Moving In On

Progress Is

Lord Howe

By a staff writer

Lord Howe Island just isn’t

laughing honeymooners and

jumping kingfish anymore.

Locals generally are divided on how best to keep a happy medium between catering for the lifeblood of the island—tourism —and preserving what is best on Lord Howe.

And locals are taking a bigger interest in politics. Top political topic of the moment is the make-up of the Lord Howe Island Board.

The Lord Howe Island Committee, an elected body which has no powers and can only “recommend” to the board, will shortly ask New South Wales politicians to support its moves that two instead of one member of the five-man board be an Islander.

The board makes all important decisions affecting Lord Howe, decisions regarding land transactions, buildings, tourism developments, public works, education, park reserves and preservation of the island’s natural beauty.

Mr, Roy Wilson, a guest house owner, representative of the shipping company which serves the island and a member of the Lord Howe Island Committee, also currently fills the island’s seat on the board. The other four board members live in NSW and don’t have direct interests in the island,

"Look good on paper"

As a committee member and be cause he is responsible to his elec tors, Mr. Wilson will support moves to put another Islander on the board.

Privately he isn’t keen on the idea and he feels two members would just “look good on paper”. However, most Islanders would like to see two members on the board.

Meanwhile the board has been blamed for the decline in the Kentia palm seed industry.

At present all seeds have to be sold through the board which pays Islanders for bushels collected. Many Islanders would prefer an island businessman to buy and sell the seeds. He would get a better deal for growers, they say.

The recent proposal (backed by

No more beds

Sydney travel agents) for a small golf course on Lord Howe as an additional tourist attraction has also caused controversy.

The board has agreed “in prin ciple” to the golf course, but has decided to call for a referendum nevertheless.

The question of a golf course may be parish pump, but it is in fact symptomatic of the real con troversy on Lord Howe. How far can the island go in encouraging tourists? And how can it attract the “right” number all the year round?

New Year and May holidays are the peak periods on Lord Howe, and Airlines of NSW, which operates flying-boats to Lord Howe from Sydney’s Rose Bay, has been unable for the last two years to take at least 100 would-be holiday makers to the island in January because there are no beds for them.

Guesthouse owners don’t want to put it more beds because most would be empty for nine months of the year.

Most in favour

Yet the tourists will come when the airport goes in, and however reluctantly, most residents are now in favour of the strip.

There’s little doubt Australia will allocate funds. No announcement is likely until budgets come up in June.

Chances are that funds could come over a period of three or four years instead of in one great whack so that people in NSW will not get a chance to complain that tiny Howe with its 250 people is getting $1 mil lion for an airstrip.

As reported in PIM, four people will have to sacrifice their land and homes for the strip. Recently I talked to three of them—a widow, Mrs. Jean Brearley, who has only a little land at stake, Mr. C. Lament and Mr. Alec Innes, who each have about 17 acres with several cows to lose.

All agreed the strip was inevitable and it would ultimately be a good thing. Mrs. Brearley, of a pioneer Howe family, said she would be quite happy to move onto a small block of land and house closer to Howe’s landing lagoon jetty.

Mr. Lamont, a former Sydney

businessman who retired to Lord Howe with his wife for health reasons five years ago, says the move will take away his living and he would have to return to Sydney.

“I gave up everything to come here, it’s my home now,” he said.

“We are almost self-sufficient and buy very little food and I make a few dollars by selling food to the guest houses.

“I can’t expect anything more than a small block of land with no land to run cattle or grow food. I would have to buy my food and get no income from my own food sales. I could not afford to do this.

Mr. Lament has been told that he will get “compensation”, but what form this compensation will take has not been made clear.

Mr. Innes, who has spent his life on his land, is hopeful a site on the nearby Transit Hill area could pre ferably be used for the strip. He said it would be very hard moving and he was doubtful if there was any land on Howe that could equal his present holding.