Lord Howe Island Board a Model for Fraser Island

Currently the Beattie Government is working on development of legislation to meet that electoral commitment. However the foreshadowed model they are working on will holds out little hope of actually improving the quality of management for Fraser Island and Cooloola because it will still leave the administration of the urban parts of the Great Sandy Region in the hands of local authorities which have neglected the region for decades, failed to spend most of the revenue they collected from Fraser Island and Cooloola within the area, and who were reluctant to accept the Development Control Plans developed by the Department of Environment and Heritage which would give effect to the Great Sandy Region Management Plan. As a consequence Orchid Beach has become a planning shambles with a blind eye being deliberately turned to the non-conforming uses in practice there. (These are mainly houses in Residential A area being openly used as multiple dwellings).

FIDO has long advocated the Lord Howe Island (LHI) Board as a model for the administration of Fraser Island. While we don't want an exact copy we believe that a separate statutory authority to manage the whole island with the QNPWS having specific contractual responsibilities to such a board for the management of the Great Sandy National Park is the answer. Coincidentally we have now discovered others who have quite independently pondered on the best option for managing Fraser Island and they have come up with a remarkably similar model.

To understand why this model is a good basis it is necessary to examine the functioning of the LHI Board.

The LHI Board Model: The Lord Howe Island Board is charged with the overall management of this World Heritage island. It is a statutory board with wide ranging powers to administer to the needs of a resident population of about 360 and about 13,000 visitors annually. Its 2001-02 budget includes $6.5 million expenditure.

As well as managing the Lord Howe Island Permanent Park Preserve which is the equivalent of National Park status and the Lord Howe Island Marine Park and several other land titles including recreation reserves etc, the Board is responsible for all of the normal functions of local government and more.

The Board is responsible for the operation of the island hospital. As well it operates a nursery enterprise with a turnover of about $1 million and which is the island's second largest industry after tourism. Another enterprise is operate a liquor store which turns in a profit of over $250,000. A further enterprise involves generation and distribution of all of the island's electricity. It manages the island's airstrip and undertakes all of the stevedoring for freight arriving on the island all on a profitable basis. It also is responsible for regulating the tourist traffic which it attempts by enforcing a ceiling on the number of "tourist beds".

The Lord Howe Island Board is the only planning authority on the island and oversees all subdivisions, rezonings, building approvals and even approvals to import motor vehicles on to the island. It is responsible for all waste management and has developed a world class waste management system. It works in close collaboration with various other NSW State Government agencies which have a special role on the island including the Police Service the SES and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Officers from the latter are seconded to work for the Board and over the past 13 years the State Government nominees to the Board have been drawn from the National Parks and Wildlife Service's senior Officers

The board is composed of 5 members three of whom are elected by the island residents for a three year term and two of whom are appointed by the New South Wales Government including the Chair. It meets quarterly in the island and has the capacity for meeting by telephone conference.

The board is the largest employer on the island. Its large bureaucracy is headed by a CEO known as Administrator who is responsible to the Board. Recent Directors have all had backgrounds with the National Parks and Wildlife Services.

While FIDO would not see the functions of the Lord Howe Island Board being all replicated on Fraser Island, we can see some other functions which would be undertaken by a board which could dramatically improve the management of the island. For example, it is possible that such a body may elect to operate the ferry service to the island to facilitate briefing people on their entry to the island, to collect ALL access fees, to check on quarantine and on any products leaving the island. This would reduce the cost of fee collections and enforcement.

Local Government: Almost immediately the revenue of the authority could add the property rates which are currently collected by local government

In the 1996 review of local government boundaries the Office of Local Government Commissioner said that the Maryborough City Council had "an estimated net excess revenue of $78,000 for its portion of Fraser Island" (after allowing 10% contribution to general administration). The Hervey Bay City Council had a net excess revenue from Fraser Island of $122,000.

Local government is responsible for health, waste management, town planning, building standards, provision of facilities such as toilets and weed control on public land within the township reserves as well as all freehold and leasehold land on Fraser Island. While between them the two Councils were pocketing $200,000 a year from Fraser Island these responsibilities are being neglected. Fraser Island is a valuable asset contributing significantly to the tourist economy of both cities. Both councils need to contribute more to island management instead of only milking it to subsidise their mainland constituencies. Mainland constituencies will lose while Fraser Island continues to be neglected.

The argument for a separate authority: Fraser Island does not fit into the model of a traditional Queensland local authority. An overwhelming number of users and beneficiaries of the values of Fraser Island do not reside there. While the number of permanent residents on Fraser Island are still fewer than 200 almost all the 180,000 people who came on commercial tour operations last year were from outside the region. About 40,000 of the free and independent travellers are international backpackers. A majority of the remaining 95,000 visitors on self drive visits were from southern Queensland (outside the region) or interstate. Fewer than 10% of all island visitors come from Hervey Bay or Maryborough. Another telling factor is that 90% of the rate notices for properties on Fraser Island are sent to mainland addresses outside the Maryborough and Hervey Bay local authority areas. This justifies an authority not elected exclusively by the handful of residents.

The fairest way to cater for the bulk of Fraser Island users is to create a separate Authority.