flying_peliBradburys2AdderRock

About SIMOs Position

Values: Camping is not bungalows
To differentiate our tourism industry, camping on Stradbroke should offer an authentic experience that engages with nature, not be just like every other seaside camping experience up and down the coast.
Include luxury tents by all means, but understand the iconography of camping.
Camping is not air-conditioned aluminium bungalows.


SIMO’s objections to the privatisation of the management of the NSI camping holiday parks are manifold.

Environment
All the camping grounds need an independently conducted environmental audit to establish the current (and past) levels of degradation and identify essential remediation, and to determine the carrying capacity of each.
All the camp grounds are adjacent to fragile littoral territory. All are subject to erosive effects and to inundations as the predicted rise in sea level occurs (as a result of global warming). All are in close proximity with wildlife, some of it endangered – notably koalas, acid frogs, water mouse, glossy black cockatoos, grey-headed flying fox, swamp orchid, swamp daisy, and also turtles that nest on island beaches. The area is Ramsar-listed for the protection of migratory birds, which have noticeably declined in numbers in the past decades. Some camp grounds are partially built on wetlands. All have sewerage issues, particularly Amity. We are especially concerned that the management of the foreshore camping grounds at Flinders Beach and Main Beach would also be included: both suffer from over-use and are under-supplied with facilities, and Main Beach has no toilet facilities at all.

Community consultation/participation
It is unacceptable to undertake the proposal to award a 30-year contract to a private operator to run all the island’s camping grounds without community consultation.
 
The presence of big business is not a comfortable fit with the island’s ethos and character. Stradbroke is about the natural environment, the island’s Aboriginality, its three townships and casual life style. These elements together form our main attraction. The island’s natural, small, slow values become ever-more precious as the mainland is progressively developed into a populous, homogenised suburban conurbation.
 
Within the community there is a widespread desire to retain the island’s low-key way of life and to avoid mainland infrastructure and commercialisation. The tourist industry needs to be developed in ways that complement these (and other) central community values, both for the benefit of local residents and the continuing delight of visitors.
 
Tourism is extremely important for the island’s future: it can follow the example of mainland holiday parks, appealing to a mass market, exploiting Stradbroke as a pleasure-ground (hedonism and exploitation are the hallmarks of most NSI tourism up to the present) or it can target niche markets with a premium on low-key, nature-based island experiences and cultural authenticity.

The question of the camping grounds is fundamental to the island’s environmental, social, cultural and economic wellbeing. The community has a large stake in this principal asset – the public camping grounds – and how they are to be managed and marketed.
Indigenous concerns
The question of indigenous engagement is also fundamental. The Council has a special agreement that coalesces in the Quandamooka Aboriginal Community Action Plan 2007. SIMO endorses the plan. We wish to see its aims and objectives implemented now, not deferred indefinitely. As that document makes clear, there is an obvious and authentic connection between indigenous culture and aspirations and maintaining and protecting the island’s environment. We would expect indigenous interests to be front and centre in the management and maintenance of the camping grounds.

This is a golden opportunity to put the objectives and values of the Quandamooka Action Plan into practice.
Generating island businesses and employment
We acknowledge that the existing management arrangements for the camping grounds are inadequate. However, it is counter-productive to attempt to remedy an inadequate system by jumping into a permanent arrangement with a big business camping interest, alien to the island values, before scoping the alternatives – including relinquishing the Trusteeship if the Council decides it no longer wants to manage the Reserves.
The Amity camping ground occupies prime foreshore real estate. The foreshore is heavily used by locals, visitors, swimmers, boaties and fishers (both recreational and commercial) and needs to be maintained in the public realm. The desire by private operators to erect fences and block free public access across camping grounds is directly at odds with this need.

The Amity camping ground and surrounds have high indigenous cultural heritage value which needs to be acknowledged and protected in any future plans. Other sites may also have indigenous valued that need to be taken into account.

Adam’s Beach is very run-down and this may account for its imminent closure. But is this the right course? It is important at least to have a public conversation about the future of Adam’s Beach in the context of the camping grounds.

The Reserves fringing the beaches give Point Lookout its character; few comparable coastal places are surrounded by natural landscape. The original trustees went to a lot of trouble to protect Point Lookout from the development that mars other coastal towns, having this land gazetted as public Reserves. Lot 130 at Point Lookout, which includes Adder and Thankful Rest, was declared a Camping and Recreation Reserve 1 July 1937, 'in the room of Thomas Victor Pollock Shields, Albert Harry Clayton, Robert Louis Durbidge, Frederick Norman Rahnsleben, and Roy Palmer Bulcock'. These original Trustees resigned 8 June 1950 and 'The Council of the Shire of Redland' was appointed Trustee.
Potential exists for many community capacity-building initiatives: traineeships/apprenticeships in land management, remediation, building trades, administration, planning and management, customer service, catering, rangers, public education, cultural skills, etc. There is scope for island-based tourism services and businesses (indigenous and non-indigenous) to be developed. The school curriculum could include learning modules in tourism service industries, management, marketing and promotion, graphics, film making, cultural business development.

This cannot happen overnight but, like every major economic goal, needs the development of a vision first and then planning and progressive incubating. The camping grounds are the impetus for an investment that will return social, cultural and economic dividends to Stradbroke Islanders.
Tourism
SIMO and others disagree strongly with the course of action proposed in privatising the management of the camping grounds. A prime reason for our opposition is that privatisation would entrench the kind of marketing strategy that to date has brought the island more negative than positive consequences.
 
This amounts to handing over the marketing and promotion of Stradbroke Island as a tourism destination. It is totally unacceptable to allow the marketing of the island to be directed by a private operator with no other objective than to maximise profits.
 
What the tenderers propose is a very low-level type of marketing of Stradbroke. While marketing and promotional events are not in themselves necessarily a bad thing, even talking about them without having a developed strategy, without an agreed vision for the island, is quite dangerous. This is how tourism has been conducted on Stradbroke in the past. We propose a different vision based on conservation, culture and community values.
 
The name, Straddie Holiday Parks, reinforces a down-market expectation and precludes marketing to alternative visitor sectors seeking nature, educational and Aboriginal tourism experiences. The name also describes a holiday experience that does not necessarily have camping at the centre. For this reason SIMO advocates calling them ‘camping grounds’ rather than ‘holiday parks’.
The camping grounds form a basic plank of Stradbroke tourism. How the camp grounds are badged and marketed is key to how the island is marketed. Current tourism marketing is lacklustre and exploitative. It simply trades on the beautiful seaside settings, without reference to Stradbroke’s environmental and Aboriginal values. It encourages 4WD vehicles and dogs. It promotes an image of Stradbroke as an unregulated playground. It does not promote the values of the community or alert visitors to the island’s significant environmental and cultural qualities.
 
The Big 4, McDonalds-style brand is what we've had all these years. It's brought us fishing and surfing competitions that are alcohol festivals, and it promises to bring us more of the same. That's not good for the island community or the environment or business.
Handing over the marketing of the island to the successful private tenderer is a shocking suggestion.
The Way Forward
This is an important crossroads for Stradbroke. We ask the Council to consider other management options that stem from the island community and the need to generate jobs and local businesses on the island, and to preserve the distinctive and casual island way of life.

We suggest that an Community Management Model is developed for the camping grounds that takes account of environmental, economic, social and cultural benefits to the island. For example, we would look to successful tourism models in Tasmania and New Zealand.

We suggest that an island consortium assume the role of Trustee of the Reserves, with the objective of establishing a not-for-profit management strategy for the camping grounds.

We suggest that these and other questions should be on the table:

  • Why must there be a single operator?
  • What can be outsourced to island businesses?
  • What training programs for island youth can be implemented?
  • How can the school curriculum serve an island-based tourism industry?
  • Why not redesign the camping grounds as sustainable showcases?
  • How can we redirect the island’s identity away from the current image as a place where you can drive on the beaches and party without limits?
  • What is the identity for Stradbroke that we desire to develop and project and will best serve the island community and environment?

We ask that the island community is fully represented in this important decision-making process and that no further closed meetings are conducted. This is a matter of vital public interest and should remain transparent.

We consider the future of the management of the camping grounds to be a significant opportunity for Quandamooka and the whole island community and the Council to work together to develop a solution that delivers the highest benefits for the island.