Livingstone Shire Council is seeking suggestions about how $30 million should be spent on Great Keppel Island, but there are discrepancies between its ideas compared with those of developer Altum Property Group. The money in question is the State Government s, set aside for infrastructure on the island, and the council s role is understood to be mainly one of advocacy. In January, Livingstone Shire Council gave a list of its preferred projects to the Department of Tourism based on the assumption that future private investment on Great Keppel Island remained uncertain in both scope and timing . Altum did not wish to reveal the funding sources with which it recently submitted, for the second time, a financial and managerial capability assessment, now under review, to persuade the State Government to grant it the GKI leases currently in the hands of Tower Holdings.
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Two Woppaburra elders think Altum Property Group should better consult them about resort plans on Great Keppel Island, but the developer insists it has had several meetings with Indigenous representatives and considers it too early for formal negotiations, as it does not yet have the leases for the project.
Altum and the recently-formed GKI Progress Association held a meeting last week explaining the various stages of the resort proposal.
At the forum, Altum construction director Rob McCready said the following about Indigenous consultation:
“This is ongoing dialogue. We’ve met, as I’ve said, with many of the Woppaburra including Auntie Glenice and Bobby Muir and his son Robert and his nephew.
Altum Property Group and Capricorn Coast businesses last month formed an association to advocate the development of Altum’s planned resort on Great Keppel Island.
The GKI Progress Association Inc.’s stated aims are to increase awareness of the resort project, to provide stakeholders a forum to discuss it, and to speak with all levels of government about their island investments.
The group’s secretary is Altum’s revitalisation project general manager Leigh McCready.
Its president is Ross O’Reilly and its treasurer is Gerry Christie, both of whom are also on the association’s committee, which consists of those who signed an open letter drafted by Ms McCready in September last year.