Keith Williams

Keith Williams is the developer of the Port Hinchinbrook resort in north Queensland.

In December 1994 the Courier-Mail reported that Williams foreshadowed that he would initate legal action for damages against those who had lobbied against his proposed Port Hinchinbrook resort. "Iam working with my legal advisers right now with the view to taking civil action against all those people, be they just plain greenies or obstructionists or scientists or pseudo-scientists," he said.

"All those people who have written letter to the department which I consider have caused me damage, such letters as contain baltant untruths, distortion of the facts and unsupportable scientific or supposedly scientific evidence, I consider that they are liable for damages and I intend to launch civila action against them," he said.

Other SourceWatch Resources

 * SLAPP's
 * SLAPP's in Australia

Although the proposed development was heralded as a resort, it eventuated as a residential canal estate associated with a marina and some minor facilities. The attraction to the small township of Cardwell was the promised all-tide boat ramp. The wording in the 1994 deed of agreement between the developer and three levels of government, describing the boat ramp as "all tide", was, without public announcement, modified in 1996 by adding "to the best of Company's efforts". This failure to construct an all-tide access was inevitable given the well-known high rates of siltation described and predicted for Oyster Point by the Queensland Harbours and Marine Studies of 1977 and 1980. The highly mobile sediments of the Hinchinbrook Channel, fed by the big rivers of the region, have beaten all attempts at dredging an all-tide access anywhere in the Hinchinbrook Channel. This is why there is no dredged access through the shallows to the Cardwell Jetty, or to Dungeness (near Lucinda); and why at Lucinda (at the southern end of the Hinchinbrook Channel) the sugar ships load from the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere – 7 km long.