Last year, just before the sale of Dunk Island freehold was formally announced to the public, MBN was in close contact with previous owner Adam Bond where we discussed the misinformation in the mainstream media.
Largely we talked about the media couldn’t even get the sellers name right using Adam’s fathers name that had nothing to do with the freehold from 2016 or the sale of the old island resort.
Also discussed was the amount published for the asking price of $20 million that was a made up amount by the media, there was no public listing price on the island freehold.
To end the seemingly endless speculation, Mr Bond had sent MBN a last statement by the family when the sale was final before being made public.
Mr Bond also passed on the contact details of MBN directly to the new buyers letting them know it would be prudent to engage with MBN. Given the nature MBN worked with the Bond’s in releasing information to the public.
After being contacted by the new owners directly, the first question was the island freehold still in Australian hands and it was great to hear a big YES. The new owner really liked the idea put forward by MBN in that phone call, to bring back the old resort day pass, as it helps the wider community.
While the call was cut short, after all, you need to deal with kids sometimes. details to the PR team were advised and a press release was supplied on the sale with the buyers texting what a great story was done and he would ensure the other owner and both would meet personally in the short term.
A meeting was arranged with the newly appointed CEO of Mayfair Iconic Properties Stuart Duplock heading the $1.6 billion proposed investment in our community.
Long story short, the meeting was called off with Mr Duplock in early October, hours before the meeting by phone was to take place. It was to be rescheduled and has never been rescheduled to date.
This is why if you asked a question in the original post below it went unanswered and as one person stated, someone has egg on their face for not keeping the meeting.
Community poll on is Mayfair 101 giving the community details to their master plan.
Given community members had asked very important questions in the original post comments (below post), that may have taken time to answer for Mayfair 101 and not in the first 30 minute phone call and MBN made people aware of this fact.
All the questions were asked in good faith that the community believed the new buyers cared about community engagement and working with MBN to inform the wider community what will happen with this enormous $1.6 billion investment.
MBN was going to put forward the proposal in the first meeting, than just answering our community questions in print, that Stuart would be able to introduce himself to the community on camera, than answer some simple questions that the community wanted to know, where he could answer.
Of course it would have been Mr Duplock’s decision that was the best way forward for the $1.6 billion project to really engage with the wider community from day one.
The whole community would like to see in person, the man who is in charge of such a big project and not hidden from the common people, a more personal approach it was believed by MBN.
That could have been a much better outcome in community engagement and honestly from a investor standpoint, a company willing to give the community information on their concerns only gives investors a better interest in handing over 100’s of million of dollars in a small community.
Serious questions are raised when you’re not very open in such a small community where everyone should know what is happening, than just a select amount of people that only care about the money they will make out of this development.
While very disappointing that Mayfair 101 can not keep their first meeting, only really to discuss how the best way would be to keep the wider Mission Beach community informed of important details and real concerns,
The only public information to come from Mayfair 101 is focused solely towards only investors and not answering the real community concerns publicly, when Mayfair 101 have not been here for more than 5 minutes basically,.
It’s our community they have entered and we must know simple and very important questions, than just some investor spin to make the $1.6 billion project get the funding it requires.
it only appears in any information given to the public from Mayfair 101 it’s only directed to how great the project will be for our area, nothing more.
Honestly, has anyone seen any real publicly released details on the whole plan for Mission Beach?,
it seems that the wider community will only know, once everything is approved and we must take what Mayfair 101 tells the community than everyones feedback, where only key people really know what Mission Beach will become.
This raises more serious questions than announcing a $1.6 billion project before any real due diligence on what the whole community would like in our two world heritage sites, given the scale of investment proposed.
Mission Beach is basically the birthplace of both the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park & the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area
This great work was done in Mission Beach by John Büsst and close friend Prime Minister Harold Holt with the help from poet Judith Wright, and scientists Webb & Tracey in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.
That work lead to the protection of both the Great Barrier Reef & Wet Tropics Rainforest. Later to become the world heritage sites we now know across Queensland and the world.
These deeply fought out campaigns were supported by local and international scientists and aimed to protect the Great Barrier Reef and the area’s tropical rainforest’s from serious development and mining pressures.
When Mr Büsst had seen a notice in the Innisfail paper with plans to mine limestone from nearby Ellison Reef, he fought the companies plans to mine the so-called dead reef and won, the rest is history.
Given the rich environmental history of Mission Beach, the real question to Mayfair 101 is did they even know this and how hard people fight in this area for the environment?
if the answer is no, than they had totally failed in their due diligence as they were way to fast to walk into every real estate office and buy whatever property was for sale.
You can see how important the environment is to people in the good faith questions. MBN main question would have been with over 20 Cassowaries killed by cars over the last four years alone, that nothing is working to protect the Cassowary.
What will a $1.6 billion project do to really help the Cassowary, once the serious increase in road traffic starts with unknown plans to make Mission Beach a tourism mecca.
The key thing that makes the Cassowary Coast and Mission Beach, the official Cassowary capital of the world, is the Cassowary itself, mostly everyone that comes to Mission Beach is very hopeful they can see a bird in the wild.
The Cassowaries can’t handle the current traffic levels now, let alone a $1.6 billion tourism mecca that will only result in investors getting rich, while the keystone (Cassowary) of the tens of million’s year old rainforest, may just get wiped out as there’s nothing now working to really protect the birds from cars, dogs and even feral pigs eating their eggs.
Due diligence is about what a community is all about before you walk in the door 5 minutes ago, does Mayfair 101 even know any history about John Büsst and this area before buying every property in sight in make a profit.
While environment studies have been commission as reported, it will fail to look at the real concerns & history of Mission Beach and only focused on making sure the major developments are approved.
The money for the development of Clump Point was in place for years and years before approval was given, and a lot of people believe that is enough development for the next 10-15 year in our community.
Recently, a intergraded development in Kuranda was disallowed by Main Roads as the developer could not address the increase in traffic, this proposed “ECO” development was a third of the value of the proposed project for Mission Beach.
The increase in traffic would most likely be even worst on the access roads into Mission Beach than in the “ECO” development in Kuranda, creating a worst issue for the Cassowaries and other endangered wildlife in a world heritage area,
At the end of the day, Mission Beach is an island in two world heritage areas.
Without answering some very important questions before buying one property in this area with such a huge integrated development proposed, is hardly doing their real due diligence of Mission Beach in what makes the area so special,
Just seeing low dollar signs on property that wasn’t selling and profits they expected for investors is very concerning for one buyer to own so much property, creating a monopoly in a small community with too much power to stop anything, given the investment proposed.
A great saying in Mission Beach, if you want to make a million dollars here, bring two million dollars, than stop spending after you waste a million dollars. What will $1.6 billion do in the same saying.
The whole community deserves to know what their community will become with more than just rumours and second hand information.
Not one of the owners standing in front of Mayfair 101 marketing boards in the Village Green telling the investors what they want to hear to get the funding.
That is not the Mission Beach way, maybe on the red carpet at the TV Logie awards, but hardly what our community requires or wants. More of a show than anything to look good on the photo’s for marketing to investors.
Marketing boards at a community meeting in the Village Green tells a big story, it was never for the community, that’s not what Mission Beach is about, will we need a red carpet in the next community meeting?
MBN reached out to the new owners who contacted MBN directly at the personal advice of Adam Bond, about the disappointment in not keeping to their invite and meeting months ago.
Stuart Duplock has not replied to our request by email that MBN was going to do a story very soon over a week ago.
MBN will have to report on the development to keep our community informed without Mayfair 101’s support,, even after it was made clear to the owners directly it was in their best interest to do this from Mr Bond.
Contact Mission Beach News to tip us off on any information, including if your property sale didn’t happen as it’s been reported a number of sales failed.
