Today we received our first official communication from the State Government, in the form of a status letter from Ian Voigt, Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) Regional Director South West. Ian states that councils responsible for all 4 Victorian beaches have asked for either revocation or review, and that DSE “is currently preparing advice for the Minister for his consideration and a decision on the way forward.” You can read the full letter here (Click here to read)

It was nice to get official communication, after all these months of wondering if our cries were being heard. But it’s not nice to get confirmation that all the beaches are under attack!!

We’re surprised that councils and the State Government think revocation of clothing optional beaches is a step forward in our current society. Cape D’Agde in France brings in 300,000 visitors every year from all over the world, because they have invested in infrastructure and facilities for a booming nudist tourist industry. In Europe more beaches are clothing optional than not (and even some parks in some town centres). Nudists are willing to spend their hard earned dollars where quality facilities are located - does Surf Coast Shire want to lose those tourist dollars to people willing to travel to Sydney or Adelaide because Victoria is heading backwards towards where Queensland is currently??? Does Mornington realise that inappropriate activity in the carpark won’t go away if you ban the nudists from the beach 300 meters away!!

All it would take is the realisation that nudists on the beaches are in the best position to improve the situation. Ban the nudists, and there’ll be nothing stopping the inappropriate behaviour at poorly used beaches if there aren’t any crowds.

An extended article appeared in The Age today, “Life in the buff zone” (Click here to read) which covers most of the issues in a balanced way. There is a section at the start of the article where there are a couple of references specifically stating that nudists were the cause of the beach troubles (”…neighbour’s daughter was accosted by an aroused naturist”) - it’s hard to tell if it’s Humphrey spin, or journalist misunderstanding, since we all know that simply being naked a nudist does not make, and certainly no member of any nudist group/club/association would ever dream of doing something so irresponsible as approaching people while aroused - it’s completely counter to the whole nudist philosophy and lifestyle, so we’re disappointed that inappropriate behaviour and nudism have yet again been linked unfairly.

As usual, Ron seems to mix and match his arguments depending on which way the wind is blowing - in the past he wanted the beach status revoked because of innappropriate behaviour of the nudists, then it was because Torquay is in growth mode. In this article, he’s decided it should be revoked because “You’d want to have a serious look at the devastation they’re doing to the dunes at Point Impossible. They’re tunnelling and cutting furrows through it.”. Does someone want to point out to Ron that the tunnelling was actually kids at Whites Beach near his house (who even came forward and owned up to it!!) - oh, hang on, he already knew that!!

Good work from Rob and Anita for their contributions (Rob is one of our stalwarts throughout this whole extravaganza, without his tireless efforts we would have already lost the beaches!). Also thanks to Werner Jacob, president of the Nudist Association of Victoria, for his positive comments that represent our ideals and beliefs so well… and we did particularly like the comment about wearing a raincoat in the shower (because its the same as wearing a bathing suit to swim, you know!!). Credit also to the journalist, Annie Lawson, for making the best attempt yet to cover the issue beyond simply glossing over the surface.

Things are still happening in the background, but more media attention is definitely good. Please keep writing those letters of support, the war is not won yet!!

This one happened a week ago, we’ve only just found the audio now (in fact, since the nudist community does not appear to have been invited to comment, we’re lucky to have found it at all!). At the end of this article is a link to a snippet of audio from Cr Ron Humphrey’s interview on ABC’s Radio National on Sept 5 breakfast with Fran Kelly. You can read the story (Click here to read) and download the entire show (Ron’s at the end of the second segment). Or you can just click the link at the end of this post to listen directly.

To summarise, Fran Kelly asked a couple of interesting questions that hinted at some underlying knowledge of the issue, but did not appear to have the time (or the willingness) to really hold Ron up to the light and check the transparency of some of his statements. In true Ron form, here’s some of our observations from the interview:

• Ron admits that only Pt Impossible is the target of the council motion, and cites growth of Torquay as the justification
• Ron admits that the problems are not related specifically to nude bathing
• Ron seemed to have a problem expressing himself in the middle of the interview, stuttering over “depraved behaviour”, while also failing to attribute said behaviour to nudists (or to anyone specifically for that matter!!)
• Apparently Ron has been approached by 15 of his neighbours reporting they’ve been accosted and approached, yet again no nudist has been accused of these activities, and yet again the police report no sexual assaults recorded (but we already knew that!)
• Talking about police reports, apparently stats aren’t collected according to Ron, unless the calls go through 000. Yet Torquay police informed us that all calls are recorded (and that makes sense - how could a policing system be relied on if the local station didn’t record every report they received!! We can accept the odd paperwork problem, but a local police station that doesn’t record anything - come on Ron, you’re stretching!!)
• Ron claims Torquay police have run “undercover operations… trying to catch these people, and it’s very difficult” - given Ron’s penchant for avoiding facts wherever possible, our money is on no operations ever existing!! We would have thought if this behaviour was as bad as Ron makes out, surely an undercover operation is overkill for a problem so obvious (and he admits there aren’t enough police in general, so who’s running these operations anyway???)
• Apparently Pt Impossible is advertised on Gay websites as a meeting place. Funnily enough, it’s also advertised as a nudists meeting place, and it is advertised as a clothing optional beach around the world. Perhaps Ron is actually suggesting that the depraved behaviour is coming from the Gay community - I’m sure they’ll take that accusation on the chin…
• Apparently (and this one is a show stopper!!), “the nudists are leading the push at the Mornington one (Sunnyside) to shut it down because of the behaviour down there” - wow, that’s the first we’ve heard of that, and the Melbourne_nudists-naturists community are big users of Sunnyside beach at Mt Eliza - we certainly are not pushing for anything except better facilities!!

There’s plenty more gold where that all came from. As usual, Ron is behaving true to form - not a verifiable fact to be seen anywhere, lots of specious arguments supported by emotive rhetoric, and this time around he even topped his previous best by also trying to link three different topics (the beach, the nudist community and the gay community) into one almighty argument supporting his cause.

Have a listen to the audio and make up your own mind - We would have liked Fran Kelly (Radio NAtional presenter) to hold a candle a bit closer to Ron’s paper-thin commentary, particularly since (as usual) we were not given an opportunity to comment. Such is our battle - and so it continues.

You can listen to the audio - Click here (credit to ABC’s Radio National)

Cr Humphrey has been busy again, and it looks like his irrational and poorly researched attacks weren’t reserved entirely for us nudists. According to an online blog (Click here to read), Ron has accused a flora/fauna care group in Anglesea of being terrorists!!

Has Ron lost the plot completely? Is there no end to the amazing lengths he will go to in order to draw 3 seconds of attention? The comment about the elderly greenies was bad enough, but our interest was mostly in his bizarre antics surrounding his health - it seems he was well enough to attend media interviews regarding his anti-nude beach campaign, but not well enough to attend a council meeting!! For the first time in shire history, a meeting had to be abandoned because they didn’t have a quorum!! Perhaps it’s the council meetings that make him feel unwell - doesn’t seem he has a lot of friends these days, not when his activities have caused such bad press and opinions for the council.

As quoted from the blog post referred to above:

And while Ron was too unwell to attend the meeting, he did manage to go home and inform the local paper of his “illness”. Yeah when I go home sick, the first thing I do is ring a local reporter.

The shire residents must be asking themselves how they managed to elect a councillor who appears to primarily focus on self-promotion and media airtime, and completely ignores the interests of community groups in the pursuit of his own agenda.

Update 12/09 - Per a post on the BrokenLeftLeg Blog (Click here to read), it would appear Ron never actually made the call to Peter Bollen, CEO of the Surf Coast Shire, to inform him he was ill. So it sounds like Ron lead the media (ie Aleks Devic of The Echo) up the garden path. We can’t blame Aleks though, Ron appears credible and reasonable in the media because none of the journalists have ever pulled him up on his wafer-thin commentary.

What happened to investigative journalism anyway? This story has all the requirements of a real feature - government, deception, lies, secret deals, and of course nudity! All it needs is a little bit of a scratch under the surface…

An article appeared in The Age (Melbourne) today, titled No nudes good news for beach towns (Click here to read). We were concerned with the title initially, and the first paragraph, since both seem to indicate that the issue is between nudists and the local communities. Obviously we are all aware that it is Australia’s nudists vs 4 local councillors, 3 of which have been very quiet on their support of their ring leader (master?) Cr Ron Humphrey since our response to his appallingly prepared and executed motion.

But credit to Rachel Kleinman (the journalist responsible), she does only dedicate half of the article to Cr Ron’s repeated ramblings (and note we’re still waiting for him to utter a verifiable fact!!), and uses the rest of the article to present some actual facts, such as:

Victoria Police’s Surf Coast Inspector Bill Mathers said there had been no sexual assaults reported at Point Impossible in recent years.

… the row over nudity was more a “social and community than a police issue”. (Inspector Bill Mathers)

“Wilful and obscene exposure occurs everywhere, it is not necessarily connected to nudist beaches,” Inspector Mathers said

“We were being informed of a really responsible and strategic process that was overturned (by Cr Humphrey’s motion),” Cr Mears said.

The decision clearly rests with the Minister - obviously the nudist community is eager to be involved in this process, being directly affected by any decisions that are made. Of concern is the comment from Minister Hulls spokeswoman Claire Miller, who stated:

“We will be considering the councils’ requests and consulting with them,” Ms Miller said.

What about consulting with the Victorian Nudist community? I hope this was an oversight of the news article, and not a stance of the Minister’s office to exclude the community from the consultation process!!

Everyone please keep writing those letters - the Addresses page has been updated with new contact details