Harmers dustup

8/9/2022

The Harmers swamp

By Catherine Watson

BACK in 2018, former ACTU president and current Labor federal MP Ged Kearney
was being hailed by the Weekend Australian, no less, as “swamp saviour Ged” for buying a swampy bit of land in Harmers Haven.

The 1.3 hectare block at 60-76 Viminaria Road, adjoining the Yallock-Bullock Marine and Coastal Park, has been the subject of numerous subdivision attempts dating back more than 50 years.

The Planning Appeals Board (forerunner of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal) rejected a 13-lot subdivision in 1986, citing the environmental significance of the swamp paperbark heathland which makes up the bulk of the block.

With another attempt looming, locals were relieved when Kearney and a group of “environmentally sensitive locals”, as they were described, bought the block in 2014. They included Kearney’s partner Leigh Hubbard, former secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, who has a long association with Harmers.

Four years later, when Kearney stood for the federal seat of Batman, the Weekend Australian reflected on the purchase: “It’s the sort of lower-case ‘g’ greenie cred that gives Kearney a fighting chance against the Greens’ brawling candidate Alex Bhathal this weekend.”

The rest is history. Kearney won the seat and is now an assistant minister in the Albanese government.

And that swampy block? Last year Ms Kearney and her four co-owners applied to Bass Coast Shire Council for a permit to remove 3390 square metres of vegetation for two building envelopes, road access and drainage works.

The application caused ructions and damaged decades-long relationships in the tiny hamlet, permanent population 62, according to the 2021 census. At a tense Harmers Haven Residents and Ratepayers Group AGM in April, members resolved by more than a two-thirds majority to lodge an objection with the council. The vote included the applicants.

The council received a total of 24 objections to the subdivision proposal. In May, councillors unanimously rejected the application, declaring it would contribute to the decline and fragmentation of indigenous vegetation and degradation of the coastline.

Last month the five owners of the swamp block appealed to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to overturn the decision on the basis that the proposal will result in a net community benefit by improving habitat with biodiversity benefit.

Residents and Ratepayers president John Old said members of the group were
very disappointed that the applicants have decided to appeal, given the unanimous council decision against their application.

Ms Kearney did not respond to a Post request for comment.

3 Comments

Dave Lane

23/9/2022 09:52:51 am

As published a few months ago in the BC Post; here's the real story:

• The low lying area on the block known as the 'swamp' will be protected by a covenant / Section 173 Agreement on the title to protect it from any development threats. Currently the land, like all properties on the south side of Viminaria Road is zoned Township, which allows for a large range of uses. Our covenant will stop the swamp from being filled in and turned into housing or a retail, industry or hospitality centre at any time in the future.

• The western end of the land is on higher ground; it is not swampland and is covered by tea tree, which is considered by ecologists (and the Vic Dept of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, among others) to be an invasive species. Its spread was caused by human activity such as burning and grazing, both of which occurred along Wreck Bay before any of the three current subdivisions now occupying the Harmers foreshore hinterland were approved.

• Some years ago, a previous owner of our land applied to Council for a five lot subdivision; Council officers considered three appropriate but the owner then withdrew the application.

Our proposal is for only two housing envelopes. This is one more than is currently permitted on the land.

• Adjacent to these envelopes, bushfire overlay space will be replanted with local species which grazing and then tea tree advance have displaced from the high ground.

• Yes, drainage is a problem. Across an average winter and spring I estimate that more than a million and a quarter litres of nutrient-rich water pours into the 'swamp' from a large retention basin and adjacent road side drains on the north side of Viminaria Rd. via a pipe under the road. This water stunts the growth of local species (they have low tolerance for nitrogen and phosphorus) and encourages weed growth.

Since co-purchasing lot 25 some eight years ago, I've spent weeks every year removing weeds from the 'swamp' that are part of the annual air and waterborne invasion of introduced species from adjacent land.

It's no wilderness, as the vegetation is all regrowth.

Dave Lane.

John Old

26/9/2022 11:44:04 pm

• Dave Lane disparages the value of the remnant coastal vegetation on Lot 25, the land at Harmers Haven currently the target of a subdivision application to which he is a party, but others disagree. In a 1986 Planning Appeals Board judgement rejecting an earlier subdivision attempt this land was described as ‘forming an integral part of a very environmentally significant part…of the South Gippsland coast’. In addition various researchers have noted the ‘unusually high diversity of vegetation types in the study area’, and described it as ‘a very significant patch of swamp scrub…habitat for a number of rare species’, including the swamp antechinus and southern brown bandicoot.

• He also objects to its description as a wilderness on the grounds that it is regrowth after possible earlier periods of grazing and perhaps firing. But the regenerative powers of nature are well known, and the facts are that whatever its earlier history the area has been completely locked up since the late 1950s. It is now once again a dense wilderness of largely native vegetation. As a resident I frequently observe a wide range of native animals and birds there, including echidnas, wombats, wallabies, eastern rosellas, honey eaters, black cockatoos and many others.

• It is not disputed that not all of Lot 25 is swamp. There is indeed a higher and drier western end. However, swampland or bushland, we need to preserve as much of this area as possible.

• He seeks to minimise the impact that the subdivision proposal will have on Lot 25 by speaking of the creation of ‘only two housing envelopes…one more than is currently permitted on the land.’ But this way of putting it ignores the fact that because of the large size of these ‘envelopes’, (one of 2244 m2 and the other 1053 m2), almost 30% of Lot 25 would be converted from dense native vegetation to residential use, if the proposal was successful.

• Ged Kearney and Leigh Hubbard are the principal applicants behind this subdivision proposal, jointly owning 75% of Lot 25. Ged Kearney has so far declined to comment on the matter in her own person, either to Bass Coast Post or to an earlier article in The Age. Many community members at Harmers would like to hear her do so, especially given her public advocacy of climate change mitigation measures, which would seem to be at odds with private engagement in such an application.

• In 2001 Leigh Hubbard himself opposed a previous attempt to subdivide Lot 25, arguing in a letter to the Council that the whole of Lot 25 had been ‘fully and finally developed in 1986’ and should be left in its entirety as green space, without any building at all to be put on it. His argument for the preservation of the whole piece was based on the environmental value of its remnant coastal vegetation, directly in line with my response here.

John Old

Wendy Davies

23/9/2022 05:11:31 pm

Just a couple of points in reply to Dave Lane. My understanding in Bass Coast is that a covenant is not automatic protection, it requires other landholders with the same covenant to object - this relies on ongoing community vigilance to enact the covenant. Experience with promises made about developments since 2000 in Bass Coast has shown me that promises of replanting are often not worth the paper they are written on.

Harmers dustup

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