COLLECTOMANIA

A selection of Keep The Scenic Rim Scenic’s extensive collection of protest banners have been included in the Queensland Museum latest exhibition “Collectomania”.

Tracey Larkin, committee member of Keep The Scenic Rim Scenic (KTSRS), attended the official launch at the museum on Wednesday 27^th March to represent the Scenic Rim community group, and view the installation of the banners.

Collectomania features 65 Queenslanders who have a significant collection of objects. The collections range from fun, inspirational, revealing and serious. What is common is that all collections have strong stories associated with them, show how how the State’s collectors gain meaning and identity from their collections.

 The KTSRS banners are representative of the 1000+ people who took part in the Protesters on Peaks community action in October 2011. On one day these protesters climbed the significant peaks within the Scenic Rim with giant protest banners to be part of a visible helicopter fly-over which captured the essence of the Scenic Rims natural environmental assets, as well as uniquely highlighted the significant community opposition to allowing coal or coal seam gas development in the region. Further banners we made and displayed during the 10-day Kerry Blockade in January 2012 where sustained community protest from hundreds of community residents at the exploration drilling site of an Arrow well, resulted in a pre-election promise from the Government to quarantine the Scenic Rim from coal and coal seam gas exploration and mining.

 The Hon. Dr. David Hammil launched the collection, and in his speech he said that “the collection will generate conversations about the source, and lead to better understanding”. Mrs Larkin added later that “the Collecomania exhibition will generate courageous conversations about the the possibility and success of community being able to say “no” to CSG, and Collectomania will take this conversation to a wider Brisbane audience”.

See the collectors blog here.

Collectomania is on show at the Queensland Museum until December 31.

19th March 2013

KTSRS calls Scenic Rim Regional Council to account on Draft Corporate Plan
  

Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic (KTSRS) is urging the Scenic Rim community to become involved in the wording and direction of councils new Corporate Plan after uncovering a series of serious shortfalls in the document.

The Scenic Rim Regional Council Draft Corporate plan is currently open for public consultation until  Wednesday, 20 March, 2013.   www.scenicrim.qld.gov.au/have-your-say

KTSRS has submitted a draft copy of an alternative plan (click on file above).  

KTSRS encourages all members of the community to read the Draft Corporate Plan, visit the informational websites in this article, read the KTSRS submission and draw their own conclusions. With only hours left to have your say KTSRS strongly urges local residents to approach councillors with feedback or to use the KTSRS alternate plan to write their own submission. 

Spokesperson for KTSRS, Innes Larkin says:

“Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic congratulates the SRRC for adopting the broad priorities outlined in the community plan, however the community group believes the draft Corporate Plan falls well short when it comes to holding the council to account regarding their strategies.”

 “The released corporate plan draft document is the sort of plan you produce when you want no accountability attached to your declared direction. Under the draft plan, the proposed strategies and measures are so wishy washy that there is a clear danger they can be hijacked with no recourse to the communities stated desires for the region.”

It was clear what the residents of the Scenic Rim wanted when they were consulted extensively on the Community Plan. In fact this was the most engaged the Scenic Rim community has been in any community consultation KTSRS has seen. From this extensive consultation it was clear that the community values the natural environment as their top priority followed closely by rural lifestyle. But to maintain these two top priorities requires clear strategies, careful planning and strong documentation.

Innes Larkin says:

 “This plan must be reviewed and it must include strategies which take the region in the direction that the residents have been consulted on already. As a council with all the resources available to them, we know they can produce a document which charts a very positive future for the Scenic Rim, we are calling for them to apply further resources to this project and actually produce a document that councillors and residents alike can be proud of.”

In just a five minute google search KTSRS found the Sunshine Coast Regional Council corporate plan which offers clear direction, strong vision and builds on the same community aspirations as the Scenic Rim region.  What is inspiring about the Sunshine Coast Regional Council corporate plan is they have followed through with strategies and articulated how they are going to achieve this. Within the plan there are 8 themes, with sub themes and then clear action items under that. If community members or groups are to hold the council to account, the process would be simple, straightforward and measurable. To view the document visit the following link www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/addfiles/documents/council/scrc_corporate_plan.pdf

The KTSRS submission has been based on the Sunshine Coast Regional Council and the Scenic Rim Regional Council corporate plans.

Please take the time to have your say.

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This is what we're working to prevent. Here you see our productive Fassifern Valley on the left and, on the right,  you can see what has already happened at Tara/Chinchilla, only a couple of hundred kilometres from us. The webs of gas wells and pipelines, an average 800m apart, extend for miles. There are currently about 3000 gas wells in Queensland - our Government wants 40,000.

We can stop this in our Scenic Rim, if we stand united.

An overview of coal and CSG in the Scenic Rim:

More than 80% of the Scenic Rim Shire (just south of Brisbane and tucked in behind the Gold Coast, south east Queensland) is covered by exploration permits for coal and coal seam gas. Test drilling is well underway and resource company plans are progressing rapidly, in-spite of a promise by the newly elected Queensland government that there will be no coal or coal seam gas production allowed in our region.

Recently:

• Arrow Energy  admitted on-going discussions with the State Government about access to the Scenic Rim’s gas
• Allegiance coal announced plans to resume exploration drilling in October to ‘prove’ a viable coal mine near Boonah
• Cuesta Coal announced it is working to ‘prove’ reserves for a coal mine just north of Peak Crossing 
  

Opposition to this mining onslaught remains firm, with concerns that if full scale mining goes ahead it will industrialise our area, destroying our peaceful rural lifestyle, jeopardising supplies of clean water and air, as well as threatening both agriculture, tourism and other existing businesses.

Coal seam gas production also involves extracting significant quantities of underground water, raising fears of depletion of reserves, critical for agriculture.

In the Scenic Rim, Arrow Energy has also already conducted the controversial hydraulic fracturing or fracking process (sometimes also called faccing), just south of Beaudesert,  within 100m of the Logan river, which is also the source of the town's water supply. 

‘Fracking’ is  under a temporary ban in NSW, the UK, South Africa and parts of the US, with a permanent ban in France. Fracking is also banned in New York's water catchment while the risk to drinking supplies is assessed.

Scenic Rim exploration permit holders are also eying-off our region for another controversial gas process, which has already contaminated an aquifer and livestock in Queensland. Underground coal gasification (UCG) is done under a coal permit and involves setting fire to the coal seam underground and harvesting the produced gas. We are especially concerned about Linc Energy and other permits over and around the proposed Bromelton Industrial Estate because of the potential for a UCG/CSG fired power station. The draft Bromelton Structure Plan makes provision for a privately funded power plant, so we believe this issue must be addressed and ruled out for the safety of the community living nearby and also the future of our region.

What are we doing to protect our area?

 This page was refreshed August 5, 2012

Phone: 07 5544 3233
Fax: 07 5544 3233
Email: keepthescenicrimscenic@gmail.com