Hi and welcome to a site looking at the issues around the Cairns election 2008. I’m Rod Davis, hi. Douglas has repeatedly voted 4 to 3 to bury the input of professionals and planners into its Icon legislation. No sooner had my last successful motion to get legal and planning input going, the ‘gang of ignorance’ voted it down, but they were delayed two weeks, and at least, in that window before Christmas, we had some great professional opinion.

I was one of the instigators of the ideas around the legislation, and worked feverishly on ideas to shape the laws with Mike Berwick and Bob Abbott, Noosa Mayor, a few months back. There is another meeting about it in Brisbane, 17 Jan. Many in Cairns Council mock the ‘icon’ concept with mixture of humour and buggery. The word ‘Icon’ came from Peter Wade, the former Queensland Tourism Chair, who embarrassed Beattie is his pre-retirement payoff to the Property Council. Beattie, like all the ‘boys’ in the behind the scenes club, had political debts to pay before his unexplained shift from Premier to feather duster. One such pay off, got rid of nuisance councils like Noosa and Douglas, who had for years pioneered anti property ideas like population caps, and god help us, sustainable communities. The word Icon was used to suggest the foreign tourists who came to Noosa and Douglas did so because they were different, and by homogenising them into a massive urban sprawl, their independent views would be dissolved in the political mainstream that is bigger government. But to me, the Icon debate has gone completely pear shape. The original idea was to do with keeping the local in local character. But the misleading “icon’ nomenclature has got every dog barking up the wrong tree. The original intent would have helped replace Douglas’s loss of self determination with a mechanism to insure that future changes would embody local character and views. But what is evolving is far from this. I and others met with the Deputy Premier Lucas, and put a case saying the legislation should be all about keeping local input in future changes. What will one day be changed is perfectly clear, it’s Douglas’s local laws and town plan. There is no need to mount a crazed hunt is search of what makes us iconic, as its already in existence…its called the Douglas town plan and local laws. The debate should focus on how future changes are made, and not try to redefine what has already been 100 years in the making, namely Douglas’s local laws/plans.

I had proposed a people empowering method, based around calibrated, compulsory, community consultation, at all major changes to Douglas’s plans and laws. I might as well have asked the Deputy Premier to kill his own children. The whole concept of the Bligh Govt allowing us, the people, any say, is totally abhorrent to Captain Bligh, and her paid-out former boss. A great example of Bligh’s rebuttal to us the people was in Beattie/Bligh/Fraser’s refusal to even allow any polling on the issue of amalgamations. Bligh continues her animal farm ways with compulsory fluoridation , bugger the objectors views. Now, where we once wanted local input into iconic legislation, the State now makes the Minister the arbiter of what is ‘local’ character, and to hell with the locals themselves. Some say the NSW and Qld Governments are headed down the same track as the Howard Govt, its just a matter of timing. What the hell does the Minister know about local character? And Paul Lucas and Jason O’Brien’s agenda is self confessed to be all about growth, just like Howard’s ‘Go for Growth’ noose. So ask yourself, in shires like Noosa and Douglas, that have long floated ideas like population limits and fixed urban footprints, how can we trust a growth obsessed state ALP when it comes to managing iconic legislation on behalf of Douglas locals? You might as well put the Nazi SS in charge of Passover. Passover we will have, and in about 20 years Douglas and Noosa could well look like the homogenised sprawl that is the Queensland coast now.
So back to the icon legislation. To me its about local input in local changes. Its not about making lists of what is iconic, the lists are done already. Its about who has a say in future changes. A classic example of why we are in deep shit can be seen in how the State is handling the Port Douglas Police Station. Yes, Port Douglas needs a new 24 hour police service. The State are pushing through a new station to be built on the waterfront reserve. The Port Douglas waterfront is waiting, under a development moratorium, for a community agreed design for its master plan, and its architectural guidelines. One such guideline, will make the waterfront buildings iconic in their simple low energy design, which will for example have a lot of shade devises reducing the heat load of coal powered air conditioners. If anything is ‘iconic’ in Port Douglas, it’s its waterfront. But who is the first developer to break the moratorium? Its the Bligh Government itself. And as for keeping the local in local input, the iconic idea, well, let’s bin it, eh Ms Bligh. The State is refusing to oblige. The police station is in a park for recreation. But that isn’t stopping the State override the local wishes, and its pushing forward its plan to rebuild the Port Police Station, regardless of the Councillor and Waterfront Protection Group’s loud objections, and despite internal wrangling and complaints from State Development and Tourism portfolios under Desley Boyle. When its comes to Judy Spence’s’ police station, its my way of the highway. Joh’s Police state is well and truly alive when it comes to self interested town planning. The idea of combining one adjoining, ambulance, fire station and police base, on the spare land on Davidson Street just is not getting traction, and you would ask, as many are, is this about service to the community, or is it more about views from the Police homes overlooking the Coral Sea with land worth some $4M per house block just 100m away. Where would you best serve the community in a massive natural disaster?… from a centrally located , high ground, main road site, alongside ambos and firies, or where the sunset views are best? Well, the views won out. The whole icon idea of local in local input is nothing but a farce. And as for the agreed moratorium on waterfront development, to hell with that, this is Captain Bligh’s ship here, and mutineers will eat barnacles face first. But one day dear Anna, maybe just one day, your growth obsession, the money, money, police and money agenda will be as good for you, as it was for John Howard’s ‘Go for Growth’, memorial. Animal Farm. A great book. Just like the original Bligh mutiny story. History repeats itself.

Rgds Councillor Rod Davis

0418 235561

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