Heritage Values in the Queensland State Government? Don’t believe it!
After 5.00 p.m., today (29 September 2023) at the end of business, I and a senior bureaucrat were sent an email of a s36A Notice – Non Complying Application (below) which will lead to the demolishing the “Yeerongpilly Railway Station Building_20230929” in the early hours of tomorrow morning, we believe.
My colleague explained:
Hi Neville.
Thank you for this and can confirm it is still standing but the fear is that with CRR. They are going to demolish this tonight as posted in notices by their communications manager at 2 am regardless. I have informed the minister urgently and can only pray to god for a miracle.
…No one contacted myself before 5pm and this was directly after the close of business cut off. …[further suggestion of interdepartmental politics]
Its seems that those in Queensland Railway bureaucracy value their history more than the Government’s Environment and Heritage Policy and Programs values heritage. Nevertheless, the process has been political from beginning to end.
I wrote back to the Deputy Premier, but powerlessly to change the Government’s thinking:
“Dear “Heritage” Officer, and Deputy Premier,
Non-Complying Application. It is a narrow bureaucratic decision with pre-set reasoning which does not demonstrate how potential heritage sites of Queensland will simply disappear in such stealth thinking which defers to the desires of developers and construction firms. Out in the community, we know that the rules were deliberately designed to prefer Manning Clark’s spoilers than his straighteners. I would rather be accused of being a progressivist straighter with all of those problems, than a spoiler who simply has joy in spoiling the community’s desires for the sake of political ambition. Come next year, with the election, we will see, who is intelligent with 21st century compatibilist thinking, instead of the usuals in rule-bounded bullying.
Will there be accountable? This is the question I ask the Queensland communities.
The s36A Notice – non complying application – Yeerongpilly Railway Station Building_20230929:
s36A Notice – non complying application – Yeerongpilly Railway Station Building_20230929
Featured Image: 1960 Yeerongpilly, Aerial Photo BCA 057
Neville Buch