May 2015
 |
| Amanda Findley in front of the machine that was illegally clearing land at Callala Bay |
This morning I received a distress call from residents at
Callala Beach who were reacting to the commencement of clearing of a block of
land in Griffin St.
This is no ordinary block of land, it is covered in
endangered ecological vegetation community known as Bangalay Sand Forest which
is very close to extinction due to development pressures in NSW. It was
recently the subject of a Land and Environment Court decision that the block
was too precious to destroy by development.
The land was purchased by Mr Elachi from Shoalhaven City
Council at an Auction for unpaid rates in 2010 and it was understood that the
land could not be built upon. However Mr Elachi decided to test Council and
submitted a development application for a 2 storey home on the land. The
community were rightly up in arms about this; Council was forced to go to the
land and environment court where the application was refused.
The community did not know what to do the machinery went
onsite Easter Saturday at 7am. I called the General Manager of Shoalhaven City
Council and requested that a Ranger be sent to the site as a matter of urgency
– seems I wasn’t the only Councillor alerted to this as others had also spoken
to Mr Pigg. I was deeply concerned that
the clearing was continuing and the General Manager at that point had been
unable to contact a ranger. I decided I should at least go and support the
distressed residents so I set of for Callala not knowing what to expect.
Forty minutes later I arrived on site to witness the Ranger
talking to the owner but the machinery was still operating in the background. I
was told by a passing resident that they thought the machinery had come through
onto the reserve- I went to have a look and accessed the site from the beach
side shouting out to the workers to stop that I was onsite and an occupational
hazard that they should stop and consider.
I advised the workers that I had reason to believe that they
were unlawfully clearing the land and that could be fined as much as the owner,
their response was that they were acting under instruction from the owner, I
asked them to seek written assurance from the owner that he would be paying
their fines. The Owner asked me to leave telling me he had permission to clear
the land from the Local Land Service, I didn’t tell him my name but told him
that I had fair and reasonable belief that he was acting illegally.
I moved up in front of the machine to keep them from starting
it, I was asked to leave again and that the police were being called. Two
residents stayed with me and recorded what was happening between myself and the
owner.
Another resident
turned up on site - Mr Elachi asked the resident to help him as I had a weapon.
( A lock an chain). The resident called him a greedy man and said he should just drop the chain
that it was no weapon and that I was doing nothing wrong in his opinion.
The ranger returned to the site and asked me to give up the
chain to him and for the owner to let go. The equipment operators wanted to
restart the equipment and I sat back down on it and advised them they wouldn’t
be able to move the equipment until I had been removed by the police (who were
not in attendance at that point.) Once again I told the equipment operators
that I have fair and reasonable grounds to believe that the clearing operation
was illegal and in contravention to the court order. At no time did the owner
or the equipment operators offer any proof otherwise – the owner did say it was
his land and he could do whatever he wanted to.
The police did turn up and gave me a warning about
trespassing and leaving the site. I
called the EPA and logged the incident and they called back before the police
could move me on, the police also called in a duty officer from Nowra. At this
point there was a considerable protest occurring at the front of the site.
I sought phone advice from a wonderfully lawyer – thanks
Lisa Stone, who also spoke to the police in respect to their powers to move me on.
I did move on without any further discussion, the police did
not arrest me nor to this point have they pressed any charges- I was not given
a second warning.
Finally the machine operators said they didn’t want the agro
and would take their machine out and go home. The police and ranger escorted
them out to ensure that no further clearing took place. I stayed with the
residents until the equipment was moved well of site and the owner also left.
The Duty officer turned up and asked residents not to return on site should
they come back, that the incident had been given a number and if the owner
returned the residents were to call the police who would treat the issue
seriously and come straight out.
Council Media release about land sales.
Land and Environment Court Decision
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