Warren Entsch baffled by recent announcements

A number of ‘bizarre’ and ‘surprise’ announcements by Douglas Shire Mayor Julia Leu has again prompted calls for change at the Local Government election on 28 March next year.

Leading the charge is the Federal Member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, who has reiterated his stand that Douglas Shire residents must decide how they want to be governed, and they will get their opportunity at the ballot box in March next year.

Entsch’s comments come in the wake of a number of announcements which have been made over the past few weeks which he describes as ‘surprising’ and ‘bizarre’.

“I have to question how many people knew this information was forthcoming. Most of it came out of left field which underlines the lack of transparency and communication.”

Entsch is referring to the following sequence of events, which were subjected to considerable community backlash with a major focus on the lack of consultation with rate payers:

• The grounding of the Healthy Reef Partnership with Qantas Future Planet, Tourism Port Douglas Daintree and GreenCollar (this included 18 months of discussions with Qantas which broke down);
• The mayor’s decision not to provide a letter of support for the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Micro-grid proposal, which is backed and funded by the Federal Government;
• The sudden announcement to build a lagoon near Four Mile Beach; which has been described as something out of Las Vegas or Disneyland and devoid of how much it will cost and whether the state and federal governments have been advised they will need to provide funding;
• The decision to purchase a 376ha block of land north of the Daintree River for $725,000 for carbon offset projects.

“A number of concerned shire residents have written to me questioning whether legal bounds have been crossed and whether the aforementioned actions should be taken to a higher authority,” said Entsch.

“My greater concern is the proposed lagoon. There has been no attempt by Mayor Leu or Council to ascertain whether it will qualify for federal funding.

“Why make the announcement, and then say ‘we will seek funding’. If federal funding is not forthcoming, I’m the one who will be blamed. The all-important question is who knew about the lagoon plan? I am profoundly disappointed with the process,” said Entsch.

Councillors respond to Daintree Power issue

When the shire’s four paid officials were approached (by Newsport) and asked if they supported Mayor Leu’s decision not to provide a letter of support, Deputy Mayor Abigail Noli and Councillor Michael Kerr were the only two who responded.

Councillors David Carey and Roy Zammataro did not respond to Newsport at the time of publication.

Cr Noli said: “I still support the standing Council Resolution of 18/11/14 (which is attached). This is current and still in force. I believe it sums up everything accurately and in particular that since 2014 (at least), DSC has not hindered any advancement on the investigations as to how this proposal should proceed. It also emphasises that energy is not a LG decision.

“I urge the powers that do control this matter, to comment or act in one way or another so as to allow the residents and DSC to continue with decisions that are within our control.

"I also support any request by property owners not to be forced or obligated into connecting to any grid type setup should they wish to remain autonomous.”

In his response, Cr Kerr said: “I have myself experienced the issues involved in living in a situation where you need to live, run a business and rely on solar and generator electricity.

“Visiting many of the residents in that area I have also heard and seen the extreme difficulty they are put through on a daily basis. I believe we live in an era where no one in this country should be forced to remain under this situation and not have the reliability of a mains form of electricity.

“So I personally, fully support the residents who live north of the Daintree River in their on-going attempts to gain an environmentally-friendly electricity supply from the State and/or Federal Governments which many of us just take for granted.”

Russell O’Doherty, president of Daintree Renewable Energy Inc. (DRE), has re-affirmed that Mayor Leu will not provide a letter of support despite numerous pleas.

His committee is still haunted by the indifferent response they received following a deputation to Council earlier this year.

“Mayor Leu’s remarks were of particular concern to us. When we asked Council for a letter of support, the mayor’s parting words were: ‘Let’s see what the outcome of the election (May Federal election) is before we make a decision.’

“We drew the following inference: the mayor was confident Labor would win and Council would be let off the hook,” said Mr O’Doherty.

In April this year, it was reported that the Daintree region could be the site of an Australian-first solar power to hydrogen gas-based micro-grid, with newly announced Federal Government funding tipped to help make the 100 per cent renewable project shovel ready.

At the time, the Morrison government unveiled plans to underwrite the establishment of up to 50 “affordable and reliable” renewable micro-grids around the country, via a new $50.4 million purpose-built fund.

The Federal Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, singled out the Daintree project as one which the government hoped would be helped to investment stage by the new fund, and that the assistance would help foster new forms of micro-grid “ownership.”