Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting
As warriors kick, strike and wrestle over the news on Sunday of the arrest warrant for Shaolin Temple Abbot Shi Yongxin, let's take a deep breath and meditate for a moment on the meaning to the Shoalhaven of all this international intrigue.
The 5th century South Indian Prince Bodhidharma, who abandoned royal privilege to live as a monk and journey to China, spent nine years contemplating a wall before creating Kung Fu as a mind-body expression of what would become Chan (Zen) Buddhism.
Shoalhaven's path to enlightenment is proving similarly long and Buddhist teachings resonate: truth exists within, the work is to realise it.
by Cat Holloway
Whether it be karma or coincidence, last Friday's Spark Shoalhaven article on the Comberton-Shaolin-Tomerong saga turned out to be more than a gossipy summary of dodgy development dealings.
Two days after Spark's post, the Chinese government reportedly approved the arrest of Shaolin Abbot Shi Yongxin following four months of investigation into allegations of embezzlement and sexual impropriety that cast a cloud of shame over the famous Shaolin Kung Fu brand.
The Spark article may have been a fortuitously timed jab at 20 years of corporate mismanagement and council maladministration - the likes of which Shoalhaven cannot afford again as massive change is enthusiastically 'streamlined' by planning authorities.
But, if Spark had not begun to publish the years of work of John Hatton, Peter Allison and Alan Burrows, if popular social media forums and incisive blog commentary had not debated it and if you had not subscribed to read, would the Shaolin monk's arrest have made regional headlines, let alone triggered such reactions?
I doubt it. (When the investigation was announced back in July, the few national references failed to mention the significant Australian connection.)
More importantly, if any government oversight agencies – the Office of Local Government, the Independent Commission Against Corruption or the NSW Ombudsman's office – had given time, resources or attention to hundreds of pages of documentation researchers gathered and submitted over many years, there would not be such community frustration or fear of corruption.
And Shoalhaven, the fastest growing regional LGA and most visited outside Sydney, might have achieved the quality infrastructure and reputational respect that would now attract ethical investors capable of innovative development.
This ongoing issue illuminates why it is so crucial that we pay closer attention, not to those with political goals and big salaries, but to volunteer investigators, community watchdogs and locally-embedded journalists who talk to sources, walk the sites and question the press releases and sponsored statements.
ABC Illawarra does by far the best mainstream local reporting - journalist, Romy Gilbert, has followed several leads from this developing story.
But the national broadcaster should employ more regional reporters or researchers, because information-starved communities can't survive on the heavily paywalled and meagre pickings of commercial "news services".
If professional local media was more accessible and active in its communities, people wouldn't look to the growing number of amateur analysts and pundits to fill dangerous gaps left by a dwindling or commercially captured media.
The benefit of hindsight
Back to Shoalhaven Council's sale of Comberton's land and quarry: main players are now suddenly declaring they were opposed to the billion-dollar mistake.
Former Kiama MP and current Kiama councillor, Matt Brown, was the original matchmaker between Shaolin Temple's Abbot Shi Yongxin and Shoalhaven Mayor Greg Watson before scandal cut short Brown's political trajectory.
Back in 2007, while on a tourism promotion trip to Shanghai, Brown said:
"It will be the first time in 1500 years that another Shaolin Temple will be built and to have it built in Australia is a huge coup."
But on Tuesday, on ABC Illawarra, Cr Brown admitted to misgivings about the business deal between Shoalhaven Council and the Shaolin Temple.
"To address some of the concerns I was having about their operation in Australia and my continued discomfort with what was said and then not followed up ... there were just some practices I felt a little uneasy with."
Community researcher, Alan Burrows, has spoken out against the Comberton and Tomerong quarry decisions for 16 years and said yesterday (also on ABC Illawarra) that ratepayers were still 'copping the cost' of selling the hard rock quarry.
"Why did we give away a resource that actually was valued at around $300 million at that time and today is worth well over a billion dollars? It has road making material which now we have to buy road base and dolerite from somewhere, and you've got transport costs - we are paying through the nose."
Former Mayor, Greg Watson, claims (on his Facebook page) that criticism of Council's quarry deals is merely politically-motivated electioneering to re-write history. Which election and which political opponents he is referring to, is unclear.
"...the deal was eventually finalised about 2013 when Jo Gash flew to China to get the money and eventually managed to conclude the sale. Council could have taken the property back during this period but did not exercise the opportunity."
Watson's dates are wrong. Reports show the then-Mayor Jo Gash finalised the Comberton purchase with the Abbot in 2015. However, mystery still surrounds the process Gash oversaw of revoking the buy-back clause originally in the contract with the Shoalin Temple Foundation.
According to former Mayor Amanda Findley, commenting via Facebook:
"I recall having a conversation with Jo Gash about the buy back clause and enacting it to get the property back into council ownership - there were sufficient grounds for doing so - she agreed with me - BUT - Wells and Watson got in her ear and she changed her position - I recall being so angry that she had rolled that it was the one and only time I swore in the chamber and then promptly left the meeting in disgust. Gash will deny this I have no doubt."
Drawing on a questionable level of expertise in geology and engineering, Greg Watson rebuts what he calls 'untruthful commentary' and says that environmental concerns would have stopped any mining of dolerite at the quarry site.
But a contrary opinion came from expert civil engineer Peter Jirgens, the former Shoalhaven Council quarry manager, who yesterday told the ABC that Comberton is the only hard rock quarry in the Shoalhaven.
"It's disappointing that we've let it go because it would have been such a valuable resource for council ... we really should be looking at that quarry again to see if we can get it going."
If Shoalhaven's dormant 20-year-old land deals and construction projects seem like pointless ancient history, consider Shoalhaven's current plans to approve radical rezoning for new housing while disturbing discoveries on good vs bad development and hidden decision making processes are risky for Spark to reveal.
Public interest journalism isn't the only avenue to awareness.
Culburra creatives, Claire Haywood and Kingston Anderson, took their quest for truth and justice to the stage - writing, directing and producing a new play, Get Sando, currently being performed at the independent not-for-profit Flight Path Theatre in Marrickville.
Five more shows remain - from today through Saturday evening - so grab tickets and make the trek to the city where you might find some remarkable parallels between the fictional coastal township and Shoalhaven's beachside villages.
Alongside the familiar controversial characters, you might also recognise adored Aussie actors Di Smith (A Country Practice) and Mark Lee (Gallipoli - I remember my schoolgirl crush).
Get Sando is a dark family comedy about online journalist, Brianna, who moves in with her boomer parents while she is temporarily homeless.
"Improper property deals and the spectre of paedophilia are at the crux of Get Sando, a play that pivots on inter-generational war, venal cover up and the dogged pursuit of justice." - Richard Cotter, Australian Stage
"Unlike the precarious business of independent theatre, local government brims with the promise of profit. For decades, opportunists have slithered through loopholes and backdoors, reminding us that where money gathers, morality tends to scatter. The machinery of bureaucracy, polished by charm and paperwork, provides endless hiding places for those who know how to navigate its shadows. - Suzy Wrong, Susie Goes See
Brianna embarks on mission to expose Sando, a local councillor with a shady past, but finds herself in a battle with her activist mother which threatens to turn into full-scale intergenerational war.
Marian, Brianna's mother, is a retired social worker struggling to put her stressful career behind her, until Brianna’s obsession with Sando forces Marian to question her own past actions and ethics.
Brianna finds a surprising ally in local misfit Micky who is on a personal vendetta to get Sando, who she suspects is involved in a cold case murder.
Caught in the crossfire between mother and daughter is Bill, a hobby farmer preoccupied with raising chickens.
While mother and daughter battle for the high moral ground, Micky is hellbent on bringing Sando to justice while Bill sticks to tickling chickens to egg them on.
It's not every day a neighbour stages their own original theatre. Don't miss it!
