Julie Goodsir* and a team of volunteers organised a massive effort at Georges Heights and Middle Head on Boxing Day to alert visitors from all over Sydney and beyond of the threat of private residential development facing a large section of the historic headland.
The visitors, many of whom travel to Georges Heights and Middle Head each year to gain unique vantage points on the Sydney to Hobart yacht race fleet, were shocked to learn public land and open space within their view could be overshadowed by private development.
"1500 people signed our petition to save Middle Head," Julie Goodsir said. "We only found out about the proposed development in mid-November and did not have much time to get our 'Save Middle Head' petition organised. It was so heartening to see so many people from all areas of Sydney wanting to sign our petition.
"In little more than a month, and at a very busy time of the year, our support base has grown to 2000 members. Tony Abbott was the Member for Warringah when the Headland Preservation Group campaigned to save this public land 17 years ago.
"Now Tony Abbott is not only the local member he is also our Prime Minister. I have heard he sometimes rides his bike down to Middle Head. Therefore he is familiar with this headland. What is at stake here is not a local issue but one for all Australians.
"The public land on Middle Head where the development of a private aged care facility is being proposed is an integral part of all the former Defence sites around Sydney Harbour that Linda Bergin, my late husband and the Headland Preservation Group, fought so hard and so rightly for, so long ago.
"We are not going to allow their legacy, and the time with their families that they sacrificed for all Australians, to be taken away forever.
"We would like a meeting with Tony Abbott here on the site. I think he is unaware of some of the issues at stake particularly the worrying precedent that approval of an aged care residential development would have for other parts of our iconic foreshore."
*Julie Goodsir was heavily involved in the Headland Preservation Group led by Linda Bergin OAM and her husband the late Don Goodsir OAM. A sandstone bench was placed at Georges Heights in his memory after he lost his battle with cancer in 2010.