Happy New Year
Thank you for your enormous contribution to our fight to save Toondah’s internationally significant Ramsar wetland and the 10 threatened species it harbours. 

Let’s hope 2023 and Minister Plibersek deliver a positive New Year’s resolution to the Toondah travesty that wipes out Walker’s greed not our beloved wetland and koalas.

Please come join the Toondah Alliance to kick off  2023's community action at Toondah Harbour's World Wetlands Day celebration at Cleveland's GJ Walter Park from 8-11am on Sunday 5 February. 

Good Toondah tidings
2022 was a great year for us and a shocker for Walker. 

The political climate changed a lot in favour of the environment in 2022.

The tide of voter dissatisfaction washed away Toondah traitors Frydenberg and Ley’s political fortunes. The incoming electoral tide swept in a teal, Green, Labor and Pocock Parliament offering renewed optimism for restoring the state of our environment. 

Already, the Albanese Government has delivered a Climate Change Bill and is promising stronger environmental laws and protection for 30% of the land and 30% of the sea. 

While Walker embarrassingly tried to dismiss us as ‘a small group of opponents in this area using environmental issues as an excuse’, Team Toondah has gathered almost 62,500 petition signatures and around 25,000+ submissions opposing their Moreton Bay ‘marina massacre’.

THANK YOU so much everyone for giving your ‘Toondah time’ to stand up against a mega corporation and government actions to privatise and destroy a marine park and foreshore parkland. 

2022 was full of wins for Toondah’s mud army with highlights being the World Wetlands Day celebration (2 February), the amazing Walk for Toondah protest on Mother’s Day (8 May) with over 2,200 people marching, the Safe Harbour exhibition filling St. John’s Cathedral (19 May to 26 June) and the Welcome Home Shorebirds event (17 September) where the community painted banners and saw Eastern Curlews and a resident koala. 

The ‘Toondah Test’
Toondah will be a true test of Labor and Minister Plibersek’s integrity and environmental credibility. Saving a Ramsar wetland and around 50ha of the Moreton Bay Marine Park is critical to delivering on their promises, especially their Threatened Species Action Plan: Toward Zero Extinctions. 

I wrote to Minister Plibersek on 22 September and received a reply on 16 December via the Acting Branch Head of the Environment Approvals Division Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. The response advised me:

‘Following the public comment period, the proponent is required to address the public comments and publish the final EIS. Once the final EIS is received, the Minister will carefully consider all public comments, relevant statutory and policy documents, and Australia’s obligations under the Ramsar Convention, before making a decision on whether the proposed development can proceed.’

I was also advised I could make a submission to Walker 10 days after submissions had closed. 

PDA Palaszczuk
The only downer in 2022 was the ongoing failure of the Palaszczuk Government to find an environmental conscience. 

Despite overwhelming opposition to this project, Queensland Labor continues to back their donor’s plans and refuses to disclose the details of the ‘commercial in confidence’ agreement they’ve signed with Walker covering this publicly owned land they have declared a ‘Priority Development Area’ (PDA) they could revoke. 

The lack of transparency in ‘commercial-in-confidence’ agreements over public land through PDA’s with private developers who donate to Queensland Labor is also evident in Star Casino’s troubled Queens Wharf development (also prime waterfront - this time CBD), where Star’s suitability to hold a licence is in question (Brisbane Times 30 Nov 2022).

Meanwhile the PDA status afforded to a private property development at Flagstone enabled the clearing of 62.77ha of critical koala and potential foraging habitat for the swift parrot and grey-headed flying fox. (Brisbane Times 22 Nov 2022) Queensland Environment Minister, Meaghan Scanlon cannot object to environmental issues triggered by land clearing once the State Development Department has declared the land a PDA. (Brisbane Times 23 Nov 2022)

Sadly, 418,656ha of forest and bushland was cleared in Queensland in 2019-20. Another 249ha could be added to this just across from Toondah if the Palaszczuk Government proceeds with proposals to rezone 25 parcels of land on Minjerribah/Straddie from primarily environment and conservation areas to become potential urban development sites. (ABC News 9 July 2022)

Also in 2019, Dreamworld was allowed to use $2.7 million in state funding originally meant for a koala research facility to build a rollercoaster instead. (The Guardian 27 July 2022)

Please Premier, if you can get renewables right for people, you must protect habitat for planet. 

2023 – Toondah Time
I start 2023 with tremendous optimism about our potential to treasure not trash Toondah. 

Last year we continued to take a strong stand. Together our voices resonated far and wide and we were heard all over world with more and more people listening and acting every day.  

Now Walker’s been inundated with around 25,000 community objections to respond to, it’ll be hard for them and the Minister to ignore us. 

It’s unbelievable this proposed act of environmental vandalism was ever allowed to get this far. Let’s hope the Minister sees that it stinks and this proposal sinks. 

Yours in Toondah 

Dylan