DECEMBER 2011
NOVEMBER 2011
AUGUST 2011
MAY 2011
APRIL 2011
- Support letter for the heritage listing of Tennyson dunes, SA
- ACS Support for Tasmanian Canal Estates (Prohibition) Bill 2011
FEBRUARY 2011
NOVEMBER 2010
- Media Release – Brumby Labor Government intent on destroying regional Victoria’s economic future
SEPTEMBER 2010
- Letter to SA Minister for Environment and Conservation regarding the internal re-organisation of the Coastal Management Branch
- National Coastal Reform – 2010 and beyond Paper presented at the National Coast to Coast 2010 Conference, Adelaide
JULY 2010
- The Executive of ACS has released the attached policy statement for the forthcoming federal election. ACS Policy on Coastal Planning and Infrastructure Reform: July 2010
JUNE 2010
- Letter from the ACS to the Victorian Planning Minister about the Bastion Point Boat Ramp
APRIL 2010
- COASTS: how best can we adapt to the challenges of climate change? – Sydney Theatre Company, April, 2010
- ACS media release regarding the Minda draft Master Plan – 27 April 2010
FEBRUARY 2010
- COASTAL ADAPTATION IN AUSTRALIA—some challenges. Paper presented at Coastal Forum, Adelaide, 18th February, 2010 by Bruce Thom President, Australian Coastal Society
- Submission to Australian Government Department of Climate Change regarding Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast – A First Pass National Assessment – 11 February 2010
JANUARY 2010
- Submission to Minister Penny Wong regarding Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast – A First Pass National Assessment – 29 January 2010
DECEMBER 2009
- Letter to the Editor – The Age – 16 December. The Age subsequently ran the following story Shock as coastal council shut down and also Unheralded and unnecessary plans put coastal care at risk
- Letter to Victorian Minister for Planning regarding Victorian coastal planning – 16 December 2009
NOVEMBER 2009
- ACS submission in response to the Queensland Draft State Policy Coastal Management and Draft State Planning Policy Coastal Protection
SEPTEMBER 2009
On the 22 and 23 September 2009, articles appeared in The Australian critical of the planned retreat policy of Byron Council. The editorial on the 23rd made several strong statements about the importance of protecting property rights. Bruce Thom as President of ACS wrote to the paper requesting that they publish his letter to show that this issue has national implications. The letter was not published. We are placing it on our web site for purposes of communicating our concerns.
“Byron Council like all councils around the Australian coast where houses have been allowed to be built just behind the beach is confronted with a dilemma (“Councils Must Retreat”, 23/9). These councils face the difficult task of planning for a future in which sea level rise and changing wave conditions may induce episodic retreat of the shoreline during storms.
This is not a new phenomenon in Australia and elsewhere. Three options are used in coastal management to meet the sometimes conflicting interests of beachfront property owners under threat of erosion and the desire of communities to maintain a public beach.
The options are to protect properties, to accommodate the impact with some form of building redesign, or to retreat and relocate. All options come with costs to the landowners, councils and the beach loving community. In places like New Jersey the decision to hard wall sections of the shore in front of expensive homes has resulted in the loss of the beach. This is on a coast with a rising sea level. To use a wall and then nourish the beach with sand from other sources as on the Gold Coast can be very successful but it is expensive and requires a massive tourist industry to be sustainable.
We have known since the report of the Public Works Department in 1978 that the Belongil beach section of Byron Council is a problem yet land owners continue to rebuild, and very crude attempts have been made to protect existing properties such as dumping car bodies. Successive councils and state departments have grappled with the problem recognising the costs to the owners, the right of the public to have access to a beach, the consequences that any hard structures at Belongil will have on shorefront land downdrift of the eroding section, and of course the costs of any major protective works similar to what has been undertaken at Noosa and on the Gold Coast.
Australian society will in future be seeing more of the problem facing the different interests at Byron under climate change. Some difficult and costly decisions will have to be made if we are to hold onto our beaches in built up areas. It is not a simple matter of just protecting property owner’s rights. It is also going to be a matter of protecting the rights of a community to have a beach. Byron’s dilemma will eventually be Australia’s dilemma.”
MAY 2009
- Scoping Paper: Promoting Coastal Management in Queensland May 2009 For consideration at the Queensland Coastal Conference 12 – 15 May 2009, Sea World Resort, Gold Coast
APRIL 2009
- Read the ACS Submission on the Draft Sea Level Rise Policy (NSW)
- Discussion paper – Building in Dangerous Places on the Coast
