Yungaba Action Group have held a last-ditch protest rally on the grounds of the former historic immigration centre at Kangaroo Point, only days before the building and its riverside grounds were officially handed over to developers.
Group spokeswoman Del Cuddihy said about 70 demonstrators had gathered on the grass on the riverside at Yungaba last Sunday morning to show the State Government had made a tragic mistake in selling off the Yungaba building for residential development.
The historic building and its riverside grounds were handed over to developer Austrland on Tuesday, December 15.
Built in the late 19th Century by Queensland’s government architect J.J. Clarke, Yungaba was an immigration centre for much of the first half of the 20th Century and Yungaba Action Group had fought hard to keep the colonial Yungaba house in public hands as an immigration museum.
The Government sold Yungaba and its riverside lands to Australand in 2003 for an amount that Works Minister Robert Schwarten has always declared “commercial in confidence”. Following this week's formal handover, Australand plans to convert Yungaba into 10 luxury exclusive apartments and will also build three nearby residential towers on the 1.9 hectare site.
Australand has undertaken to build a multicultural centre worth several millions of dollars on the edge of the site but Yungaba Action Group has said such a centre will be a white elephant, with no real connection or relevance to the history of immigration in Queensland.
Yungaba Action Group has been buoyed by recent national coverage of the sale, with a recent weekend edition of The Australian running a major news feature, with actor Geoffrey Rush and writer David Malouf both calling on the government to retain the building in public hands as a museum.
Architect Robert Riddel who was on the heritage council that assessed Australand’s plans, also questioned the sell-off.
Malouf wrote: “What a gift it would be to a generation of Australians, 50 years from now, if some part of the place were preserved, and its archaeology of feeling made visible and passed on.”
