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Queensland’s deputy premier has defended his decision to allow a bayside private school to clear bushland for new sport fields, a day after GPS tracked another koala entering the area, which was already being cleared.
Protests have been held outside Ormiston College since Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie green-lit the destruction of contested koala habitat to make way for the expansion of the private school’s sporting fields last week.
“Leave koalas alone” has been graffitied on the college’s welcome sign, and at least one person, former Greens candidate Kristie Lockhart, has been arrested for jumping a fence.
College principal Michael Hornby told media this week that the school was adhering to strict conditions, denying the area was a koala habitat.
Redland City Council has disputed the ecological report on which Hornby relied to reach that conclusion – although it said it supported the project in principle.
On Thursday, the Redlands Koala Action Group reported a GPS-tracked koala named Leaf had moved on to the Ormiston College site overnight.
Leaf survived a car strike that left her blind in one eye and separated from her missing joey last year, and was released into bushland after months of rehabilitation.
“This loss of this significant mapped core koala habitat is absolutely devastating to Leaf and the other koalas that call this area home and makes a mockery of the state government’s new koala strategy,” Redlands Koala Action Group president Debbie Pointing said.
“It’s been heartbreaking for the community to witness century-old trees that we know are regularly utilised by Leaf and other koalas simply being cut down for sporting ovals is morally wrong.”
Speaking at Howard Smith Wharves on Thursday afternoon, Bleijie defended his decision and said it was based on independent advice from the State Development and Planning Department.
“You could complain about every MID [ministerial infrastructure designation] that every former Labor government had done,” he said.
“The planning ministers do the infrastructure designations all the time – it’s nothing new, and that is simply what we’ve done in this case.
“And I’ve seen the comments from the principal – I think they were very good comments – and I’ve also seen again protesters illegally trespassing, attacking a college, a school in that area, and graffitiing the outside of it.
“We’ll treat everyone respectfully, but people have to abide by the laws and Ormiston College is applying and abiding by the laws in place.”
Redland City Council denied a similar application from Ormiston College to add an oval and a slew of buildings around the campus in 2021, but the school took new plans directly to the state government last April.
A petition to Bleijie urging him to reject the plan, which would remove 652 mature trees, attracted 8300 signatures.
Pointing said Leaf’s movements were a clear demonstration of how important the site was to the local koala population.
“Then to hear yesterday the college principal say it’s not habitat, and any koalas on the site are lost, is sheer ignorance and denial,” she said.
Comment has been sought from Ormiston College.
Pointing said the Koala Action Group had asked the federal government to call in the project and overrule Bleijie’s decision.
A spokesperson for the Federal Environment Department said while they were aware of the Ormiston College project, they had not received a referral.
They added that it was the school’s responsibility to refer the proposal for assessment, “if a significant impact on matters of national environmental significance is likely”.
“In this instance, the proponent is aware of their obligations under national environmental law, and a self-assessment was undertaken and included in the Queensland government Ministerial Infrastructure Designation approval documents,” the spokesperson said.
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