Developing a coastal future:
by the web team 29th December 2003

"All I'm asking is for you to get interested about your local surf spot. Check the Shire Council minutes and nip the concrete pour in the bud." overheard at a Coolangatta burger shop counter - a surfer known as 'Grrom'.

From experience here's a fictional short story about a surfer sometime in the near future:

A surfer, you, might be sitting out at their favourite break sucking in some euphoria inducing ozone laden salt air, surfache just about satisfied.

In a rare moment of bravado the surfer may turn their back on the heaving ocean to face the shore to check out an irritating noise to witness a bulldozer clearing the hillside above the beach.

Where the hell did that come from?

The surfer didn't see it on the way to the beach. Too busy checking the swell and already mindsurfing barrels in their head.

The surfer will likely sit up on their board and yell a few choice words, either in surprise or at the bulldozer driver.

In reality the surfer isn't watching land clearing. What they're really watching are a few people getting really rich after years of massaging and bamboozling the local council and greasing various planning department bureaucrats.

Take a moment and think. There's more.

What you're watching is someone bulldozing your memories. Your surfing buddies' memories. All your planned future treasury of surfs at 'your' secluded beach.

Hell, you realise you've surfed here regularly for the last 2/5/10/15/20 years! You planned to surf here regularly all your life. You naively hoped it would be the same for your groms. Remember what it was like when you discovered this place back in the 1970's?

From that moment, of seeing the bulldozer, it's all going to change and you weren't even aware it was happening.

It's an ugly feeling.

So, in a fury you paddle in and vent your spleen on some poorly paid receptionist at the council offices. He speaks to you slowly as if you are a dangerous lunatic then quickly palms you off to leave unanswered messages on innumerable answering machines.

The local shire officers say you have to speak to the developer because it is out of their hands. The decision to develop was shot through the council meeting months ago like a slippery fish through the hands of an overeager angler.

No one from the community complained then. Maybe because no surfer could understand the planning jargon, the committee structure, the meeting protocols, why the meeting was held at 3pm midweek when you were at work, even if you had known it was on.

Finally, too many phone calls later to the developer, after dragging your way through the mind numbing murk of on-hold electronic piano music, you get to speak to something sounding like a living human being. It is bored with "last minute greenies".

At this point don't be surprised at feeling that tingling you usually get before your last wave at dusk. It's the ranks of fast talking, highly paid lawyers that developer's lackeys (called "consultants") have circling protectively around them ready to tear you apart quicker than a school of hungry sharks at a shipwreck.

Face it, you are powerless.

You try your local politician, who you didn't even know existed, let alone remember voting for. They offer up some platitudes and reassurances they will do what they can just to get you off their back. They are uncontactable when you call back. Secretaries sign the 'thankyou for your letter' replies.

So you take it to the media. "Should have done this earlier", you think. The TV news and current affairs editors are almost as bored of crazed, frothing at the mouth "last minute greenies" as the PR thing working at the developer's office was, unless they can get you to embarrass yourself "on air".

The big newspaper is covering a scandal about a politician so they're not interested. No wonder the polly was uncontactable.

Luckily the local community newspaper loves this "David and Goliath" stuff and the work experience journalism students still have stars in their eyes. Your letter or story gets printed in the local news (tomorrow's cat litter box liner) or maybe even a surf mag and finally you feel "the power".

In the meantime they have finished building the resort apartments down at the beach.

What are you really doing by doing all this? By taking action maybe you feel you can hold your chin up when the groms wonder where it all went. You're sticking your neck out. You're marking yourself as an individual. You're becoming that hated Australian weed, the "tall poppy".

Welcome to Labelworld, you are a "greenie", a "layabout surfer" making an irritating noise like a night-time mosquito, bothering retiree investors who are bringing money into the area by buying the apartments and white walking shoes. You are a "beach hugger" without a real job, a "saltwater socialist", or a "potential terrorist" as you plot pouring that "chemical of many uses", Fizzy Cola in the bulldozer's petrol tanks.

You turn to bothering your mates and find you're not getting invited to barbeques or on surf trips because you won't shut up with the preaching to save the beach.

At the end of your tether you find yourself back out in the surf, at 'your' surf spot, alone, except for a horde of tourists down from the 'absolute beach front' apartments attempting a surfing lesson.

"Ah to hell with it", you say, "I'll just go surfing at the secluded beach an hour's drive down the coast." That's where the rest of the crew are surfing these days anyway. Used to be a secret spot.

You pass a slow semitrailer hauling a bulldozer on the drive down the coast.

Go back to the start of the story.