CST proposal a gateway to further plunder of our city

I REFER to the letter from Lindsay Jackson (GCB, 12/6) concerning The Spit.

Mr Jackson’s reference to objectors to the cruise ship terminal (CST) as being “protest and green groups” is typical of the crass rhetoric coming from the rightwing pro-development lobby.

Mr Jackson proposes this group does not have the support of the majority of Gold Coasters and then assumes that the “unaccounted population” is pro-development and for the CST. How presumptuous and nonsensical.

Did Mr Jackson happen to view the protest groups seen on TV calling for the elimination of super cruise ships from Venice due to a wayward super cruiser out of control that hit the dock? Venetian residents were outraged. They were simply wanting to protect their residential living and safety just as numerous Gold Coasters want to protect their residential living which includes the environmental and recreational amenity of the incomparable Spit.

For Mr Jackson’s information, the population of the Gold Coast in 1960 was around 15,000 people.

The population has soared for one reason only, the environmental beauty and the accompanying weather. This is the very location where the north meets the south.

The CST is not what it seems. The pro-development lobby see it as the gateway opportunity to open access to the pristine and mostly unspoilt Spit for unrestricted development by their likeminded development industry.

This is the same as their lobby for a second casino.

Where are these private commercial ventures proposed? In our rapidly disappearing open spaces, parkland and public estate.

Our city is being plundered of its heritage, environmental beauty and open space amenity by the greedy and inconsiderate development industry sponsored by the pro-development Tate council – the very urban qualities and uncluttered amenity that has made our city the preferred place to live. A city that is rapidly becoming just like Brisbane and Sydney, not to mention the gridlock of LA and New York.

Mr Jackson’s outrageous comments about small minority groups that see progress and infrastructure as the destroyer of lifestyle must be called for what it is. Just like Central Park in New York, Hyde Park in London, Bois de Vincennes and Bois de Boulogne in Paris and Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island) at the Brandenburg Gates in Berlin should be destroyed in the name of progress and infrastructure. DON MAGIN, SURFERS PARADISE