CHARLES WOOLEY
Judging by the size of the jetty being built, more than a ‘mere love shack’ is planned for Fulham Island, off Dunalley
As I noted a few weeks ago “trouble follows me around”. Controversial salmon farming and perceived threats of widespread fish disease have dogged my plans for a quiet life “downDodgy-way” (aka Dodges Ferry). Now a huge flotilla protest is planned for November 4. I’m told it will be bigger than the Franklin blockade and “will draw a line in the sand for all Tasmanian coastal communities”. According to organisers: “The whole of Australia will know the name of Norfolk Bay.”
I will likely be drawn into the fracas but this was certainly not my intention in escaping to a quiet beach. This week the waters of Norfolk Bay have again been ruffled, this time by a Singaporean billionaire’s plan to build a mansion on a bird rookery named Fulham Island, just south of Dunalley. I am sure the winds of protest will intensify into a storm of bad publicity about which I am obliged to write. As a journalist, I prefer to cover strife far from home because as Shakespeare tells us, “bad news oft’ infects the teller”. An earthier aphorism I learnt early from a crusty old editor was “never s**t in your own nest” but with salmon farmers and property developers doing just that in my new backyard I have to write about it.
I explained to my recently adopted community that while the farmed-salmon industry has powerful friends in high places, they do come with a certain lack of fragrance and are certainly not beyond the reaches of reasonable criticism and protest. But the problem with foreign billionaires is that if you so much as publicly doubt their good-hearted philanthropic intentions you are denounced as xenophobic. And if those billionaires happen to be Asian you might also be accused of racism. My advice would be to enlist a world-famous conservationist like David Suzuki or Malaysia’s celebrated female environmental campaigner November Tan. Bring them here, both of them on 457 arrangements, on the basis that no local person is qualified to speak with impunity. I reckon Peter Dutton looks like a reasonable bloke, always ready to help out with a visa. Well he used to be.
Australians first heard of the Fragrance Group and its founder Koh Wee (James) Meng when he announced grandiose plans to build an 82-storey tower at 555 Collins St in Melbourne. Here in River City the first we heard of Mr Koh was a little later when his same outfit announced plans for a 210m tower in the sandstone heart of our capital. That has been shelved and the height of a second planned tower has been halved, as has the height of the original Melbourne project.
Mr Koh bets high initially but appears prepared to deal down as the game progresses. The question is will Tasmanian conservation groups and bird watchers convince one of Singapore’s richest men to scale down his planned mansion on the 10ha Fulham Island bird rookery to an appropriately modest three-bedroom fibro shack?
Not likely. There is nothing modest about James Koh, who got his start as Singapore’s “King of Geylang”, in the city’s infamous red-light district. He built there what are often euphemistically called “love hotels”.
Judging by the size of the jetty being constructed on Fulham Island, Mr Koh is planning more than a mere love shack. Amateur ornithologist Els Wakefield knows the island environment well and unsuccessfully opposed the building of the jetty before the Planning Appeal Tribunal last year. She says the island is home to many protected seabirds, including shorttailed shearwaters, caspian terns, pied oystercatchers, little penguins and pacific gulls. “To put a building on a very sandy substructure on top of all those breeding colonies would be unbelievable,” she said this week.
I don’t consider those Asian nations, including Singapore, to be xenophobic or racist because they make it difficult for us foreigners to buy land and property in their countries. I consider them sensible and we therefore are the foolish ones. Last week a Tasmanian Government trade delegation took an esky of Antarctic ice to Beijing as a symbolic gift along with what sounded like an invitation to establish a Chinese Antarctic base in Tasmania because it would be good for business. I hear our national security people are in a spin. Understandably. It might even look like our Government is asleep at the wheel.
The problem is under current practice our state is up for sale to anyone and everyone. Tasmania comes so cheaply you can hardly blame foreign buyers for snapping it up. We are so humble and selfeffacing they might even assume we don’t care and don’t much value our homeland. Mr Koh bought Fulham Island just a few years ago for less than $1 million. Ten years ago he splashed a mere $5.5 million on the magnificent 300ha Waterhouse Island off the North-East. Don’t blame rich foreign buyers for grabbing some of the world’s cheapest real estate bargains. If we allow them, why wouldn’t they?
We spread our local government talent and expertise thinly across 29 local councils but they are the first and sometimes the final line of arbitration on foreign purchases. When Mr Koh sees fit to lodge his plans, the Sorell Council, which gave permission to build the jetty, will have to arbitrate the future of tiny Fulham Island and its precious birdlife. The councillors will be dealing with a business team infinitely richer, worldlier, and certainly much more experienced and better resourced. If push came to shove, you wouldn’t fancy the council’s chances any more than you’d fancy the chances of Fulham Island’s caspian terns or little penguins. And unless we soon get a grip on the new reality of the global property market, no more than you might fancy the long-term chances for all Tasmanians.