I am writing to you again to update you about our continual efforts to hold the Government to account about our environmental disaster at our beloved front beach at Portsea.
I last communicated with you in May 2024 where I advised you that our legal team Beatty Hughes (BH) and myself met with representatives from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Change (DEECA) in May 2024, at the request of the Minister and, the following day, sent the Minister a formal letter summarising the meeting and BH requested that we wished to enter into a formal structured mediation process, including timelines for outcomes to be worked toward.
Unfortunately, as is normal with this Government, we had no reply from our request and the timelines passed resulting in BH sending a follow up letter in July 2024, which again received no reply.
I personally contacted Stephen Chapple (Regional Director for Port Phillip Bay for DEECA) to advise him of “our great disappointment” at the lack response to the reasonable process request contained in the BH correspondence, and requested he personally follow it up with the Minister. Shortly after, he contacted me directly and advised that there was a reply to our letter of May 2024 on the Minister’s desk for signing and that BH “…should receive it very soon”.
Another month went by with BH still not receiving the Minster’s response, which Mr Chapple advised me “was on the Minister’s desk for signing”. I contacted Mr Chapple directly again and, after some usual ‘public service speak’, he advised me he couldn’t do anything more to encourage the Minister to sign and send the letter.
As a result, I contacted our local MP, Mr Sam Groth, and asked him to consider raising with the Minister an issue that a group of his constituents – the NRA! – had apprised him of the situation at the Portsea Front Beach, and how they have been seeking Government’s response to the issues associated with the loss of beach for nearly 12 years.
Mr Groth did so on 12 September 2024.
As a result, on 21 October 2024 BH finally (after six months of waiting) received a response from the Minister.
In summary, the Minister advised that DEECA was in the process of obtaining new wave data from the Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program wave buoys and the Port Phillip Bay Coastal Hazard Assessment. The resultant data would be analysed and reviewed then assessed against the historical data contained in previous reports.
The Minister supported his Department’s course of action and once the data gathering and analysis thereof was completed and assessed against historical date, he would then consider our request for mediation.
Both BH and I believe this is a ‘whitewash’, as surely after 15 years and with hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ funds already spent on reports, it is unlikely that no new information is going to… “all of a sudden become available/materialise”!
Since 2009, the Government has rigidly maintained their position about the issues at the southern end of Port Phillip Bay and haven’t wavered. They have consistently refuted that the issues were not as a result of the Channel Deepening Project (CDP), but were solely linked to Climate Change; and that coastlines all around Victoria are all under pressure.
After robust discussions with BH, we have decided to see this new Government-initiated process through. We will wait to see what this process produces, which we firmly believe will attempt to further deflect us from our plans going forward. Notwithstanding, we will maintain regular contact with DEECA, to ensure that the stated process is not relegated to the ‘back burner’.
To try and increase the temperature a little, I have asked BH to submit on our behalf a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
We have asked on the FOI for all the scientific evidence that the Government has relied upon to substantiate their ongoing claims about the southern end of Port Phillip Bay issues are but a function of Climate Change, as well and copies of all Ministerial Briefing Documents dating back to 2009 that pertain to the Portsea Front Beach.
Finally there is another matter that many of you may not be aware of and that is the Chief Executive Office of the Mornington Peninsula Shire (MPS), Mr John Baker, has recently resigned his position; which is a very good outcome for the Peninsula’s community, as his overall performance representing the community on many matters - not just in the Nepean Ward - has been most disappointing.
When Mr Baker first started, I was asked by a then councillor of the Nepean Ward, Mr Hugh Fraser, to personally meet and brief Mr Baker on all matters associated with the Portsea Front Beach, since the time that the NRA became actively involved in lobbying the Government to seek a solution for the remediation of the loss of the sand.
Initially, Mr Baker was very good and supportive and when the Government decided in 2017 to pull out the sand bag retaining wall and replace it with a permanent rock revetment wall, I advocated most strongly with the Victorian Coastal Council and the MPS council to contact the Minster advising her that she had made a very poor decision, and that a rock wall would do nothing to remediate the Portsea Front Beach.
Both organisations wrote to her and, shortly after, the Minister wrote to the MPS council advising that she had reversed her decision and had instructed her Department to halt all works for the rock wall. In the letter, the Minister advised the MPS that she would like to work more closely with them, to remediate the beach. (See letter attached)
Unfortunately, she back tracked on this commitment and instead they repaired the original sand bag wall at a cost of $2.5m and walked away from any form of remediation of the Portsea Front Beach.
During this time, I requested Mr Baker on several occasions to go and meet with the Minister, and ascertain why she had ‘back flipped’ from her commitment, that the Shire had in writing.
The answer I received from Mr Baker was nothing short of pathetic, to say the least! Mr Baker pointed out that “…the Government is under enormous financial pressures” and, in his personal opinion, would never be in a position to fund the nearshore reconfiguration dredging that the community wanted, which was the best option that Advisian (now Worley Consulting) had outlined in their 2017 Report, which was commissioned by the Government. (Cynically, did the Government just provide its preferred outcome to Advisian and the Advisian-sourced data and recommendation just happened to suit the Government’s preferred outcome?)
Mr Baker was always quick to say that he had to be very careful “…in not taking sides with the community against the State Government, as the Shire is very reliant on State Government funding for infrastructure projects around the municipality and that taking on the Government in support of the community, could significantly jeopardise these this joint venture projects”.
Shortly after, I discovered that Mr Baker was being lobbied by a member of local community, advocating with DEECA to build a groyne off Point Franklin, which was one of six options modelled in the 2017 Advisian Report to remediate the beach.
When I challenged Mr Baker about this discovery, he said that the groyne option may only cost $3-$4M and while not diverting the wave energy it would bring some sand back to Portsea, halt the further migration of sand towards Sorrento, which may prove beneficial to only two to three residents whom can no longer use their private jetties, as there is no water under these jetties anymore!
After hearing all this, I made contact with several of the 11 councillors to discover that Mr Baker hadn’t briefed council about his advocacy and had no approved council resolution to have these conversations with DEECA. Evidently, according to the councillors, Mr Baker was doing this off his own bat and if the groyne proposal gained any traction with DEECA, he would then propose bringing the matter to council for consideration.
The proposed groyne option was deemed “a dud” in the 2017 Advisian Report and will not receive any support by the broader community, as it is viewed as “just another band aid solution”. The cost of such a project would be far better directed to the nearshore reconfiguration dredging option, which will divert the wave energy and then remediate the beach as it was before the CDP.
In the next few days we will have potentially a large number of new councillors whose first job will be to appoint a new Chief Executive Officer. This will then allow us to meet the new councillors and, hopefully, the appointed Chief Executive Officer to update them all on current matters about the Portsea Front Beach.
Hopefully, we will be able to convince them to support our current actions and to put the advocacy about the groyne with DEECA on hold, until our plans are played out.
I have been advised by DEECA that the community down our way are fractured and not sending one clear message to Government. We have had former Cr Bissinger advocating for a swimming pool, another community member pushing the groyne solution and our Association advocating the nearshore reconfiguration dredging.
Neither the swimming pool nor the groyne options will stop the wave energy that caused the current situation. We need to find a pressure point to get the Government to agree to find the funds to do the work properly, and all we need to finally fix the problem that they have be lying about for 15 years is $20M which is what they are currently paying in interest every single day on the State’s record debt; much of which is due entirely to their own negligence and mismanagement of infrastructure projects.
In writing this summary of events, I accept that I may have touched on some points or raised issues that not everyone agrees with or accepts my reasoning and/or interpretation. If you wish to discuss our Association’s activities or strategies, then by all means please contact me directly on 0412998177 or if email is preferred at colinfwatson@bigpond.com.
With Christmas coming up in a few week’s time, I wish to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a lovely Christmas and a prosperous and healthy 2025.
Kind regards.
________________
Colin Watson
President
Nepean Ratepayers’ Association
|
|
