By Tim Stewart
GOLD COAST — Public access to popular Back Creek Gorge in the Gold Coast hinterland has been won back from the Australian army, which wanted the land to expand their Canungra Land Warfare Centre.
What began as a protest by 200 people on March 11 turned into a victory picnic when it was announced that the area would be opened to the public for nine months of the year.
Title to Back Creek Gorge was resumed by the commonwealth in 1971. Since then, the previous owners, the Fitzgeralds, have kept the area maintained for public swimming and bushwalking. The Fitzgeralds were served an eviction notice by the federal government to vacate in October. The notice spurred local residents into action and Friends of Back Creek Gorge was formed.
Pat Fitzgerald told Green Left Weekly, "We have just won a monumental victory. Up until a couple of days ago, the army wanted to shut up shop and make this a contaminated live-firing range."
Leigh Carlson, president of the Canungra Progress Association and a member of Friends of Back Creek Gorge, told Green Left Weekly, "We found the army very hostile to deal with. Our experience was of bashing our head against a door. The army doesn't consider itself accountable to anyone."
Carlson said that community groups are demanding a Senate inquiry into the handling of the Back Creek Gorge issue, claiming that defence department correspondence to the government, which prompted the eviction notice, contained many "untruths".
The Canungra land warfare zone is used to train soldiers from overseas, in particular from Indonesia. Damian Le Goullon, a long-time Brisbane peace activist, told Green Left Weekly, "I don't think the army wanted thousands of people that normally visit this regenerated rainforest area walking past department of defence 'No trespassing' signs. It would have created significant questions about why the army was playing war games in an area comparable to Lamington National Park."