Monday, April 26, 2004
Consumer Citizens

The shenanigans up at Maleny seem to be taking a fairly predictable course.

As expected the battle between some residents of Maleny and the local council on the one hand and Woolworths/Cornerstone and some other residents of Maleny on the other, is being played out in the media.

Woolworths have put in place a further moratorium (60 days) on development at the site, in order to give the council an opportunity to consider buying purchasing the site at market value.

Two days ago Woolworths wrote a personal letter to the Mayor of Caloundra City Council, informing him of this moratorium. Should the Council decide to buy, Woolworths would naturally be seeking compensation for the loss of opportunity to run a profitable operation in Maleny. He also implied that he was speaking for the site’s owners, Cornerstone Properties (who purchased the land to lease to Woolworths). Woolworths are disappointed, because previously the Council had supported the application from Woolworths – they had given planning approval, after all.

Helpfully, the General Manager of Corporate Services, Woolworths copied this personal letter to media.

The Mayor of Caloundra, Cr Aldous of course responded, through the media. He suggested that Woolworths should not seek compensation from the ratepayers of the council. Furthermore, he clarified the issue of support: yes, the council gave approval, but it was quite clear at all stages of the process that the council did not support the Woolworths scheme, therefore the conditions laid out in the approval effectively discounted the building of the kind of store Woolworths would desire. Outright refusal would have been proved unlawful on appeal, without a doubt.

Of course, it went to the Planning and Environment Court (like the Planning Inspectorate), where the council explained that it knew it had to approve the application and that it was merely attempting to the control the development for the benefit of the local community as much as possible. This argument was accepted, but the contentious conditions were still removed or amended.

So what do you do when you want to undermine grassroots opposition? No doubt digging out the Wise Use Movement handbook to plan your attack.

A common feature is to label the opposition as a minority extremists, or worse still, as NIMBYs. This has been done already done. We now know, for example, that 45% of the shoppers at the Woolworths down the hill in Beerwah, come from the Maleny area. What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Next up, is the tactic to plant scare stories in the press. This morning’s paper revealed that a supporter of the store had received death threats from protesters. He and the ‘silent majority’ of people are frightened to speak out. No doubt, there will soon be a localised ‘Maleny Action Group’ grassroots movement (orchestrated, very subtly, by Woolworths and the developers).

This action group will talk about loss of jobs, young people will have to leave town etc (of course, I’m sure they only reluctantly leave town, those shelf stacking jobs can be quite lucrative).

One thing we haven’t seen are any SLAPPS (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Protest). Although these will no doubt come into force once the 60 days are up. All of this is straight out of text book anti-environmental campaign.

Of course, the most ideological line of attack is the market. Residents should “vote with their feet” if they do not want a Woolworths in their town, according to the Cornerstone MD. If Woolworths fails (like the Red Rooster takeaway before it), there will remain a single concrete block structure that can only be filled by another multiple retailer like Woolworths. Again, the residents will not want them, as it is not Woolworths that they protesting over, just the retailing and design outcomes in their town centre.

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