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WHAT IS THE DAINTREE CONSPIRACY?
The Daintree Conspiracy is the continued collaboration of various governments
and private individuals and organisations to make life hard for the Daintree
community, to sabotage their economy and future, to discourage settlement
and drive them off their land.
The Daintree Conspiracy Museum (currently not operating) told the unbelievable
story of an Australian community's struggles spanning over three decades.
Their governments legislated against basic services in their area, kicked
people off their freehold land, restricts their access, sabotages their
local economy, maintains a third world style polluting electricity supply
in the 21st century, and just forgets about them half the time. Even when
government decides to do something for the Daintree community there are
still individuals and organisations out there who will try to sabotage
this progress.
Why this website?
This website examines the complex ways of the Conspiracy and brings to
light some of the questionable tactics used, and this site also contains
many historic documents and facts which people can use to educate themselves
before they start making comments on the issues of power and others. Many
people that are new to the Daintree are not aware of the history of the
issues, many people that live outside the Daintree have even less understanding
of the past and current situation, but many often feel qualified to comment
on social media confusing the issues even more quoting wrong facts, such
as;
"you hippies got cheap land because there was never gonna be any
power" (yes, plenty of studies were done, there WAS going to be power)
"you live in a National Park, you can't expect power" (no, we
live outside the National Park, on freehold land that existed BEFORE the
National Park was declared)
"you can't expect public money to pay for your infrastructure"
(why not, all infrastructure in Australia is paid for with public money
/ taxes)
"electricity supply will bring overdevelopment" (no, after one
third of properties were bought back and the award winning 2006 planning
scheme was introduced the threat of overdevelopment is gone)
"you should just use solar power" (if it worked we would, but
with over four metres of annual rainfall and shading rain forest trees
this is not going to work).
Readers are invited to read everything, double check quotes and information
elsewhere, view historical documents, and then make up their own mind
if there is a deviate Conspiracy at work here to make life hard for Daintree
residents, and what to think of some of the individuals involved in this.
Conspiracy Theories
Many people roll their eyes at conspiracy theories, such as the man on
the moon and 9/11.
A Conspiracy Theory is a big claim to make but the Daintree Conspiracy
Museum had all the documentation and historic evidence there for you to
see, now it is all being moved to this website, and you will be convinced
that there is Conspiracy to make life hard for the Daintree community.
Both this website and the Daintree Conspiracy Museum show you not just
thoughts and opinions but a compilation of solid facts and figures and
historical information.
It is a big statement to make that there is a conspiracy against you,
but when:
- your whole area gets excluded from the Distribution Authority of the
electricity company without compensation through an amendment of the Electricity
Act, making you the only area in Australia where legislation prohibits
essential services,
- you wake up to an unannounced ban on any new houses from your local
council followed by one third of properties having building rights taken
off them,
- a very restrictive planning scheme is introduced,
- local and state government designate and maintain a traffic limiter
in to your area in the form of an expensive cable ferry which they stubbornly
maintain despite horrendous queues and against all advice from studies,
- your area is forgotten in all your local government's publications such
as Economic Development Strategy, Climate Change Submission, Corporate
Sustainability Strategy, etc.
- organisations like Terrain and Wet Tropics tried to divert tourists
away from your area
- there is never any money for your area while millions upon millions
are being spent in surrounding areas
- state and federal politicians make statements that only apply to other
Queenslanders but not to people from your area
- people in your area don't qualify for rebates and subsidies that all
other Queenslanders get
- local government cuts off access to your area for five days and treats
any complaints with utmost contempt
- members of your local council and community actively work against basic
services in your area (click here for latest
update)
Then what other conclusion can you come to?
One Far North Queensland politician had already
identified the Conspiracy back in 1994!
Click image to read his full press release
And MP Warren Entsch confirmed it again more recently
in June 2017 at the official opening of the Daintree Conspiracy Museum
The Daintree National Park was declared in 1981 but the authorities had
a dilemma, there were already people living in this area.
Settlers and farms had been here for over a century and so the National
Park was fitted around the privately owned land.
More people moved in during the 1980s and 1990s and this did not suit
some environmentalists, who decided that they wanted to turn the clock
back and get rid of these people that had settled in the area.
The decent way to do this would have been to buy everyone out, to re-locate
them and pay them an amount that could buy them a comparable property
elsewhere in Australia, and to compensate them for hardship and their
expenses, but a cheaper option was chosen; economic sabotage and starvation,
make life as hard as possible for businesses and residents, don't spend
money on infrastructure or services and at some point people will find
life too hard and leave.
Exclusion from electricity supply
During the 1990s several studies were done and the State Electricity
Provider was ready to put an electricity grid in the Daintree but thanks
to the ultra-greens, the Queensland Government decided mid 2000 to exclude
the Daintree from the state's electricity grid.
The community protested loudly as this meant a huge devaluation of their
properties, and it doomed the local economy forever due to the high cost
of diesel generated electricity, people even spent thousand on lawyers
thinking that this could not possibly happen in a modern democratic country
but it did, and there was no legal recourse!
Ironically one of the driving forces behind this electricity exclusion
was Mayor Mike Berwick who lived north of the Daintree river in one of
the 13 properties on mains power!
The Daintree community gets told to use renewables, even though it is
a proven fact that this is many times more expensive and not commercially
viable for businesses, especially in an area where 4.2 metre annual rainfall
limits solar power, creeks can not be dammed for hydro, and local council
has requested state government to ban windfarms. Read
more...
This video gives a quick introduction to the various aspects of the electricity
denial
People kicked off their land
After this first kick in the guts the Daintree community got another
one four years later in 2004 when Mayor Mike Berwick and his council councillors
on his side slapped, without any pre-warning, a building moratorium on
the Daintree!
Once again, the community was in shock, people that had bought legally
subdivided freehold land which hve certain rights attached to them were
suddenly not allowed to build anything on it, which not only interrupted
their plans but also made their land worthless, the only way to get some
money back for it was to sell it to the government for what ever they
offered.
Once again people could not believe what was happening, they hired lawyers
thinking this would win their case but again there was nothing that could
be done and after a two year emotional roller coaster ride leading to
several resident's suicides during which it looked a few times like the
controversial plan could be voted out in council, the new town plan came
in to force which allowed building on some blocks but about 350 had their
development rights removed. Read more...
The above are two scenarios you could expect in China, Russia or central
Africa, but unprecedented in a modern western country.
Do you believe now that there is a Conspiracy to drive people off their
land in the Daintree?
After they became the only place in Australia, or probably the world,
where a government legislates against basic infrastructure, to follow
up with Australia's most controversial town plan that took development
rights away from about a third of the properties in the area.
If you don't believe in a Conspiracy yet then keep on reading...
Access restrictions
In the 1994 DSC Planning Scheme you can read that the ferry on the Daintree
river is not just there by accident, it is there to limit and obstruct
the flow of traffic in to the Daintree. And when State Government's FNQ
Regional Plan was created in 2009 the paragraphs about this traffic limiter
were copied in to there, and now the DSC Planning Scheme has to follow
this FNQ Regional Plan again. Even though the local council had spent
ratepayers money on a study in 2004 which recommended that soon a second
ferry and then a bridge would be needed, the FNQ plan designates the ferry
as a perpetual traffic limiter never to be improved or changed to choke
access to the area. Meanwhile the price keeps rising every year while
there is over $4 million in profits in the bank, and council quietly amended
the rules on the ferry reserve in 2017 so now they can use the profits
where ever they like in Mossman and Port Douglas.
While the ferry restricts the southern access to the Daintree, the Bloomfield
Track restricts the northern access.
The once rough adventure road to Cooktown is now not so adventurous any
more and sealed from Wujal to Cooktown, the steep hills on the Bloomfield
Track have concrete sections on them, so there is only about 30 km. left
which the Douglas Shire Council stubbornly keeps as a dirt road despite
Wujal and Cook Shire Councils pushing for a sealed road.
These two shires have gone halves in paying for a study in to sealing
the track, which also has the support from Warren Entsch and Cynthia Lui,
and even Wet Tropics is behind it because they don't like to see all that
runoff sediment from the track washing out on the coral reefs every time
it rains.
The track is also frequently closed in the wet season which infuriated
locals depending on this access route for their income. One resident found
out that council closes it to gain extra funding from the state, while
the road was perfectly passable.
There is another obstacle in the middle; the bridge over Noah Creek,
which for some bizarre reason had always been kept looking like a dodgy
museum piece, It was that bad at one point even the machinery that came
to fix the bridge fell through it.
In July 2017 the neglect caught up with the bridge and it was no longer
deemed safe for loads over 16 tonnes. This means the fuel trucks can not
come across fully loaded, and tough luck if you're in a building project,
effectively Cape Tribulation has another Building Ban declared on it until
concrete trucks can come across Noah Creek bridge again...
Are you starting to see the Conspiracy? If not, keep reading...
Neglect
When ever the local Douglas Shire Council does something, the Daintree
is never included; the 2016 Economic Developemt Strategy does not deal
with the main economic obstacles of ferry access and lack of affordable
electricity, the new 2017 Planning Scheme lists generators as an acceptable
outcome, the 23 point submission on how to cut carbon emissions that local
council made to state government n 2016 does not mention once that half
the shire runs on third world style diesel generated electricity, currently
council is wanting to get the whole shire eco-certified pretending the
Daintree generators do not exist, somehow the Daintree is always forgotten...
And talk of neglect; the last time we have seen a Labor politician in
the Daintree was in 1993, that is a quarter of a century ago!
We also no longer have a State Member standing up for us since we lost
David Kempton in the 2015 elections, the Labor Party knows there's a lot
of black voters on Cape York so they placed Billy Gordon in the Seat of
Cook who turned out to be a total disaster soon after election, and has
never done anything for the Daintree. Next election they picked an indigenous
candidate again who has so far never been to North Douglas. Media reported
how wonderful her rise to stardom was being in parliament now after growing
up in a place with no water or electricity supply. Well, kids in the Daintree
do that today, in 2018....
Are you starting to see the Conspiracy? If not, keep reading...
Diversion tactics
While there is never any money for the Daintree community there was
$12 million to build the Mamu Skywalk near Innisfail, which was hoped
to divert rain forest tourists south of Cairns instead of north, there
was $20 million for the Mossman Gorge indigenous community to build their
centre, and now the first million has been given to the Mossman Botanic
Gardens which aims to build a mini Daintree rain forest in Mossman so
people can tick the Daintree off the list a shorter driving distance from
the main accommodation centres of Port Douglas and Cairns and they can
save themselves the ever increasing ferry fare and the waiting in the
queue.
Terrain NRM funded a campaign to send more tourists to Mission Beach in
2015, which is odd as the town already has a problem with cassowaries
killed on the roads, why send more cars there? To divert them away from
the Daintree? Read more...
Are you starting to see the Conspiracy? If not, keep reading...
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is either denied, restricted or sneakily removed. Electricity
infrastructure is denied by legislation, water has not even been looked
at, the landline phone system has never been upgraded since the 1980s,
mobile signal non existent in most of the Daintree, the satellite internet
keeps getting more unreliable with smaller dishes every time a new system
is available, a playground in Cape Tribulation took seven years of pursuit
by local parents until half the kids were too old to play there, the Daintree
Gateway project has been talked about for over ten years now and has only
produced some basic toilets, some information signs, some paint on the
ferry wheel house, a bit of landscaping and some car parks, basic stuff
that every council does without even mentioning it, and north of the river
we still have the rented plastic builders toilets.
Meanwhile National Parks twice attempted to pull out the Dubuji Boardwalk
and the Cow Bay Beach toilets suddenly disappeared in April 2016, thanks
to community protests these things have been returned but it is of course
a ridiculous situation that the local residents have to spend their time
on things like this.
The local medical clinic in Cow Bay is a shack that does not meet Queensland
Health standards, it should have been replaced years ago but when the
Labor Government took control of Queensland in 2015 they diverted the
allocated funding to Dimbulah where they have more voters. It has been
24 years now since a Labor politician was spotted in the Daintree, and
that was to make decisions detrimental to the Daintree community. Read
more...
Are you starting to see the Conspiracy? If not, keep reading...
Buyback
During the 1980s and 1990s a lot of properties were bought back, and
the famous Three Point Plan was agreed on where over development would
be avoided by 1. buyback 2, restrictive town plan and 3. electricity supply.
At some point the buyback targets set in the plan were achieved but the
ultra-greens were not happy, they want to keep buying land.
This can reach a point where it becomes dangerous for the Daintree community,
there is already a problem that services like garbage collection can be
expensive or cost prohibitive when the cost is spread over the remaining
privately owned properties after a third was bought back, but some services
like schools and clinics are based on population so at some point government
could decide to pull these out. Read more...
Are you starting to see the Conspiracy? If not, keep reading...
Hypocrisy
The local council claims to be oh so green, yet has done next to nothing
to lobby state government to clean up this mess, they completely ignore
and/or accept the fact that half the shire runs on smoking diesel generators,
contributing to the global warming that kills the Great Barrier Reef on
which our economy depends to a large extent. Mayor and one councillor
are members of a green group that actively campaigns against normal services
for the Daintree community.
The state government also claims to be oh so green, sends out a few media
releases a week about all the solar farms they are building, 50% renewable
energy target by 2030, all the millions they spend on subsidizing solar
panels even on public housing, etc. but they refuse to even engage with
the Daintree community to discuss a solution to the current pollution
scenario that sends everyone broke.
Are you starting to see the Conspiracy? If not, keep reading... Read
more... (coming soon)
Discrimination
The Queensland government says they know the importance of affordable
reliable electricity, and that is why they spend $560 million per year
to subsidise the electricity tariffs in remote areas, but not in the Daintree.
They have special electricity rebates for pensioners, people with medical
equipment needs, dole bludgers, asylum seekers, people short of cash,
for everyone except Daintree people.
They have spent countless millions subsidising solar panels on half a
million roof tops in the state with the aim of doing a million, but people
in the Daintree do not qualify for this subsidy.
There are 34 remote power stations in indigenous communities in Queensland,
even Stephen Island with only 40 houses in the Torres Strait has a micro
grid and power station where ERGON has to helicopter in to service the
generator.
After the electricity exclusion zone was declared from the Daintree river
to the Bloomfield river in 2000, a cable was illegally brought across
the Bloomfield river in 2004 to connect indigenous housing while people
on Forest Creek Road north of the Daintree river have to run a generator
while they can see the power lines from their window. Read
more... (coming soon)
Are you starting to see the Conspiracy? All these things above can not
be coincidence....
All the chapters above will be linked to other pages with more information
and evidence soon, the historical documents have all been on display in
the Daintree Conspiracy Museum..
The Daintree Truman Show
Have you seen the movie The Truman Show? It's about someone
who thinks he lives a normal life unaware of everything being controlled
by a bunch of people in a control room, but when some things just don't
seem to add up or become too coincidental he starts to wake up, starts
pushing the boundaries and eventually uncovers the truth.
Life in the Daintree is like that too.
While residents try to relax in their houses and business owners try
to keep their business going, there are ultragreens in the control room
trying to make life hard for them; block the electricity, make the ferry
more expensive, close the ferry for a while, keep the queues long, deny
services, obstruct a decent medical clinic, keep access restricted....
The Daintree Conspiracy Museum was
officially opened 6 June 2017 by Federal Member for
Leichardt Warren Entsch
The curator and founder of the Daintree Conspiracy
Museum Rob Lapaer
and Federal Member for Leichardt Warren Entsch
did some speeches explaining the goals of the museum and
reminisced about some historic events that led to the Conspiracy.
LNP Candidate for Cook Penny Johnson and Museum Curator
Rob Lapaer
help Warren Entsch to cut the ribbon and declare the Daintree Conspiracy
Museum offically open.
Warren Entsch viewing the various exhibits on display;
political cartoons, a Mike Berwick T-shirt,
environmental impact studies on how best to provide power the Daintree,
and letters from politicians promising power and even a FNQEB letter
with a time table of when the different areas in the Daintree would
be connected.
The crowd of invited guests and VIPs celebrate the
opening with a toast to ending the Conspiracy.
Two weeks before the official opening One Nation Candidate
for Cook Jen Sackley visited the Museum
and was amazed to learn some of the aspects of the Conspiracy
Shadow Energy Minister Michael Hart visiting the museum
Katter Party candidate Gordon Rasmussen used to have a business selling
generator fuel to the Daintree so he knows how much pollution is going
on in the Daintree
The Federal Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg
visited the Daintree in April 2017 and was horrified to see
a community wedged in between two of the world's most special World
Heritage Areas pumping out diesel fumes like in Central Africa.
He instructed ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency) to put the
Daintree on top of the priority list to ensure a cleaner
energy supply will be built here which will be appropriate for an eco
tourism destination.
It is time for the Daintree community, wedged in between the Daintree
rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef, to get a normal, clean, green
power supply.
The majority of the Daintree community supports it.
Two Douglas Shire councillors said at the Daintree Energy Summit they
support it, although have not responded to letters since..
Wet Tropic supports it.
The Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg supports it.
Our Federal MP Warren Entsch supports it.
Shadow Energy Minister for Queensland Michael Hart supports it.
The ONLY obstacle in the way of the Daintree becoming a genuine eco
tourism destination and getting rid of its diesel generators
has been the Queensland Labor Government who have ignored the issue
for years, but 2017 has seen unprecedented cooperation of the Queensland
Energy Department, ERGON, ARENA and Sunverge.
We will keep putting pressure on them to review their outdated policy
on the Daintree and cooperate with Federal Government and the Australian
Renewable Energy Agency to put a clean energy supply in the Daintree.
Tell them it is time for a review of their policy on
the Daintree!
There is no threat of over development, the DSC planning scheme is very
restrictive.
More than a third of Daintree properties have been bought back and had
their development rights removed.
The award winning 2006 DSC Planning Scheme is protecting the Daintree
from over development.
The lack of support for ARENA's plan to put grid power in the Daintree
only leads to pollution,
hundreds of generators guzzle up three million litres of fuel per year
and pump 7000 tonnes of CO2 in to the forest every year.
Their stubborn position on this third world pollution scenario is an
embarrassment to the many thousands of
international tourists that come to see the World Heritage listed Daintree
rain forest every year!
