Locals who have called picturesque Keswick Island home for years claim a Chinese developer who owns the island’s main lease has resorted to increasingly petty tactics in a war over the Whitsundays paradise.
News.com.au spoke to Keswick Island land owners last week after it emerged wealthy developer, Hong-Kong-based China Bloom, had closed beaches, shut off parts of the national park, removed access to the airstrip and banned short term accommodation and rentals.
The tiny island in the Coral Sea, 30km from Mackay, is being controlled by the developer after it signed a lease until 2096-year for 117 hectares with plans to develop a tourist resort to accommodate 3000 people.
The small community that calls the 530 hectares of Keswick Island home has been banned from accessing large parts of public land, including the national park (which accounts for 400 hectares). The track to beautiful Basil Bay is blocked with rocks and “permit only” signs.
It got worse over the weekend, locals say. A woman who lives on the island told news.com.au on Monday she is convinced the developer removed a pine tree that locals had been using as a community Christmas tree for 12 years – a tree they decorated with ornaments each year.
“Just a thing I did every year,” the woman said. “Nurtured it along from 1-2m high over the past 12 years. At Christmas I decorated it for all to enjoy on the corner – a place where locals, friends, passing boaties, and visitors from around the world would gather to watch the sunset over the mainland Mackay and Hay Point.”
She said a resident who lives down the hill saw the island truck pass her place on Friday “with just one tree in it and thought it was a bit strange”.
“Island management know we all get so much enjoyment from that gathering place.”
Pictures show the tree decorated in 2019 and the stump where it once stood.
On Facebook, the woman wrote that the tree was removed as “retaliation” and “pathetic retribution to the locals on Keswick”.
It comes after Northern Beaches local Deb Lawson organised a “peaceful protest” at Basil Bay for Australia Day. Her protest will include a “flotilla of boats” at the beach where the Queensland Government told news.com.au locals are not allowed to go “past the high tide line”.
“I thought, being a boating community (Mackay), what better way to do that than get a flotilla of boats, let’s get out to Keswick Island,” she told 7 News.
“China Bloom don’t have ownership below the high tide mark. So, technically, they can’t stop us getting on to the beach.”
The member for Whitsundays, Amanda Camm, told reporters this week: “This is not Communist China, this is Australia. This is Queensland and this is the Whitsundays.”
She wrote a letter about the “urgent issue” to the Minister for Natural Resources Mines and Energy, Dr Anthony Lynham, over the weekend.
News.com.au approached Mackay Regional Council about the issue last week. They refused to comment on the grounds that “the long-term lease is between them and China Bloom”.
A Queensland Government spokesman told news.com.au the developer was being urged to do the right thing.
“(We are) working with China Bloom to ensure all relevant activities are in accordance with the terms of the lease, particularly as China Bloom works to upgrade the island’s roads, boat ramps, jetties and marine infrastructure,” a Department of Resources spokesman said.
On the matter of public access being denied to Basil Bay, the government offered only this:
“In areas of Keswick Island where a lease is held adjacent to the beach, the public can access the beach up to where the tide goes up to (the high tide mark).”
“I’m gobsmacked that it’s happening in Australia,” local Julie Willis told news.com.au after she was given three days to evacuate a rental property she had lived in for five years.
Ms Willis says Airbnb operators were forced to cancel bookings, including those with international tourists who were a week away from arriving, after China Bloom decreed an end to short term accommodation.
“Suddenly we were letting international visitors know, ‘Sorry, you can’t come here.’”
Ms Willis says a husband and wife team who ran a block maintenance business were given seven days to wrap things up and a local who had flown his plane from Mackay to Keswick Island more than 1000 times was given 12 hours to get it off the island’s runway.
The airstrip closure means travel by boat is now the only way on and off the island. But even the jetty, provided by the previous head lease holder, was removed and never replaced.
Instead, locals must navigate a “much more dangerous” approach to a newly constructed, much smaller ramp.
It all amounts to an end to an incredible burden on what was once a “vibrant community”, she said.
“On the surface, it really looks like they don’t want the sublessees there. They have no responsibility to look after sublessees. It’s like they want it as a private island for Chinese tourists.
“It’s a struggle. We’ve tried to come to the table with China Bloom. We’ve been given assurances by the State Government that our concerns have been taken on board but we feel like we’re not being listened to.”
News.com.au approached China Bloom for comment but they did not respond.
