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Anchors Away: Contested Space and Local Resistance on Australia's Gold Coast

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Anchors Away: Contested Space and Local Resistance on Australia's Gold Coast Anchors Away: Contested Space and Local Resistance on Australia's Gold Coast Author Southorn, Ed J Published 2020-09-07 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School School of Hum, Lang & Soc Sc DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/3950 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/397591 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Anchors Away / Southorn ANCHORS AWAY: CONTESTED SPACE AND LOCAL RESISTANCE ON AUSTRALIA’S GOLD COAST Edward J. Southorn Bachelor of Arts; Master of Philosophy (Creative Writing Non-fiction) School of Humanities, Language and Social Science; Arts, Education and Law Griffith University This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 7 March 2020 1 Anchors Away / Southorn Abstract The neoliberal ascendancy has exacerbated social conflict around urban growth in emergent cities, demonstrating how contested space is a signifier of late modernity. Government officials and elected agents with limited funding for public infrastructure and public services may be forced to choose between retaining public open space or divesting public land to property developers able to access global funding streams. The resultant spatially determined risk generates community debate in which local residents choose between promises of economic security or maintaining publicly accessible sites for recreation and the delivery of public services. In such cases, the collective identity of a particular place may be at stake. This thesis, in two components, explores via a case study of Australia’s largest regional city, how contested space gives rise to local resistance in a battle over the development of public space for private gain. Place is more than lines on a map, buildings and other tangible attributes, it is a multi dimensional process of social spatialization in which ideas, memories and experiences coexist with physical representations generating beliefs and understandings of what a place means or should mean, so that the being of a place, as it were, with ongoing particular geometries of power, is mythological, incorporating imaginative and experiential views and concepts. An exegetical analysis of the Gold Coast, in southern Queensland, applies such an ontological framework to explain the public debate surrounding a narrow, four kilometre beachfront site, known as The Spit, mostly undeveloped public parkland, proposed for a high rise casino resort and a cruise ship terminal. The multi-billion dollar development was marketed as an economic saviour for a mature tourism destination, supported by a pro-development dominant ideology alliance of local government, the local property development industry and the local newspaper. The development plan was reflexively opposed by residents no longer 2 Anchors Away / Southorn willing to accept that high rise property development catering for tourists was an ideal strategy to sustain the local economy. The local resistance created an identity crisis in which the equilibrium of the Gold Coast collective identity is disturbed. The theoretical spatial concepts explored critically in the exegesis are exemplified creatively in a narrative journalism inquiry into The Spit development debate, drawing on semi -structured interviews, personal experiences as a long time Gold Coast resident, attendance at public meetings and rallies, examination of local newspaper coverage and reflections on an extensive topological exploration of The Spit, a walking trip. Such an approach provides in-depth elaboration in which place and space become story, providing complementary ways of seeing to enhance engagement and meaning, enriching the contested space discourse of The Spit and in a broader context providing a local iteration of the disruption of the social contract in the first quarter of the new millennium. 3 Anchors Away / Southorn Statement of Originality This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. (Signed)________Edward J. Southorn_____________________ Name of Student Ethical Statement... pp. 345-346 4 Anchors Away / Southorn Contents: Exegesis 1. Introduction...7 2. Popular commentary and creative representation...9 3. The Spit background...20 4. Spatial challenges in emergent cities...25 5. Locality in the mythscape...30 6. Social spatialization and power geometries...38 7. Identity: competition, crisis and reflexivity...61 8. Neoliberalism and resistance...88 9. Resolution strategies...103 10. Methodology...110 11. Conclusion...118 12. References...120 5 Anchors Away / Southorn Contents: Creative Work 1. Prologue...139 2. Paving Paradise...144 3. Neoliberalism and the Beach...156 4. Setting Sail...179 5. View from Above...191 6. Doing Deals...205 7. Going Up...217 8. Nothing to See Here...236 9. Resistance...251 10. Democracy...283 11. How to Kill A Zombie...304 12. References...325 6 Anchors Away / Southorn Exegesis: Introduction The Gold Coast is Australia’s best-known tourist destination and largest regional city with a growing population (Gold Coast City et al. 2014, Australian Bureau of Statistics 2015). A pro-development ideology, in which a business and local government alliance favours tourism-related high-rise construction, signified by ubiquitous beachfront towers, has until recently been unchallenged. A push by Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate after his election in 2012 to encourage intense property development, including a cruise ship terminal, a casino and high-rise towers on and around The Spit, the last undeveloped coastal land on the Gold Coast, ignited passions for and against high-rise towers, especially on the beachfront. Many residents believed Mayor Tate’s agenda would destroy the natural character of The Spit, a much-loved public recreation and relaxation place with a three-storey building height limit. The debate about the future of The Spit exposed a variety of competing beliefs and ideas about what kind of a place the Gold Coast should become, signalling a waning of the dominant influence of the pro- development ideology. My experience as a newspaper journalist over thirty years, including ten years reporting on the Gold Coast, and twenty years residing on the Gold Coast, provides an insider perspective on how the Gold Coast is portrayed and understood. The Gold Coast has been frequently represented, stereotyped and sensationalised in Australian journalism, locally and nationally, and in Australian film, television and literature, as a holiday town fixated on leisure activities with an economy based around tourism. However, the Gold Coast is a more complex space than these portrayals generally allow, with a conflicted set of aspirations as they relate to the extent of high-rise development, exemplified and intensified in the debate about the future of The Spit. Further, the Gold Coast is subject to some of the same social and political forces existing elsewhere in 7 Anchors Away / Southorn Australia and globally, notably risk, neoliberalism and threats from climate change. My thesis is a two-part project, an exegesis and a creative work. Its aim therefore is two- fold: to unpack in the exegesis the complex issues facing the Gold Coast in critical terms, in particular as they relate to The Spit, and to explore through narrative journalism in the creative work how these issues play out at The Spit. My research thus contributes to The Spit debate through creative inquiry framed by a scholarly examination. Together the two components of my thesis will show how and why Gold Coast power relationships have shifted. No single conceptual argument can encompass the dynamic and varied natures of the Gold Coast as place and space. My critical examination is framed by Shields’ (1992) and Massey’s (1993, 2005) ideas of social spatialization and power geometries, Beck’s (1992) and Giddens’ (1992) analyses of the risk society and reflexivity, and notions of identity crisis deriving from Erikson (Cote and Levine 2002, p. 95). I also utilise Hall’s theory of ideological encoding and decoding (in During ed. 2007), in my exploration of contested space on the Gold Coast, as well as examining and extending analyses by the Griffith University Urban Research Program (see Bosman, Dedekorkut-Howes and Leach 2016). I provide a complex exploration allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the inter-relationships of the Gold Coast’s discrete social groupings. The cruise ship terminal proposed for The Spit became a catalyst for the contestation of socially constructed space and can be recognised as a challenging moment in the evolutionary process of an emergent city. It can be argued that The Spit saga is a socio- cultural watershed, where the Gold Coast is no longer controlled by a pro-development ideology favouring tourism related property development creating an over abundance of high density accommodation towers and a boom and bust economy vulnerable to downturns in the tourist trade. As the residential population has grown, a new paradigm 8 Anchors Away / Southorn of local resistance has emerged. The collective identity of the Gold Coast, as far as such a concept can be understood, is no longer in equilibrium. Significant proportions of residents with increasing demands on available public open space have decided the Gold
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