Save Mt Lofty: Lessons for a Successful Community Campaign

By Chris Meibusch

The Defence Department was gifted the Mt Lofty land at Toowoomba and operated the rifle range for over 100 years. When Defence decided to leave, the community expected the land to return to the people. The new Abbott Federal Government wanted to make some money. This is the story of our successful community campaign to Save Mt Lofty. Our story has plenty of lessons - both good and bad - to guide those embarking on their own campaigns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Meibusch
• Release date: Mar 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922757708

Chris Meibusch

Chris Meibusch and his family are long term residents of Mt Lofty, Toowoomba in South East Queensland. Chris is a retired community lawyer. Since 2017, Chris has worked as the volunteer secretary of Save Mt Lofty Inc. to protect our Mt Lofty escarpment and wildlife. Chris is a member of the Australian Labor Party and was Labor Candidate for the Groom electorate at the 2007 and 2010 Federal Elections and the 2020 Federal by-election. Chris' recent work has extended to bushfire preparation strategies and the 2021 Toowoomba Region Koala Count. Outside of politics and campaigning, Chris is an active photographer/videographer and is a very patient supporter of the Queensland Reds.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Toowoomba residents always knew the Department of Defence owned the Mt Lofty Rifle Range site. We trusted Defence implicitly to do the right thing by our community when it became time for them to leave the rifle range. We are that kind of community—trusting and supportive of national institutions.

We just thought that after 100 years, the Department of Defence would care about protecting and preserving the rifle range escarpment as much as we did, the residents of Toowoomba in South East Queensland, Australia.

We were wrong. As former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating is reputed to have said-

‘Never get between the government and a bucket full of money’.¹

This is the story of Save Mt Lofty. How a disparate group of local residents organised and prevailed against what was always a bizarre federal government plan: a bizarre plan to bulldoze Toowoomba’s bushfire-prone koala habitat escarpment for a massive residential development.

Our campaign wasn’t always pretty, but in the end, our campaign was successful; and the winners got to write the history. We worked hard, but many campaigns have worked harder. We gathered members with many skills and enthusiasm, but we knew we were just amateurs. But we had one unique element on our side. Some call it ‘the coincidence of various factors’, but we prefer to call it ‘luck’.

This e-book doesn’t just tell our story; we try to reflect on how and why we did what we did. Hopefully, this will help readers embark on similar community campaigns. At the end of each chapter, we have set out tip sheets. These sheets will guide you on how you may apply our lessons to your own campaign.

Hopefully, you can learn from our successes, learn from our mistakes and, like us, learn how to be lucky!

___________

¹https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/all-riled-up-over-an-empty-bucket/news-story%2093c0bff6a075170852189ba9a7480365

See here for a discussion on the possible financial return from a DHA development

THE LAND

Toowoomba is Australia’s second-most populous inland city, located about 140 kilometres west of Brisbane in South East Queensland, Australia.

Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia

Toowoomba—140 km west of Brisbane

Toowoomba sits on the eastern edge of Australia’s Great Dividing Range. That range stretches for thousands of kilometres, running north-south, approximately 30-150 kilometres inland from Australia’s eastern coastline.

The Toowoomba escarpment rises some 500 metres from the Lockyer Valley, forming part of the coastal plain down to Brisbane and the Pacific coast. The Lockyer Valley (around 150 metres above sea level) sits at the edge of that plain. The top of the range entrance to Toowoomba is the top of the escarpment (672 metres above sea level).

The Toowoomba escarpment rises from the coastal plain to a plateau, the start of Darling Downs, with its rich agricultural lands extending over a couple of hundred kilometres west of Toowoomba. As with most of the Great Dividing Range, the escarpment land is covered with established eucalyptus forest. That native forest is interspersed with other native and exotic species of vegetation, including a thick undergrowth of imported grasses and weeds, mostly lantana.

The Toowoomba escarpment land has a variety of ownership types. Crown land is land owned by the state government, usually designed for specific purposes, such as state forests, state parks, main roads or special development zones. This land may be subject to leases or licences, for example, grazing rights given to local graziers. Most state parks or land designated as reserves are managed by the local, regional councils: Toowoomba Regional Council (TRC), Lockyer Valley Regional Council and the Somerset Regional Council.

The balance of escarpment land is owned privately by individual private landowners or by corporations, including government-owned corporations. This escarpment land can be quite closely divided particularly where the escarpment land is suitable for intensive agriculture. Where the escarpment land is close to urban areas, often individual blocks are held by prospective residential developers-usually land corporations. These owners are often ‘absentee landholders’ who spend little time and money on the maintenance and upkeep of that land.²

The city of Toowoomba at about 120,000 people, makes it the sixth-largest city in Queensland and the second-largest inland city in Australia (after Canberra).³

Traditionally, Toowoomba has been a service centre to the rich agricultural region of the Darling Downs. Over the last thirty years, Toowoomba has developed into a regional centre providing a wide variety of services to regional Queensland, particularly health and educational services.

Our community is politically conservative. Over the last ten years, our region has benefited from refugee, recent migrant and temporary entrant visa holders. These new residents have settled in Toowoomba due to our relatively low unemployment⁴, high annual employment growth⁵ and healthy, active regional lifestyle.⁶ Post COVID-19, Toowoomba’s residential property market has experienced a boost due to interest from residents of southern Australia wanting to relocate to Queensland.⁷

Mt Lofty Rifle Range location—above escarpment land North East Toowoomba

For over a century until 2016, the Australian Department of Defence owned the Mt Lofty Rifle Range site, located on the north-eastern boundary of the city of Toowoomba.

The rifle range area is approximately 380 hectares of land, about fifty hectares on top of the range (’above escarpment land’) and over 330 hectares down the range down into the Lockyer Valley (’below escarpment land’).

Mt Lofty Rifle Range site—below escarpment land North East Toowoomba

In 2016, the Department of Defence transferred the land⁸ to the federal government agency, Defence Housing Australia (DHA), for residential development.

Mt Lofty Rifle Range view—looking north from the shooting mound off Rifle Range Road to the old target bunker some 800 metres away

Photo: Bushy Photography

Indigenous History

For thousands of years, the area now known as the Toowoomba escarpment has been populated by Indigenous peoples, by the Jagera, Giabal, and Jarowair peoples, part of the First Nations people of what is now known as Australia.⁹

There is a significant history of Indigenous peoples’ movement from South East Queensland to the Bunya Mountains, an inland mountain range located on the Darling Downs to the north of Dalby. Research suggests this movement was for gathering people every two to three years to celebrate the abundant Bunya nuts.¹⁰

Indigenous peoples initially referred to the Darling Downs region as the ‘upland area’. Indigenous people of this area used a technique for hunting food where they would burn the grasslands as the new, green sprouts attracted animals. This reputedly earned the people of the area the name ‘Gooneburra’ or ‘the ones who hunt with fire’ by visiting Indigenous coastal peoples.¹¹

Any historical analysis of settlement of the Toowoomba escarpment must recognise the awful fate that befell Indigenous peoples of our region at the hands of the European settlers.

As the European colonisation intensified, so did the violence. From 1841 to 1843, a ‘great fear’ came over the Downs frontier as Aborigines and Europeans engaged in open conflict. French (1989) estimates that destruction of Aboriginal tribes was in the order of 60-80% and what was not accomplished through violence was accomplished through outbreaks of influenza, smallpox, and the spread of venereal diseases. From the early 1850s, Aboriginal society on the Downs disintegrated. Although some Aboriginal people took on the European way of life, finding work as servants or station stockmen, most were reduced to fringe dwellers. With the breakdown of their society (the last Bora ceremony on the Downs was held in 1858), the remaining tribes fell to pieces. In 1911 only 50 Aborigines remained on the Downs. In that year they were transferred to Taroom to the north of the Downs (French 1989). In the meantime, Toowoomba had fast grown into a thriving township, eventually developing into the regional centre of the Darling Downs, functioning as the gateway and commercial hub for the production and export of the region’s agricultural produce.¹²

In September 2017, heritage consultants retained by DHA proposing to develop the site, excavated thirteen test pits throughout the development area and produced an archaeological excavation report.¹³

The consultants recovered many artefacts from this initial archaeological testing. The consultants concluded that this was a cultural heritage site that may have functioned as a secondary stone processing area. Stone materials were said to have been sourced from a quarry or quarries, brought to the site and further reduced to produce tools such as backed blades and retouched flakes.

The density of artefacts suggested to the consultants that sites had been used over generations as a traditional campsite by Indigenous people.

Everick Heritage Consultants report 2017

In a regional context, the consultants claimed their findings demonstrated that the proposed development area was not a central focal point of prior occupation. These findings suggested the area was, nevertheless, part of a broader cultural landscape, used intermittently as aboriginal peoples moved about their country.

The consultants reported that the excavations were conducted in consultation with the Western Wakka Wakka Aboriginal People. The consultants recommended that a cultural heritage survey be conducted across the whole development area; to work towards a cultural heritage management agreement for the development area.¹⁴

Finally, the consultants recommended that the developer should give the Western Wakka Wakka People appropriate opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate the region’s traditional culture. This could be through signage, interpretive walks, appropriate landscaping, and keeping places.

This Indigenous history provided real guidance to us as we considered the proposed uses of Mt Lofty. Increasingly in our Toowoomba community, there is a greater appreciation of the importance of cultural history and context. These traditional cultural recommendations were taken on board by members of the reference group¹⁵ and Save Mt Lofty’s concept plan¹⁶ but ultimately not incorporated in DHA’s final development application.

European Settlement History

First European settlement named the area to the west of the Toowoomba escarpment as the Darling Downs. This settlement commenced following the exploration of the area now known as Cunningham’s Gap, east of Warwick by Alan Cunningham in 1827 and 1828.

The consequences of European settlement for the local Indigenous population were catastrophic:

The settlers brought with them diseases like smallpox, influenza and measles, which were devastating to the Indigenous population. These introduced diseases as well as social disruption, relocation and murder, caused the Indigenous population of the Darling Downs to be almost wiped out by 1870.¹⁷

European explorers found lands suitable for a pastoral industry west of the escarpment, to be called the Darling Downs. These lands were progressively settled over the next century. By 1860, the initial township of Drayton expanded to the establishment of the Toowoomba Municipality.¹⁸

Further DHA consultants produced a historical significance report of the usage of the development site as a rifle range since its establishment in 1877.¹⁹

The consultant’s historical record of the site was assisted by the contribution of Professor Maurice French from the Toowoomba Historical Society and contributions from rifle club members, the family descendants of a WW1 soldier, Lance Corporal Eric French, and other local residents.

The formal history of land acquisitions to constitute the Toowoomba Rifle Range reserve appear to have commenced in 1906 with the army’s purchase of around 134 acres from the Queensland State Government for £157.7.8.²⁰ Subsequent purchases in 1913, 1914, and 1927 led to a total of just over 934 acres being owned by the army by 1928.

Summary of Land Acquisitions—Toowoomba Rifle Range²¹

Queensland Titles Office searches indicate that in 1928 blocks constituting land of the Mt Lofty Rifle Range were gifted via a Deed of Grant from the State of Queensland to the Commonwealth of Australia. The following year, these blocks together with other privately owned blocks were consolidated and transferred to the Commonwealth.²²

Save Mt Lofty considered the circumstances of this land grant of at least some part of the Mt Lofty rifle range land as significant. This led Save Mt Lofty to submit that the land should be returned to the State of Queensland once the Commonwealth (via the Department of Defence) had no further use for the land.

Cr Joe Ramia served six terms as councillor (including one term as deputy mayor) on both the Toowoomba City Council and TRC over twenty-four years until 2020.²³ Cr Ramia confirmed to Save Mt Lofty representatives that it was always his understanding that Defence would return the rifle range land ‘to the city’ on the closure of the rifle range.²⁴

Bushfires on the Rifle Range Site

During our campaign, we became more aware of the significance of the risk of bushfire to the Mt Lofty escarpment. The historical research relating to the army’s use of the rifle range with the local rifle club detailed a long of bushfires across the site:

The range was plagued with bush fires during the early years of operations, with a number of repairs required to fences and structures as a result of fire damage. The most extensive fire at the site spanned from the 2nd November 1940 to the 9th November 1940. In July 1912, bushfire burnt out the range causing considerable damage to the targets and head covers. After the July 1912 bushfires, only three of the shutter targets were fit for use after earthworks and repairs rendered them safe.²⁵

There are various references to the 1912 bushfires on the rifle range.²⁶ During the Second World War, there was an extensive fire spanning over a week. The report of DHA’s bushfire consultants did not refer to these fires in 1912, 1940 and 2002.²⁷

Unfortunately, the developer made no contact with probably the single living person with the most continuous recent knowledge of the rifle range. Mrs Janet Anderson held the agistment rights over the rifle range from the Department of Defence in 1980-2013 while running her horse-riding school on the rifle range. She was on site on the morning of 26 October 2002 to corral her horses in the face of the impending bushfire.²⁸ Mrs Anderson holds a unique understanding of the site’s history, usage, and environmental significance. These consultants retained by the developer did not utilise this understanding.²⁹

Deed of Grant 30 May 1928—Queensland Titles Office

Many elderly Toowoomba residents have approached Save Mt Lofty to tell us of their connection to the Mt Lofty Rifle Range. School cadets attended shooting practice and other activities on the range for over 100 years. The various Toowoomba rifle clubs have hosted thousands of events for members and visiting shooters across Australia at the Mt Lofty range over the last 100 years.

Many Mt Lofty residents had lived with the rifle range most of their lives. Visitors would often express outrage on hearing the rifles shoot off the top mound heading northwards across the valley to the mechanised targets 800 metres away. Those who lived along Rifle Range Road and Martini Street, Mt Lofty, became used to the noise most Saturday afternoons, and locals just planned their social events at home to be on Sundays. The rifle clubs employed many local children to operate the targets each Saturday. This was a great source of pocket money for local children. The use of the rifle range of Defence personnel declined significantly during the 1990s and became more sporadic.

Wednesday afternoons were the rostered time for army use. Each week, Mrs Anderson would round up her horses into their yards off Rifle Range Road out of the way of any shooting activities. However, progressively over the 1990 and 2000s, the local army regiments used the rifle range less and less. Occasionally, there would be a big exercise ‘down the valley’—just the south of the mechanised targets. Machine guns and mortars could be heard on these occasions, but not for extended periods. Residents recall at least one night-time army exercise, but there was only a little noise that didn’t last long, but not enough to disturb the local community.

Mt Lofty residents had no interaction with the Department of Defence.

There was no advice of intended days of possible Defence shooting. Defence personnel came and went as they pleased. Occasionally there would be a handwritten sign on the entry gate, but usually, there was no interaction with the local community. Weeks could go by without any movement—just Mrs Anderson’s horses quietly grazing on the cleared land off Martini Street. So, when the handwritten sign came up after 2011 that the range was closed ‘until further notice due to the floods’, we were none the wiser as to the fate of the rifle range.

The Department of Defence occasionally had contractors slash the grass of the cleared area off Martini Street. This was usually only after a long wet season leading to excessive grass growth. In these seasons, the grass would grow to a length where the feed became rank or sour and not edible by the grazing horses. Following the closure of the range and the completion of the lease, Mrs Anderson removed the horses left, and Defence retained contractors more regularly to slash the grass.

Residents still have to remind DHA that slashing is overdue.

From aerial images of the whole rifle range site, there was little if any other land management of the rifle range area, both above and below the escarpment, mainly after DHA took over the site in 2016.

In 2016, the Department of Defence transferred the rifle range site to DHA. DHA has given various explanations as to the circumstances of the transfer; vesting of the amount of a fair market value (30 June 2015)³⁰, and by payment of a fair market price (25 March 2017).³¹

But it turns out there is more to the history of the rifle range site disposal than what DHA and the Department of Defence disclosed.

In 2001, a report prepared by Marie Holland for the Toowoomba City Council detailed the cultural significance of the Toowoomba escarpment.³² The Holland report confirmed that in 1975 the Toowoomba escarpment had been nominated for inclusion on the Register of the National Estate by the (then) Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education (now USQ).³³

Holland’s history of the escarpment includes a fascinating reference to the Mt Lofty Rifle Range site:

In July 1912, the rifle range was declared unsafe and closed until further orders. There had been a bushfire that had practically burnt out the range and consistent complaints by owners of land within the danger area of the rifle range³⁴

The Department of Defence resisted the finding of the significance of the rifle range site³⁵ by commissioning a counter-report by Peter Hillan, published in 2005.³⁶

The Hillan report did acknowledge the ‘historical interest’ of many of the structural features of the rifle range (e.g. the target trenches and target shutter machines). The report ignored the accepted Indigenous history or any environmental significance of the site.

Unsurprisingly, the Hillan report concluded that the rifle range site had no significance justifying its inclusion on the National Register.

As it turned out, the Hillan report was probably never used and remained in the Department of Defence archives.³⁷ In a final blow to the potential listing of nationally significant sites, in the last days of the Howard federal government in 2007, the Register of the National Estate was closed. Important sites across Australia lost any particular protections.³⁸

DHA’s consultants used their research to make recommendations for the ongoing management of three historically significant sites within the development area; being the Moreton Bay fig tree off Henry Street, the mechanical target hoists and the drystone walls close to the waterfall on the edge of the escarpment. The consultants recommended the installation of interpretive signage at these sites to highlight significant people, places and events relevant to the usage of the site in the period 1880–2011.

Aerial Image with DHA boundary overlay Saunders Havill Group report 31 May 2018

Approximately 330 hectares of this Defence land is located below the escarpment. This land is referred to here as ‘below escarpment land’. This land was held as a buffer to allow shooting and ordinance activities from the top of the range down to the valley below.

View from Lockyer Valley looking west over Jones Road boundary to DHA’s below escarpment land up to the Toowoomba escarpment

Photo: Bushy Photography

Aerial photo looking NE from Toowoomba with DHA land boundary in red Photo Kerry Ellem Facebook post³⁹

DHA refers to the fifty hectares of the rifle range site on top of the escarpment land as ‘the development site’.

Approximately twelve hectares of this development site (referred to here as ‘the cleared land’) had been progressively cleared by the Department of Defence over the previous century to allow for the operation of the rifle range. The proposed development would have required the bulldozing of thirty-eight hectares of eucalyptus forest designated by DHA’s own ecological experts as ‘critical koala habitat’.⁴⁰

Reviews for Save Mt Lofty

[Carol Wood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Queensland State Government Planning policies and laws are so in favor of development that it is very difficult for any voluntary group without huge financial backing to be able to oppose them. This wonderful publication with all its thoroughly researched and helpful knowledge deserves to be on the bookshelves of any environmental group contemplating action against inappropriate developments. The opposition from wealthy developers is formidable and much money and influence is expended to keep it that way. Ordinary ratepayers and citizens who care about their environment but cannot afford legal representation will find this book to be of great value in any campaign. Carol Wood Bribie Island Qld