Mystery developments in beachside towns: How business is booming for the Obeids | Four Corners

any regrets mr ob how do you feel about it mr aveda you worried about going to jail 18 days ago one of australia's most famously corrupt politicians was jailed for a second time this afternoon the trashing of eddie obed's career and reputation was complete a judge sentencing him to three years and 10 months eddie obede the former new south wales labor minister was found guilty of conspiring to rig a lucrative mining tender to benefit his family i am satisfied that the objective seriousness of the conspiracy was one of the highest order disgraced former labour power broker eddie obede punished for a conspiracy over a mine license that led to a 30 million dollar windfall for the obed family the 30 million dollars from that criminal deal is still in the hands of obed family companies and they owe millions more in court costs and unpaid taxes despite this business for the obed family has really been better excellent they're still in private schools they're still in their luxury houses they're still living their affluent lifestyles it doesn't appear to have had any negative impact at all as far as i can tell and my understanding is that it's business as usual the obedies are cashing in on the housing boom along australia's east coast backing a string of developments some openly and others in secret no one wanted to talk about it everybody was evasive it just became like a mystery novel the obed family's developments threaten a way of life that residents are fighting to hang on to the residents have just really had enough of big developers coming in from out of town with a lot of money who are never going to live here and just really want to make more money if i see a development go ahead there it'll just break me i just can't believe it and it's not something i would do it's not something i agree with it's not part of me it's not part of my culture and it just hurts me to know that this is going to happen what if i told you the obedie family that is eddie obede and his children are behind that development well that's shocking that is absolutely shocking [Music] tonight on four corners we expose the obedience secret property developments along the coast we investigate the tactics they use to push their projects through and how they're targeting aboriginal owned land and we will reveal they are the secret backers of a 100 million apartment complex that could change this strip of coastline forever [Music] [Music] [Music] two and a half hours north of sydney lies the quiet coastal village of hawke's nest population 1200 [Music] there's a handful of shops and not much else it's a holiday town former prime minister john howard and his family spent their summers here [Music] people that come here aren't really looking for that glitz and glamour they come here because they love the nature and they love walking they love swimming they love boating they like kayaking um all of those things [Music] lorna russom has run the surf shop on the main street for 30 years this is her family back in the 80s when they first moved here the reason that we moved here was that our family lived here and we used to come on holidays and we really enjoyed it because the place was so untouched was freedom absolutely unspoiled the place has barely changed but these sun bleach shacks and stretches of untouched bushland are now the prime target of developers it's a coastal town it's only small i don't think anyone's really in the thought process that it's never going to change and it's not going to get development and it's not going to get more people and it's not going to get more infrastructure i think the concern is that we want appropriate development and appropriate infrastructure not a cash grab for the maximum you can get out of the square meterage shane andrews moved to hawke's nest 13 years ago with his partner kathy poldmar and bought a house kathy grew up here i came back to the town when i was in my 30s and i moved back here because i was ready to settle down i'd been traveling and this is my hometown so it's got this beautiful character and feel and the people are gorgeous and the way that it's also coming out onto the um they started a facebook page to keep the community up to date with developments before council on the road it's not coming out there's one development in the works that has them really worried and now they're going to build a giant bunch of units the biggest concern is being able to see it from the beach is a large ominous building or development on there you can't see anything from that beach now they're going to build basically gold coast style apartments at four stories it will change that that visual impact on the beach this is the untouched stretch of coastline that's going to be transformed with plans to build 140 apartments making it the largest development in the area and the first directly on the beachfront so this is one of the early proposals yep for the development what do you think of that um i don't like it and i don't think the town would like it either why don't you like it because it looks like sydney it's too high there's too many buildings there yeah that's scary people feel helpless that they have no say really i just feel that the council like in a lot of places the developers rule um that money rules and it's the buck first and you know people in the environment second is the local celebrity she lives on a property north of hawke's nest these days she runs a free local newspaper to keep an eye on what's going on oh thanks brian how many bundles are you taking this week i'm 10. 10 this week oh really yeah that's okay yeah sure all my lovely volunteers come and pick up their bundles and drive all over the countryside delivering them because it's free it goes in every business every shop every cafe thank you di morrissey has been trying to get to the bottom of who is behind the development he's going to have a point even the local council doesn't seem to know okay no one really seemed to know what was going on no one wanted to talk about it everybody was evasive i've come up against a few um shall we say rumors but i haven't been able to prove where they were connected not everyone in hawke's nest is opposed to the development the local progress society and chamber of commerce think it's time for change we can talk development and the pressure that comes in with the houses whether they should be high rise or low rate len roberts is the pastor of the baptist church and has been on the local council for 20 years this town has existed on the holiday makers in the last 20 30 years we need people to provide services and that development must be there we we can't stop it as much as i'd like to be selfish and shut the gate um and you know build build gates at the highway and say don't turn in here we know we've got to have them because unless we have the people we're not going to have the services nobody cares real estate agent rick rate is an advisor on the controversial beachfront development which is next to the golf club do you feel that will bring permanent residence to the town i see a take-up by golfers but i also see beach lovers the project i understand is being called hawke's nest beachside and it's certainly from what i hear from the developers is going to be catering for the weekend market exactly who is behind the development has been a well-kept secret and who's the developer the developer are two individuals they're two private companies one lives in sydney the company is in in sydney and the other company resides in port macquarie but that's not the whole story it's taken us months but we've discovered who the mystery backers are it's the obedience you won't find their names publicly attached to the venture and that's not unusual for this family but we found documents directly linking two of eddie obede's sons jared and eddie jr to the project what if i told you the obedient family that his ediobeed was actually behind it well i would be very surprised however i really can't comment angus because i have no knowledge whatsoever that name is well known to me as it is to many folk however that name has not crossed my desk in any capacity whatsoever in my 40 odd years of actively active involvement in assisting developers any thoughts the obedience have a long history of trying to keep their name off controversial projects these tactics have been repeatedly exposed through multiple inquiries by the new south wales independent commission against corruption how are you feeling wonderful your bead operation is simple straightforward and it's used over and over and over again what it is is that you have their involvement disguised or concealed by a two dollar company with directors who are associates of the obedies but with a different surname often it was then secured beneath that level by trustees they love a little trusted a discretionary trust in which these people who are cooperative agree to hold benefits on trust for the obed family which was owned and controlled jeffrey watson helped uncover the dodgy dealings of eddie obede and his family during sensational hearings before the anti-corruption watchdog this public inquiry will be investigating whether corruption was involved if it is corruption then it is corruption on a scale probably unexceeded since the days of the rum core in all hundreds of millions of dollars are involved hi edward moses obedient being chosen and admitted of her major's executive council in new south wales do you swear that i will be oiled to the best of my judgment at all times eddie obede was a right-wing king maker and upper house member for the new south wales labour party for 20 years during that time the obed name became synonymous with dubious deals do you still maintain your innocence of course innocent in every instance despite findings against him in multiple corruption investigations it wasn't until late 2016 that the law caught up with eddie obede tonight locked up for at least three years corrupt former politician eddie obede is sent to jail he served three years in jail for misconduct after lobbying a senior public servant for a better deal for a secret family business [Applause] emerging just before christmas 2019 to a joyous welcome at the obedies hunters hill compound the euphoria was short-lived as prosecutors began preparing a separate criminal case against him his second son moses and former new south wales mining minister ian mcdonald it concerned a corrupt mining deal in the bilong valley west of sydney the obedience bought a family farm up in the bylong valley they seemed to have discovered that there was coal under the soil and they set out to manipulate that by two means one was by using inside information from the ministry and mcdonald and urging him to create an exploration license over the area then buying up other properties which would be affected by the same order the effective an exploration license is to increase the value of your land three to four fold so it's just like a windfall profit they were trading on that before it became public information the star witness at the icac hearings was gardner brooke a former lehman brothers investment banker who advised the obedies for almost two years good day for you sir long day he was a central player in the corrupt mining deal before turning crown witness sir against your family uh no comment his testimony about the obedience access to inside information helped send father and son to jail they produced maps to me in the second meeting at the wentworth hotel which i've given extensive evidence about i mean i didn't understand at the time that that was inside information but it turns out it was they knew exactly where the call was i mean their level of information was quite staggering in hindsight gardner-brooke knows exactly how the abed family does business he began advising them in 2008 they said to me because they are in their words a famous political family they wanted to remain anonymous and in the background with respect to any commercial activities so you didn't see under an under a company search the name i beat you saw that the partner of law firms or you might see an accountant or you might see one of their associates what kind of people do they use just people that were close to the family and would do as they say and would be rewarded in whatever form to which they had agreed between themselves looking back on it i'm [Music] yeah it was it was very calculated and very deliberate and you know to an extent pretty well done up until the music stopped and you know they started getting investigated the obedies are notorious for using trusts to hide their assets the actual load beat family structure is incredibly complicated and very tax efficient everything goes into a central trust fund and from there is distributed to other trust funds so that in effect everything which comes to any of the participants eddie himself or his children comes as a gift under a trust and is not taxable icac found the obedience treat their business operation as a family unit where each individual acts for the benefit of the whole family it works like a pyramid eddie senior was at the top and all decisions ultimately were run through him and he exercised a final control the actual day-to-day operations were distributed amongst his sons and they worked together as something of a team there was moses he was really the ceo of the ob corporation as was called he was the mover and shaker and the deal maker and he had the ideas jarrod obede who seemed like a nice mild-mannered sort of a fellow he seemed to be more just as an assistant a driver and the like eddie ob junior had pursued his own career and had only come to the family business comparatively late my experience was that the sons they were the ones doing the leg work but everything went to their father the obedies made 30 million dollars from the corrupt mining deal it has never been recovered one of the things i've never understood at the end of the mount penny inquiry was why the new south wales government didn't act to try and claw back the 30 million dollars which had actually made its way to the obed family i just do not understand why that hasn't happened it's very puzzling that money should be reclaimed four corners has followed the money and the trail leads here to the new south wales north coast this is port macquarie where the obedience like to holiday icac uncovered that in 2010 they used money from the corrupt mining deal to pay the deposit on a 1.1 million penthouse apartment in this hotel on the water the obedience have had a property interest in the port macquarie area for a long time indeed mr obedient mississippi i think spent a lot of time in an apartment there in the main street it's in the ridge's hotel i've got a feeling that when mr obede was released from jail he went up there to spend his time and i quite frankly don't blame him port macquarie has become the northern outpost of the family's property empire this is the public face of their real estate dealings the obedies are building a whole new suburb a 16 hectare housing estate near lake cathay lake cat eye that's a special area to me because it's a particularly good surfing spot and i spend a lot of time down there it's a popular horn for surfers including former new south wales coalition deputy premier andrew stoner it was formerly forested grasslands some grazing but certainly no people a lot of bird life and other wildlife and now it looks like a desert i mean it's like ground zero it almost brings you to tears to see what's happened to that land andrew stoner represented the area for 16 years and was in state parliament with eddie obede i would bump into him from time to time in the in the lifts on the way to divisions or whatnot and he'd maybe give you a nod but he he didn't really want to engage with anybody um to me his business was done behind closed doors the obedience acquired the land near lake cathay from the former shire president of the area the late john abby saab he later became mayor of strathfield in sydney's west but his career ended in disgrace after he was found to have lied to the new south wales corruption watchdog when mr abby saab got into some financial difficulty eddie obed offered to help him out financially and ended up in possession of that land we looked at the large land holding the obedience have around lake cattai several times during our enquiry we looked at it about the various efforts made to have town water and town sewer introduced to that area which is remote from the town and also to have an improved road put around the front icac investigated allegations the obedies bribed a new south wales minister with a discounted car to benefit the family's business interests including their land near lake cattai the minister was cleared but the watchdog found moses obeded had acted corruptly and his brother paul gave false or misleading evidence despite the findings a development application was approved in 2013 and the abides have since sold off more than 100 plots of land worth at least 30 million dollars what we'll see is a lot of houses a lot of people a lot of vehicles on that land so the way that it has been developed effectively raised to the ground it begs belief the paradise that we've we've had it's almost like paradise lost and i don't think we'll ever get it back eddie o'beed's fourth son jared is now running the development at lake cat eye after moving to port macquarie in 2014 jarrod obede has been described as the family gopher jarrod i found to be a very pleasant fellow and he took instructions from his two older brothers diligently he was very enthusiastic about the mount penny coal transaction icak heard that jared obede was at many of the key meetings around the corrupt coal deal when icac raided the obed family officers in 2011 confidential government maps were found addressed to jarrod it was a pretty important part of the evidence in the end in showing access early access illegal access to government documentation and my recollection is that it was marked very clearly that it was to be collected by gerardo b jarrod obede was questioned at icac about where the money came from to buy his 2.5 million dollar sydney home he said he didn't know the watchdog found his evidence on the corrupt coal deal to be both unreliable and unbelievable cerrito bead was not one of the principal players but he was obviously there at many of the crucial events and there was no finding of corrupt conduct against him although there were some findings that he was involved in events which were themselves the subject of adverse findings and my recollection is he was described as an affected person which is icac's very polite way of saying they weren't willing to go so far as to make a corrupt conduct finding while there's no evidence the proceeds from the coal deal were used in gerardo beads developments there are questions about how the obedience secured support for an apartment complex at lake cattail four corners has discovered 17 identical letters of support for the proposal from neighbours and associates of the obedies so out at lake cat eye there's a proposal for an apartment complex a retail precinct as well as a hotel and there were six objections to the proposal and there were 17 letters of support here's some of the letters here these are all the same letter it's just just a pro forma ah darcy lussic that's the footballer right yeah that's right one of the names on the letters is darcy lucic a rugby league player and an obed family friend who owns a string of properties at lake catie he was investigated in 2015 after he was reportedly sold a cut price apartment by the obeds in breach of the nrl salary cap no action was taken against lusik [Music] another person whose name appears on one of the letters told us he'd never seen it before it's all the same handwriting too it's like the same person's filled out the same letter but with different names one of the letters of support we found was signed by another obed associate merwin ibrahim he grew up with eddie obi jr and runs a tiling business in sydney ibrahim has emerged as a key figure in the obed family's growing property interests on the coast what about that name moon ibrahim that's the guy who's the proponent of the pacific drive development [Music] merwin ibrahim was a founding shareholder of a company called loras projects it's now developing a controversial block of apartments at pacific drive in port macquarie it's also involved in the obedience lake cat eye development four corners has discovered that eddie ob junior is a consultant to loras projects what do you make of all this merwin ibrahim is one of the directors of the company that owns the land at pacific drive that's got a da in at the present now he's signing in favor of another da at lake caddy so these two proposed developments are coming from the same place laura's project's latest development is a massive apartment complex planned for this site merwin ibrahim is the co-owner of the land and jarrod obede lives next door his proximity is no coincidence the abeed family are secretly backing this entire project the plan is for a seven-story apartment block with 68 units the head of laura's projects told four corners the obed family has no involvement in the development and how do you think that this development might change the area here the um proportion of the size of the building seven stories high um and how that's going to impact on our um our way of living with noise and overshadowing is going to detract from the overall peaceful beauty just of the area i think it's just going to open a doors for this to continue and very soon we'll be all looking it'll be port macquarie will be looking like the gold coast with high rise all along the um the seafront here neighbours have banded together to fight the project the information we got initially was very limited so we start to do a bit of homework and i must say that well since we've been doing that a lot of things have come to our attention and notice that uh were of concern to us and we've continued to do our research and meet up with each other it's a one-off they were shocked to discover that council had held a confidential meeting where they agreed to sell a plot of public land to the developers the council later uh made no mention of the fact that one of the well probably the most significant lot for this development to be able to proceed was in fact owned by the council so council has a potentially invested interest in maximum the value of any proposal that's approved for this area so which for me absolutely stunk andrew stoner lives next door to the pacific drive development we as ratepayers will never ever know whether the amount paid for that public land the road reserve was the best deal that the council could have got because there was never any process this was approved in a confidential meeting of council so it just doesn't smell right the obedience development ambitions don't stop at port macquarie or even lake cathay the family has big plans right along the new south wales coast and they have aboriginal owned land in their sights so this is our community shed so that's where we have our meetings our members meetings gatherings what about groups on here david carroll is the chief executive of the beerupai local aboriginal land council at port macquarie they have a large number of claims pending on undeveloped land in the area in june he was invited out to lunch by a development consultant three or four years ago we got contacted by a third party saying we've got a we've got a developers who want to have a meeting with you to talk about development in port macquarie um are you happy just to give them your contact details i said no problems i could contact it all the time so then it was a phone call let's just arrange a time to have a meeting [Music] the consultant's name was jason irvine he's another family friend and business associate of the obeds he was sacked as football manager by the parramatta eels rugby league club over his involvement in salary cap breaches jason irvine had a proposition for the land council they said they want to work to speed up or facilitate development of land for residential purposes and they were keen to work with us and so they said do you have things and ideas you want to work with david carroll was surprised when jason irvine turned up for the meeting accompanied by jared obide ediobee jr was also invited but didn't attend what did you think about taking a meeting with jared o'beed well at the time i actually didn't know the name of the person so i wasn't told um after that when he said oh i beat it i'd pause and thought oh okay i just have to make sure anything we do is all above board what was your impression of jarrod obede nice guy um very friendly very personable very smooth talk not in a bad way just easy to talk to he listened to what you said he had his points he very very very good salesman david carroll says jared obede and jason irvine offered to help the aboriginal land council develop some community housing outside port macquarie if that went well they could talk about a larger joint development we have probably 150 land claims undetermined so if land claims were determined then certainly they we would have land they'd be interested in yeah definitely but the land claim process that that could be 10 years before and there's no guarantee it gets found in our favor david carroll says the developers claimed they could help speed up the process they said we've got people hey you've got experience in knowing the legal jargon they say we've got people who work in the state land council like the people who work in the local councils now exactly what that means i'm not sure i mean that probably means they're big developers and so they when they ring up people answer did they explicitly say they had contacts within the larger aboriginal land claim infrastructure or did they suggest that it was perhaps within a government department i i couldn't say a hundred percent but it certainly was whether it was just contacts or they but they had access to people involved in the process if they could expedite a land claim for you then potentially there'd be quite a benefit of the two of you working together i they could yeah that would be a benefit yeah david carroll says jared obede and jason irvine also bragged about a deal they had done with another indigenous group the karua aboriginal land council it was the controversial beachfront development at hawke's nest which was on land previously owned by the local aboriginal people they talked about how they've worked with other aboriginal community groups are they talked about they said look we've done a big deal with the cruel land council you should talk to them they're all happy with what we've done down there so they explicitly said they helped expedite the land claim with the crews did they well they said they specifically said there they helped the process um exactly what that means i i don't know i didn't i wasn't worried about asking you know that's if we were going to get to that closer to that stage then we could talk more in detail but they yeah they said the process was sped up by them after the meeting jason irvine sent an email to david carroll with the subject line our projects he attached two developments he said we are doing now one was lake cat eye [Music] the other was the beachfront development at hawke's nest the email showed the scale of their ambitions the plan was to build a complex of eleven four-story apartment blocks and luxury villas close to the beach i said they're very happy with it and big development is going to have a great impact on the community and we help get the land claims processed we help with all the local council stuff [Music] the beachfront site at hawke's nest had been granted to the kerua aboriginal people as part of a land claim councillor and baptist pastor len roberts was closely involved in the process this is aboriginal land all land is aboriginal but this land was handed back to the kuruwa local aboriginal land council a couple of years ago it was crown land len roberts was the chief executive of the aboriginal land council for two years he played a key role in securing 270 hectares of beachfront land at hawke's nest look this is a map of the land council lands that have been handed back to them in the last couple of years we're standing down here at the golf club and as you can see it goes all the way along the beachfront all the way up to the national parks it's a lot of land isn't it it's a huge lot of land and it's it's it's a wonderful thing for the aboriginal people the land council agreed to sell two plots of that land to developers in 2016. the price was 1.5 million dollars

one of the buyers was mohan ibrahim the same developer behind pacific drive in port macquarie merwin ibrahim told four corners he has never done business with the obed family the abeed family are telling people that they are the secret backers of the hawks nest golf club development do you know anything about that mate that's absolute news to me i can tell you now if i had a whiff that obed was involved in selling that land it wouldn't have happened the abeed family are telling some people we've been in touch with that they helped expedite the land claims down here for the crew is there any truth to that i can't say hell mate i can't see how lynn roberts says he negotiated the land sale through a local consultant did you have any dealings with the obed family no i tell you mate you know i well you know my background and you know i work um when it comes to that sort of thing i'm a bigot you never dealt with jared o'beed or eddie obede junior no no mate no they wouldn't want to come near me lynn roberts is also a consulting archaeologist after the land was sold he wrote a cultural heritage report for the developers that found the site had no significance to aboriginal people there is no archaeological value to that land because it is disturbed land go through the process disturb land you were there you saw how it's disturbed half of it's a car park half of it is a rubbish dump his report was crucial to the decision by council to re-zone the block for development in council he then voted twice in favour of moving the development forward without declaring any conflict of interest can't you see that some people would think that you did have a conflict of interest given that you were the ceo of the land council when you sold the land you prepared a cultural heritage report over the land saying that had no cultural value for the aboriginal people and then you were on the council that helped rezone the land can't you see how this might be seen as a favor to the developers how can it be a favor to the developers oh i i don't think you get it you're suggesting just because uh i sold land for the benefit of the land council the benefit of the land council i'm doing some favor to a developer you've got to be joking how do you i can't see how you can go two and two and get five the decision to sell the land was highly controversial len roberts left his position as the chief executive of the kuruwa aboriginal land council in 2018. was there some opposition to the sale within the kuruwa community no none at all none at all the minute the minutes are there um i've got them here the minutes are there no opposition whatsoever it's very upsetting when i found out i couldn't believe it that it was sold you know for a bit of money i mean yeah jan webb lives in hawke's nest and is a member of the crew a land council she was devastated when she found out the land had been sold my dad was a founding member of crew aboriginal land council he's since passed on but he was passionate and stipulated that we must keep that lane forever for our future generations to enjoy and so when i found out it was sold you know i feel like that's done injustice to my dad and to other elders that wanted to keep that land forever for our people um and now we don't have it what would have you preferred that land had been used for i would have preferred that we keep it within the land council for community to you know build a cultural center an enterprise of some sort to be self-sufficient local elders hector and vanessa saunders say the sale of the land was pushed through without the full support of the community the board was making decisions on behalf of community not consulting the community that's where the breakdown was that was making all the decisions and then when things had to get passed straight away oh we've got this extraordinary meeting come up you must be at that meeting because we got to get these passed hector if i was to show you that what what do you think of that how does it make you feel that that could be potentially built on some of your land i'm just terrible disgusting in april this year council rezoned the land for development over 60 people put in objections opposing the development there were nine submissions that supported the development and yet council brushed it aside as if it didn't matter and went straight ahead with the approval for the rezoning which was pretty annoying i must say it's an area that really needs to be preserved it's beautiful there i can understand why all the developers want to get their fingers on it councillor peter ipov was suspicious about the land sale and has raised questions in council it was like someone had won the lotto or the the powerball in obtaining that land so cheaply so that that's what struck me the most the value of the beachfront land could climb above six million dollars if the development is approved that's a massive windfall for the developers what if i told you the obed family that is eddie obede and his children are behind that development well that's shocking that is absolutely shocking it comes as a massive surprise um but i also think that it it in some respects it's understandable because there are a lot of people who have been fishing around looking for opportunities here would you push in council to have a proper investigation into who's behind the development i'm going to go back to council and i'm going to say that i've got grillbot grilled by four corners taken by surprise on all this and that that ediobeed family is supposed to be involved in this jarrod obede did not respond to multiple requests for an interview so he went to his house oh hi there hi jared yes hi jared anger swing speaking from four corners you got a moment for a quick chat no i'm fine thanks can i just ask you why your family's name is not on your hawk's nest development i don't know what you're talking eddie o'b jr told four corners the family was entitled to do business but declined to answer a list of detailed questions as eddie obede adjusts to life back in prison the new south wales government is now trying to reclaim the 30 million dollars from the coal deal as well as at least 5 million dollars in unpaid legal costs you can't rip off the state tens of millions of dollars and get away with it [Music] the tax office is also chasing the obedies for a portion of the corrupt windfall when they're still in private schools they're still in their luxury houses they're still living their affluent lifestyles well it doesn't appear to have had any negative impact at all as far as i can tell and my understanding is that it's business as usual this is just the start of plans to change hawke's nest forever the next step is a development application to be lodged next year the latest plan is for five apartment blocks each one four stories high we're going to build a hotel style apartment development but i don't think it's going to benefit the community in the long term in the sense of is it going to bring permanent residence is it going to increase the membership at the surf club is it going to increase the kids in the local school is it going to create more jobs in the community for you know the maintenance guy or the builders or the house painters i don't think it is i think it's purely a money grab from a developer a retirement village has also been proposed and there's talk of a five-star hotel restaurants and more apartments it's exactly what the residents of hawke's nest fear go down to the beach about where the surf club is look along the beach you've got 15 kilometers of pristine beach with not a building in sight if this development goes ahead then it will be the thin end of the wedge of further development along the beach it's going to be a nightmare what are you fighting for fighting to keep our bushy character and feel of hawk's nest we're not opposed to development we just want to keep the town the way that it is now i don't know if you can hear the kookaburras in the background but this is what i live with every day and i love it if i see a development go ahead there it'll just break me i just can't believe it and it's not something i would do it's not something i agree with it's not part of me it's not part of my culture and it just hurts me to know that this is going to happen [Music] [Applause] you

2021-11-10 02:54

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