Queensland’s Deputy Premier has approved both development proposals at Coochin Creek, overriding his own government’s planning assessment agency on each occasion, and has since agreed to substantially weaken conditions on the first approval at the developer’s request, in a sequence of decisions that a ten-group community coalition says raises fundamental questions about planning integrity across the state.
The tourist park, covering 75 cabins and 75 campsites across a 43-hectare site beside the Pumicestone Passage, was approved on 8 January with 95 conditions. The festival site, known as Coochin Fields, followed on 12 February, approved subject to 110 conditions. Both decisions were made by Deputy Premier and State Planning Minister Jarrod Bleijie under call-in powers he exercised in July last year, transferring sole decision-making authority to his office and removing any right of appeal to the Planning and Environment Court.
What Was Approved
The Coochin Fields site will host events year-round catering for up to 35,000 festival-goers, with 61 hectares of the 150-hectare site to remain untouched. The project is expected to support more than 680 jobs and generate more than $70 million in annual economic activity for the Sunshine Coast, according to state government figures. The Comiskey Group, which also developed the Sandstone Point Hotel near Bribie Island and The Doonan near Noosa, has indicated the first event could be staged within a year.
Bleijie described both decisions as consistent with Queensland’s Destination 2045 tourism strategy and said the conditions imposed would ensure environmental and safety risks were managed. On the tourist park approval, he said the Pumicestone Passage was publicly owned and not the exclusive concern of existing local residents.
No Substantive Response to RCN Questions
Range Community News put specific questions about environmental impacts and the basis for overriding SARA’s recommendations to both the office of Environment and Tourism Minister Andrew Powell and the office of Deputy Premier Bleijie. Powell’s office directed the inquiry to Bleijie’s office. Bleijie’s office acknowledged receipt of the questions but provided no substantive response at the time of publication.
SARA Overridden on Both Counts
On each occasion, Bleijie acted against the advice of the State Assessment and Referral Agency (SARA), the government’s own planning assessment body. SARA concluded its assessment of the festival site by recommending refusal, finding no overriding need in the public interest on economic or social grounds, and noting non-compliance with several sections of the Queensland Planning Regulation 2017 and conflicts with the goals of the South-East Queensland Regional Plan, ShapingSEQ 2023. Sunshine Coast Regional Council had also formally opposed both proposals.
From Stringent to Substantially Altered
The sequence of events since the tourist park approval has deepened community concern considerably. At the time of approval in January, the 95 conditions were publicly described as providing strong safeguards for the environment and visitor safety and as the product of a comprehensive assessment. Less than seven weeks later, the Comiskey Group formally requested that 43 of those conditions be amended or removed. On 17 April, the majority of those requested changes were approved, many in full, despite objections from Sunshine Coast Council as the Affected Entity and despite no updated environmental or operational assessments being undertaken.
The specific changes approved go well beyond administrative adjustments. The cap on the number of people accommodated on site was removed entirely, having previously been limited to 600 persons based on the approved 75 cabins and 75 campsites. Direct patron and watercraft access across sensitive mangrove and riparian areas to Pumicestone Passage was permitted. Unrestricted use of the developer’s private helicopter was approved, replacing a condition that had reasonably limited helicopter activity to emergency use only.
Critically, bushfire management requirements were also deleted, including provisions requiring consultation with Queensland Parks and Wildlife, forestry authorities, and neighbouring landholders regarding bushfire risk management. Requirements for staff training in the use of on-site firefighting equipment were removed as well, raising serious concerns about emergency preparedness in a landscape the original assessment identified as carrying high potential bushfire intensity.
Narelle McCarthy, campaign organiser for the Sunshine Coast Environment Council and co-ordinator of the coalition, said the post-approval changes compounded what was already a deeply flawed decision. The festival site, she said, now also includes revised plans for a permanent 2,600 square metre, 10.8 metre-high administration and VIP facility, despite earlier council documentation identifying a substantially smaller and lower-scale structure, a further illustration of how these developments continue to evolve after approval without comprehensive reassessment of impacts.
Coalition Response
The ten-group community coalition expressed profound dismay at the festival site decision, stating that a development of this scale and intensity, proposed for an environmentally sensitive location, should never have been approved and that no credible justification existed for allowing it to proceed. Approximately 6,900 people signed a petition calling for protection of the Pumicestone Passage and the Northern Inter-Urban Break before the festival decision was handed down.
Narelle described the original tourist park approval as “absolutely flawed and concerning,” saying the conditions attached were broadly standard requirements that failed to account for the particular sensitivities of the location. “The site is basically an extension of the wetland. It’s very low lying. That basically triggers environmental risk to the wetlands,” she said.
On safety, Narelle pointed to the site’s single access road as an unresolved problem, noting that in a bushfire emergency it would be difficult for occupants and emergency services to use one route simultaneously. The subsequent deletion of bushfire consultation and firefighting training requirements has sharpened that concern considerably.
The coalition has described the broader pattern as raising serious questions about how major development applications are being assessed and, critically, how approval conditions are enforced once a decision is made. “Communities should have confidence that essential safety and critical environmental safeguards, especially in areas of national significance, are robust, transparent and upheld over time,” a coalition spokesperson said.
Federal Referral the Last Avenue for Independent Scrutiny
With both state approvals in place and tourist park conditions already materially weakened, the coalition has escalated its call for referral of both projects under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 for independent federal assessment of potential impacts to Matters of National Environmental Significance. The coalition is actively advocating to Federal Environment Minister Senator Murray Watt to exercise his powers under the Act to compel referral of both Comiskey Group projects.
The site’s proximity to Ramsar-listed wetlands within Moreton Bay Marine Park, and the presence of federally listed threatened and migratory species including dugongs, coastal shorebirds, and marine turtles reliant on seagrass meadows and intertidal flats, creates referral obligations under federal law that environmental groups argue have not been met. A federal referral, if triggered, would introduce a layer of independent assessment operating entirely outside the state planning system.
Narelle described the absence of any EPBC referral as a serious gap in environmental oversight, noting that the scale and operational intensity of both developments have continued to change since approval, further reinforcing the case for independent Commonwealth assessment.
What This Means for the Blackall Range
For communities on the Blackall Range, the significance of what has occurred at Coochin Creek is both structural and practical. The rural zone designations, environmental management and conservation overlays, scenic amenity provisions, and green belt buffers that underpin planning protections on the Range draw from the same state framework that has been overridden twice at Coochin Creek, with conditions subsequently weakened at the developer’s request and further changes emerging without comprehensive reassessment.
OSCAR president Melva Hobson PSM put the central question during the submission period: “Why would any Minister consider putting people’s lives in potential danger for a development where there is no ‘overriding need in the public interest’?” The deletion of bushfire consultation and firefighting training requirements from the tourist park approval gives that question renewed force.
Closer to Home: A Different Standard
The contrast with local council decision-making is instructive. At its ordinary meeting on 21 May 2026, Sunshine Coast Council voted unanimously to approve a scaled-back tourist park at 29 Roberts Street, Glass House Mountains, attaching what councillors described as some of the strictest conditions ever imposed on a rural development application in the region. The decision followed more than 114 public submissions opposing the original plan and a petition of approximately 550 signatures, and was reached through the standard council assessment process with no ministerial intervention.
The two situations illustrate the practical difference between decisions made within a transparent, locally accountable planning process and those made under ministerial call-in powers that carry no right of appeal and, as the Coochin Creek experience now confirms, no guarantee that conditions will hold once the developer returns to the minister’s office.
Readers wishing to support the coalition’s push for federal intervention can sign the petition here.
Previous range Community News Article: State Planning Override Threatens Regional Integrity: Coochin Creek Development Sets Dangerous Precedent – RCN 27/11/2025
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