Summary

David Haigh, former lecturer in environmental law at James Cook University in Townsville and heavily involved in the campaign to stop the development near Hinchinbrook, donated these documents, interview transcripts, taped interviews, photographs, reports, correspondence, etc. In its early days it was called the 'Oyster Point Campaign' because the name 'Port Hinchinbrook' gave people the idea that there was already an established port there. The struggle over whether to develop the site of the development during the 1990s was a complex and drawn-out one. The complexity of the struggle lies not so much with Hinchinbrook's ecological value, which has been documented in a variety of scientific reports, but the process that allowed entrepreneur Keith Williams to proceed. Williams purchased the site with development approval from Tekin Australia Limited in 1993. In 1994 (in the absence of Queensland coastal legislation, with no Hinchinbrook Island National Park Management Plan or Hinchinbrook Channel Marine Park Management Plan, and with greater permitting laxity within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and World Heritage Area), Keith Williams aimed to develop a resort, marina and boat ramp that had been approved by Cardwell Shire Council in 1995. According to the records no environmental impact assessment was conducted before approval was given.

Much of this collection of Hinchinbrook Island documentation is concerned with environmental groups and lobbyists wanting federal and state governments to be consistent with their own environmental regulations and guidelines, and to protect the Hinchinbrook Passage and Hinchinbrook Island as World Heritage areas. This event was well documented and debated in the local and national media. The proclamation of the area encompassed by Keith Williams' Oyster Point development under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act (covering the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park), on 15 November 1995, meant that any further development required the federal environment minister's approval. Many of the documents, photographs, recorded interviews, etc. that make up this collection reflect the great deal of tensions between environmental groups and some scientists on the one hand, and those who supported the local council and developers in the belief that the resort development had economic and social benefits for the local community.