Picket to protect Hindmarsh Island

November 24, 1993
Issue 

By Melanie Sjoberg

ADELAIDE — Hindmarsh Island is a picturesque spot near Goolwa on the Fleurieu Peninsula south of Adelaide. Still home to some of the indigenous people, it is also a popular holiday area for boating, fishing, swimming and relaxing, for the most part unsullied by concrete or consumerism. Yet all this is about to change.

Developers seem intent on pushing ahead with a project to construct a bridge connecting Goolwa with Hindmarsh Island and then further "enhancing" the tourist potential.

A petition signed by more than 5000 South Australians has expressed concern about the construction, and more than half the responses to the Marina Goolwa draft Environmental Impact Statement identified problems that the proposed bridge would create.

The parliamentary Environmental, Resources and Development Committee (ERD) called for submissions on the development in May. It received 90 written submissions, 90% of them in opposition. The ERD recommended that upgrading the ferry service rather than proceeding with the bridge. The Labor government chose to ignore this review and signed a contract for the bridge to be built.

This is despite already serious damage to 40% of the local wetlands and the contradiction of international treaties on protection of wetlands.

Residents also made several requests to the local council for public meetings, but these were denied. Friends of Hindmarsh Island,the Conservation Council and the Goolwa Ratepayers and Residents Association then called an open meeting attended by more than 300 people which passed a resolution opposing the construction of the bridge.

The group is now called the Friends of Goolwa and Kumarangk. It established a community picket which involved residents, the ferry operators and families along with members of the Aboriginal community. It has now been joined by the CFMEU and seamen's unions.

Sarah Milera from the Ngarrindjeri people said, "This should be left as it is. The area is part of our traditional birthplace and already they have put a golf course over a burial site. The opposition to the bridge is the best form of reconciliation: people cooperating together, being active to stop the bridge."

The picket has been successful in preventing construction, but the government seems likely to step up police involvement.

The state elections are also being used to highlight the issue. Green Alliance candidate Trish Corcoran told Green Left Weekly, "This is a classic example of the Labor government overriding the democratic rights of the residents, who have clearly spoken against the development."

Corcoran continued, "It is clear from the alliances this campaign has built how unrepresentative the Labor Party is in this decision. It should be the community which makes decisions about if, when and how tourism is best encouraged in the region. We need to ask whether it is the community, the environment or the profiteers who will ultimately gain from pushing this through."

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