held in roughly the same esteem as Japanese woodchipping companies. He was the man who, in 1976, first bulldozed the infamous road from Cape Tribulation to the Bloomfield River, which outraged conservationists and the Federal Government, although nothing was done.
The reclusive tycoon was one of the big beneficiaries of the freehold sell-off by the Bjelke-Petersen Government in 1988-89.
During that period, Mr Quaid was given permission to freehold 23,700 hectares of Southedge Station, on the Atherton Tableland, for $55,700, and to subdivide large tracts of the Daintree River rainforests, after the former National Party Minister for Local Government, Mr Russ Hinze, overturned a council veto on the project.
The Southedge development was planned to be the Palm Springs of Australia.
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald