Uncle Norm Enoch leading the Walk for Toondah march through Cleveland in May 2022
Remember when they built that massive long bridge across the Bay to Straddie in the 1980s?
No, me neither. And the reason we don’t remember it is because despite the developer’s deep pockets, despite the willingness of government and bureaucrats to cater to the big end of town, citizen power said NO to that bridge. And citizen power prevailed.
Just as we prevailed in the Gordon Below Franklin campaign, in Tassie. Just as we prevailed when greedy mongrels wanted to mine K’Gari/Fraser Island back in the Seventies.
Just as we prevailed to save Karawatha Forest in Logan City from development.
Imagine that! A eucalypt forest the size of an enormous suburb, sitting smack bang in the middle of the Greater Brisbane area. Karawatha Forest was saved by a handful of committed people who said no, hang on, the rights of wildlife and nature can’t be ignored. We won’t let them be destroyed.
The US writer and activist Alice Walker says that the most common way people give up their power is by believing they don’t have any. I repeat that to myself at least once a week because it’s valuable – and because it’s true.
Here’s the thing, friends. I don’t reckon humans are a blight on the landscape. I’m Bundjalung. I see the role of people differently. We – by which I mean you, me, the mob next door, and yes, even next door’s bratty stepkids – are all important parts of a balanced ecology. We humans play our part in the complex web of life, just like sharks, cormorants, bait fish, eucalyptus trees and dingoes do. We aren’t that special, us humans; but nor are we expendable.
Of course, we have to put in the hard yakka. We have to not bugger things up through greed or carelessness. We humans have to make sure our cleverness doesn’t damage the earth and waters we rely on for life.
Which brings me to Toondah Harbour and how we’re going to protect it.
Moreton Bay is special. So special. It’s wondrous, and it deserves to stay that way, forever. Thousands of generations of Goorie people have known and exercised this duty of care, this responsibility to protect the Bay and its inhabitants.
Of course, old mate Governor Gipps didn’t find it wondrous when he came to Cleveland in 1842. He arrived in the Bay at low tide. And when it came time to land, the Queen’s representative was forced to wade through knee-deep mangrove mud – you know the stuff, that awful black sticky goo – to get to shore.
As a result Brisbane was put where it is today. Clever reading of the tides, there, by the Brisbane mob who didn’t want the state’s largest city on the foreshore rather than upriver.
Citizens today still know what we want. And it isn’t a massive luxury apartment complex stealing public space, and giving a middle finger to the Ramsar convention while it’s at it.
The threatened waterbirds don’t want this monstrosity built, and neither does Uncle Norm Enoch who has very clearly stated as a Quandamooka Traditional Owner, “We don’t need it and we don’t want it.”
So governments might do well to be a little bit careful at Toondah Harbour. Or they just might end up mired knee-deep in sticky black mud, looking awfully silly while having to backtrack on deeply unpopular policies which no ordinary person wanted – and which no citizen was going to stand back and allow to happen.
Melissa Lucashenko
About Melissa Lucashenko
Melissa Lucashenko, a Bundjalung woman, is a multi-award winning writer from Brisbane. Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko won in 2019 Australia’s premier writing prize, the Miles Franklin and the Queensland Award for a Work of State Significance.
Melissa is also a Walkley Award winner for her Griffith Review essay Sinking Below Sight: Down and Out in Brisbane and Logan, and a founding member of prisoner human rights organisation Sisters Inside.
Edenglassie, a new novel by Melissa Lucashenko, has just been published by UQP and was reviewed recently in The Guardian.
Melissa Lucashenko will be speaking at the Welcome Back Shorebirds Festival on Saturday 14 October 2023.
Nine Newspapers today published a story by Jacqueline Maley about Melissa Lucashenko, her new book and her involvement in the Toondah campaign: Author Melissa Lucashenko on playing with black and white binaries
Redlands2030 – 7 October 2023
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Re Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lucashenko Q&A in CM QWeekend Oct 14-15, 2023. For those who may have missed it, following are excerpts from the article about her publication entitled “Edenglassie” “Questioned on what it was about, Melissa says it’s about life in early Moreton Bay, one generation after old mate John Oxley first sailed up the river. I wanted to explore the incredible mix of Goorie (Aboriginal) people, impoverished ex-convicts, British colonists, Chinese immigrants, & murderous Native Police who made up Brisbane at the time. It’s partly inspired by my family background, and partly by the Reminiscences of Tom Petrie, an initiated white bloke who grew up with the local mob from a child and was completely fluent in Yagara culture and language. It’s about what was created here – and about what might have been”.
Good to know Melissa has joined the fight to protect the Toondah Harbour Ramsar wetland site Australia is signatory to…and speaking at the recent Shorebird Festival at GJ Walter Park to preserve feeding grounds of migratory birds that fly from as far away as Siberia and Alaska.
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Thank you to Melissa Lucashenko for her passionate words of wisdom and warning to those who are determined to build on our Ramsar wetlands. She quotes author Alice Walker who says that the most common way people give up their power is by believing they don’t have any. This false belief is so true of many of the people I meet when discussing Toondah. How many times have I hear, oh it can’t be stopped, it’s a done deal why bother.
Wrong! Our fight to protect this wetlands is stronger than ever. I’m know of locals who have been fighting this for 30 years, but our numbers are growing, we have volunteers from all ages, coming far and wide to volunteer their time and resources. A dozen local environmental and community Organizations have joined forces to pool resources, knowledge, and expertise. Our diverse coalition of creative artists, filmmakers, scientists, educators, students, celebrities, NGOs and good people
will not stop until we will prevail.