HISTORY is made by the people who show up.
Taken from Hands Off Point Peron’s (HOPP) Dawn Jeck’s speech, the line struck a chord with the 80-plus crowd gathered on Sunday to celebrate the withdrawal of the Mangles Bay Marina/Canal proposal.
Beginning with a welcome to country, her speech touched on the 14-year history of the proposal.
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READ NOW“At long last, finally some due diligence and competence has prevailed. But it hasn’t come easy,” she said.
“It is a historic precedent for the Western Australian Planning Commission (WAPC) to make a decision like this, recommending against a government initiated and supported project.”
She said Planning Minister Rita Saffioti received a large number of public submissions.
“I would like to acknowledge the people who sent in submissions – your submissions were important,” she said.
“I would also like to acknowledge the experts who contributed to HOPP’s submission which was 600 pages across three volumes.
“Especially Ambrose Cummins for working through the night pulling HOPP’s submission together before physically hand delivering it to WAPC on the due date – just to make sure that they got it.
“And he got a receipt too I believe.
“I can’t overstate just how important it was to get all the evidence against the proposal onto the public record.
“It’s important because without the public contributing to the assessment process by putting in their own submissions, the WAPC would be relying solely on the information that the proponents/developers gave them.
“We know both the state and federal governments granted environmental approvals without consideration of our little penguins who feed in Mangles Bay.
“It is crucial now to remain vigilant in resisting future attempts to urbanise Point Peron because they will be back.
“Our best insurance against the urbanisation of Point Peron is to make sure it becomes an A Class reserve as was always intended under conditions stipulated in the 1964 Point Land Transfer agreement.
“History is made by the people who show up. Thank you for showing up, and thank you for spreading the Point Peron message to the other history-makers in our community.”
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