Monday 13 October 2008

This is not preservation, it's demolition

This is the house that everyone's talking about.
This posting on CairnsBlog is not for you, my regular reader. It's for the Honourable Member for Cairns, Desley Boyle. It's also for the Member for Barron River Steve Wettenhall.

Last, but not least, it's for the Premier of our good State of Queensland.

The above photo was taken this morning from those that breached the so-called security fence at our historic Cairns Yacht Club building. It clearly shows a completely different story from what our local Labor politicians said would happen, when they caught us all by surprise three weeks ago, and announced the old building would be preserved and moved to James Cook University land, 22 klms north of Cairns city.

However, today the protesters have enabled me to show you what is really going on inside the green demo walls constructed around this waterfront icon. We see a building that is being demolished, not preserved in any way. We see a building that is been pulled apart and being thrown into large rubbish skips on the Southern side of the building.

The amount of rain water that has been allowed to fall on the unique Black Bean sprung dance floor in the last 48 hours, is absolutely frightening. This is the lie that the Labor Government and Cairns Ports would have you believe. They told us they would protect and preserve this building. It was on this condition that they handed to us on a plate: to move the building to JCU. To placate us all, and shut the protesters up. However, it didn't work.

I raised this with Mayor Val Schier today, in a five minute phoine call as I ducked out from the Cairns Courthouse, awaiting Bryan Law's hearing.

I told her photos from dances held at the of club house, were found in the rainwater today. I also explained to Val about the old signs that were uncovered over the last couple of days for the first time in probably 60 years, were temporally covered up by Cairns Ports as a act of embarrassment. "Wow, is that right," Val Schier said. "I'm very surprised, I didn't know."

"If that's what is going on down there [regarding demolishing] then I'm very surprised," Val Schier told me.

We also bought this to the attention of Desley Boyle this morning.

Isn't it bad enough enough that your Government refuses to listen to the people of Cairns, we wrote to Boyle. 'Do you also have to rub it in and insult us by showing us how little you care by exposing the interior?'

We call on Desley Boyle to immediately halt this wanton destruction, so that the historic aspects of the building can be saved, as was originally agreed. The cowboys carrying out this work obviously have no experience with historical buildings. Has any efforts been made to to properly search the building and site for objects of historic significance?

They way it is now, they may as well just blow the building up.

"I'll look into this straight away," Boyle wrote in a midday rushed email. "But my information is that the Cairns Yacht Club who "hired" the removalist, though I will see what control Cairns Port Authority may have," said the Member for Cairns Desley Boyle.

Clive Skarott of Cairns Ports said on the day of Wettenhall's announcement, it's a "win, win, win." Well, we now know that it's not. It's lose, lose, lose. And there's a lot of spin and lies wrapped up in this.

You be the judge on this tale. Love or loathe this old place, the community is not being respected.

3 comments:

alan said...

London to a brick, this place will never be resurrected at JCU, there'll be nothing of value to do it with once the wreckers have finished. But no surprise there, relocation was always just a sop to shut the protest up long enough to rip it down and get on with the real agenda; high rise for the wealthy few who can afford them(or are some of the units going to be allocated to public housing Deslie? Ha ha).
Maintain the rage folks, the election is not far away.

Anonymous said...

Apparently it's bike week.....hey I've got an idea........ Captain Bligh, Demolition Desley, Stephen Wetten NO BALLS aka "The Shadow", Pittiful Pitt, and Jason the Joke..........ON YA BIKE!!!

Anonymous said...

Don't think totally the Demolition Company's fault. Their brief probably remove building for lowest possible price. They are only going about their lawful business. So sad to see so much history opened up to the weather. If we had known those in control had "spoken with forked tongue" we could have all gone down and taken pieces of the Yacht Club home to incorporate in our own projects. For some time I have been trying to work out what vital piece is missing from the "Culture" of State, Local Govt and some businesses here, I think it might be "Integrity".