Imagine a government promising you would be able to build a new home or business in a place it had hand-picked to become the state’s next major tourism destination.
You buy the land and excitedly draw up your plans.
Then imagine state agencies for the next 40 years pulling out all the stops to prevent you from doing what the government promised you could do.
You would be pretty miffed.
If this was happening in Perth it would be front page news, all over talkback radio, and a political furore would result.
But it isn’t happening in Perth.
It is happening in a small ghost town on the edge of an inlet near Karratha.
Since 1983, Cossack has been an exemplar of just how bad government can be.
Private citizens, descendants of Cossack’s pioneers among them, were encouraged to buy land around the historic town from the 1980s to early 2000s.
For those wanting a peaceful patch of paradise surrounded by historical intrigue and great fishing, it was an attractive proposition.
Plus, state and local government were behind it.
Since then, however, both those tiers of government have found every possible way to stifle this dream, while simultaneously releasing more and more brochures, masterplans and thought bubbles about how great this town could be again.
There have been moratoriums on development, bungled copper cabling purchases, erroneous flood mapping, ridiculous built heritage setbacks, fire hazard claims, arguments over whether the inlet is actually the ocean, and the blocking of off-grid buildings.
Federal governments, too, have played a role by failing to step in with funding when needed.
That is just the tip of the iceberg.
The issues with the local government have since been resolved, leaving the City of Karratha just as perplexed about the parlous state of affairs at Cossack as the landowners and current operators, Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation (NYFL).
The rollcall of otherwise brilliant ministers who have failed these landholders is extraordinary.
Former planning ministers Rita Saffioti, Alannah MacTiernan and Peter Dowding are among eight Labor ministers who could not deliver the Cossack vision.
Donna Faragher, John Day, Graham Kierath and Richard Lewis are equally to blame on the Liberal side.
John Carey is now in the driver’s seat.
He has shown a willingness to bat aside traditional planning constraints to get the job done.
As Liberal upper house MP Neil Thomson told Business News, this is an issue where Mr Carey should do just that.
NYFL has a good plan, which blends colonial and Indigenous history, employs Indigenous people, allows for low-impact development and unlocks the site’s extraordinary tourism potential.
Importantly, it makes money.
There is no better way to preserve our history than by making it profitable.
Traditional owners approve of it, the City of Karratha approves of it, and landowners approve of it.
But the Department of Planning, Lands, and Heritage is now saying the plan is not within the original remit and has therefore blocked it.
Original remit? Who cares?
The local community wants this, and the state government has promised it for four decades. It simply must be done.
If it ends up a mess, those bureaucrats can happily say ‘we warned you’ and wash their hands of it.
People have lost their businesses and even died waiting to be able to develop their land.
The impasse must end, and it is entirely on the department to end it.
If they stand in the way any longer, Mr Carey must intervene to get the job done.
I’m sure NYFL and the landowners would happily name a street in Mr Carey’s honour should he be the one to make Cossack happen.
