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 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

It’s been a busy week on the beach fight front, there’s been plenty of activity and some positive news to report. Firstly, since the last outburst from Cr Humphrey, more media have contacted members of the Victorian nudist community with interest in our battle. As media releases come to light, we’ll post updates here (and if you come across one that we are not aware of, please let us know).

Talking about the media, some confusion was experienced this week when we were informed that a state inquiry was going to be conducted into all nude beaches in Victoria (YIKES!!!). The community rallied, and after a bunch of emails, calls and discussions later, it looks like there was some confusion over information provided to the media that was the source of the apparent “inquiry”.

The news gets even better – according to one of our community members who is in direct contact with our source at a state level (and who is directly involved in this issue):

Highly placed Government sources have today denied any knowledge of an inquiry into clothing optional beaches, and have re-affirmed a commitment to maintaining the status quo at Point Impossible.

Don’t let up the pressure though – Cr Ron Humphrey founded this entire debarcle on misinformation and emotive rhetoric, and we need to send a clear message that such tactics are unacceptable. We need to keep writing letters to the Surf Coast Shire Council, the press and to the Ministers office showing our support for clothing optional status. If you are local and live within the Surf Coast Shire, also write to the council expressing your disgust at how Cr Humphrey has tried to subvert your rights without appropriate consultation – his behaviour on this issue alone should be enough to ensure no-one votes for him again.

Edit: It would appear some sort of review is going to be performed, although the Ministers office has released zero detail, simply stating they are going to look at the issue. Refer to the post above for more detail

It would appear once the Council has made their decision, the process moves along to the next notch – in this case the Great Ocean Road Coast Committee (GORCC). We have sent an Open Letter response to Cr. Humphrey which you can read below.

Still a long way to go before we’ve put this fire out – keep up the support, and keep writing those letters!!

Below is the cover page – You should download the full letter here -> Click here

Dear Cr. Humphrey,

Please find attached an Open Letter drafted in response to your motion to apply for the revocation of the clothing optional status of Pt Impossible and Southside Beaches, in the Surf Coast Shire.

This letter has been posted on a number of community forums and websites, including landed/non-landed Victorian nudist clubs and resorts, all of whom have members who are regular users of the Surf Coast Shire Facilities. We invite open and transparent discussion of your concerns and encourage the full and open disclosure of all supporting information and statistics in support of your case. We make every effort to ensure our facts are correct and can be independently validated, and we apologise in advance for any errors that may occur. Responses received will also be posted to the community for review and verification, to ensure the nudist community remains informed. More information can be found at http://www.fbanavic.org

We are a community in support of safer beaches and facilities for the use of everyone. We urge the Surf Coast Shire, the Great Ocean Road Coast Committee (GORCC), and the Minister to work with us towards providing an environment that is safe and enjoyable for all users.

We would appreciate if this letter and our concerns be included in the GORCC scheduled meeting for this Friday 18 August 2006. We apologise for the late delivery of this information, we have been excluded from the process to date and have only just become aware of the scheduled GORCC meeting.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any queries.

Kind regards

Victorian Nudist Community
webmaster [Email address: webmaster #AT# fbanavic.org - replace #AT# with @ ]

cc:
Hon. Rob Hulls (Minister for Planning)
GORCC Head Office
David Clarke – Executive Officer, GORCC
Free Beach Association of Australia
Australian Nudist Federation
Cr. Beth Davidson (Surf Coast – Anglesea)
Cr. Keith Grossman (Surf Coast – Torquay)
Cr. Rose Hodge (Surf Coast – Jan Juc)
Cr. Roly Livingstone (Surf Coast – Winchelsea)
Cr. Libby Mears (Mayor, Surf Coast – Aireys Inlet)
Cr. Lindsday Schroeter (Surf Coast – Winchelsea)
Cr. Jim Tutt (Surf Coast – Anglesea)
Cr. Dean Webster (Surf Coast – Torquay)

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks (it’s cold, we know!!), then you may not know that 3 of the 4 legal clothing optional beaches in Victoria are under attack, as councils make moves to try and have their clothing optional status revoked. Read previous articles in the archive to get up to speed!!

Our good friends at SolarWest have seriously jumped into the fray on behalf of the Victorian nudist community, and have had correspondence with a number of parties, including some of the SurfCoast Shire councillors at the centre of the activity. Good work SolarWest, we appreciate your efforts. We’ll be collecting together a summary of work done to date and posting it here in the near future.

At the moment we are working on compiling an archive of the letters that have already been sent to various parties, so you can see what people have already written and perhaps use some of these examples to craft your own letters. We don’t believe form letters that are exactly the same are as effective as personal letters – so make sure you communicate what motivated you to show you want our beaches saved!

The Melbourne_Nudists-Naturists Yahoo group/forum has been abuzz with activity – the notion that we may lose our beaches without consultation and without discussion of alternatives has caused extreme irritation in the community. We all like a rational argument, but the reasons given in the SurfCoast Shire motion did not appear to be based on the reality of our beaches as we know it – it’s too bad it is so cold, otherwise we’d love to meet the councillors on one of the beaches for a day of nude discussions about how our community values the small space we are allowed to use on what is otherwise a _very_ long coastline. Even better, if any of the councillors want to head along to one of the swim nights to talk with concerned members of our community, let us know and we’ll be happy to provide details!

The national Free Beach Association is also involved, lending their support. If you want to become involved in the fight to help us save our beaches, feel free to contact anyone at Free Beaches, the ANF (Aus-nude), in the forums, or here at this site. Contact details can be found on the contacts page on the right.