Quarry meeting highlights differences of opinion within community
By Sonia Isaacs
COMMUNITY members are urging less “emotion” and more understanding of the facts that increased rock extraction at the Hanson Glasshouse Quarry could have on the region.
Hanson lodged a development application with the Sunshine Coast Council last year seeking to double extraction to 1.2 million tonnes a year.
Since then a strong grassroots campaign has developed, with the issue proving to be a contentious and divisive community issue.
A recent community forum organised by SOGHM (Save Our Glasshouse Mountains) and involving all Division 1 and mayoral candidates, sought to address the issue.
Organiser Megan Standring said while she was happy to have the issue aired publicly, she was disappointed that the candidates did not take a firm position on the issue.
During a Q&A session, long term Glass House Mountains resident, Ken Fullerton, said he felt there was too much emotion around the issue. He said while some community members may wish the township to go “back to how it was”, he said people needed to accept that progress was inevitable.
“Everybody is too emotional about this,” he said.
Mr Fullerton took to the floor to dispel some community-held suggestions that quarry operations could be contributing to structural damage of Mount Coonowrin (Crookneck) and additional rock fall.
“The expansion is not going to damage the Glass House Mountains as they are at all.”
He said his family had been in the area since 1914 and had been walking around and climbing Crookneck since then.
“My mother climbed it, and my brothers and I all went around it and climbed it and the rocks were falling off the back in the 1920s and that was way before anybody thought about a quarry,” he said.
“To say the quarry is going to drop it down is rubbish.”
Another attendee, writing in “You Said It” this week, reiterated it was important to stick to facts.
“I thought that the debate was quite emotional at times,” Derek Browning wrote (P16).
“Mention was made that Hanson was not an Australian company. What relevance that had to the debate, apart from stirring emotions, was lost on me.”
Another attendee, John Quinn, said he felt Mr Fullerton was unfairly targeted.
“I believed that it was unfair to see interjections towards those with an opposing view, which goes against our democratic right to an opinion as well as against procedural fairness and protocols,” he wrote.
sonia@gcnews.com.au