Kurilpa Commons was a garden, a frog pond, a memorial tree dedicated to loved ones, a lovely spot on the edge of Maiwar and should have been preserved. It arose out of a disused piece of land during covid. The Queensland government, it’s lackey’s, cronies in development, corruption within the Dickensian Department of Economic Development led us to civil disobedience and finally to their destruction of Kurilpa Commons.
The lawyer wrote:
“The definition of yard b(i) in the Summary Offences Act would make it trespass as the property had been enclosed with a temporary fence before people entered.”
Follow up question
Will the court require the commoners to pay for the deployment of fire and rescue resources used to bring ‘them’ down?
Yes.
Generally not given.
Depends on how hard the prosecution goes for it
Appropriately, he signed the advice “Lord Fish.”
The yard that the lawyer is referring to is the Kurilpa Common at Dudley Street Highgate Hill.
Kurilpa refers to the kurul, or rakali — the aquatic Australian mammal that frequented the wetlands and river banks since time immemorial. The name was given by the local Yuggera people, who held the land in common and used it as a meeting and trading place for First Nations peoples across the southeast of so-called Queensland.
There was never any doubt as to who owned the land. But these days, since colonisation, there is much doubt, given the level of political jockeying and trading in land — trading in stolen land. So much so that a former deputy head of the Department of Main Roads claimed the land to be theirs, when in fact it had already been transferred to Economic Development Queensland, another branch of government dedicated to the strategic sale of urban land to a select bunch of developers like McNab.
The Commons lies on the banks of the Maiwar — a river of memory, of law, and of living Country, rather than real estate.
The enclosure laws were introduced — and fought against by commoners, peasants, and radicals — before ‘dark satanic mills’ transformed Great Britain.
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills – William Blake, 1804.
The raw facts do not tell the entire story. Seven arrests for trespass and obstruction were made over a 24-hour period, with one person arrested after climbing a tree and remaining there throughout that time, coming down sore and sad.
A nearby resident expressed frustration in less than subtle terms at the deployment of police and Fire and Rescue resources, plainly antagonistic to the very notion of a commons existing amidst surrounding freehold land — no doubt with an eye to the capital gain attached to her own property.
For the property developer a mere blip. Fully supported by the department of Economic Development Queensland. EDQs mission statement claims “to unlock homes, drive economic prosperity and create liveable places at scale and pace.” In reality, the government managed to replace 12 affordable units with eight luxury apartments.
When I asked the police officer what he intended doing, he replied cryptically, “More haste, less speed.”
After the removal of the power lines and the extension of the pod, the person on the tree bough, lying there like a defiant mammal, was brought down and placed in an ambulance.
There, first responders asked: “What do you want to do — go to hospital or go to the watch house?”
They chose the watch house.
Their sister summed up the hurt with this poem:
When we feel pained or drained by the ugliness in the world, it is because we are mourning. We are mourning our love of what the world could be — a place that is not here, but should be.
The commons is dead, long live the commons!
Ian Curr
1 July 2026
To all who were going to go to the Sunday 5th July talk by Humphrey Mc Queen, forwarding on this cancellation notice :
Sadly have to share another notice to your email list about the Humphrey McQueen event listed for Sunday afternoon, July 5th, it has been cancelled if you could forward this again
https://workersbushtelegraph.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/wp-1783121539073.mp4
From Facebook: “Hi everyone, we deeply regret that we have to cancel this event due to the destruction of the Commons this week. If you would like to read the work of Humphrey McQueen and Peter Curtis on Al, a useful article can be found here, https://arena.org.au/artefactual-intelligences/ ”
For over six years, we have been working on this land, growing food, growing community and building a sense of belonging and connection.
It’s impossible to describe just how important and loved this place was to so many of us. It was a place that promised something else, that imagined another world beyond the horror and alienation and drudgery of capitalism and reminded us all that together we can make that world.
Thank you to all the people, animals and insects who made this place what it was. For all the ways you gave yourselves to this land and loved it. For all the hours we spent defending it, with the rich and powerful organised against us. We always fought and sometimes, against all odds, we won.
The commons defied years of attacks and presented us with endless possibility. It emerged in a disused gravel lot during the early days of the pandemic and from the beginning we were told it wouldn’t last a week, that there was no real point in putting roots down.
But there is always a point in trying to challenge a system that exploits us, oppresses us, and destroys our ability to feel connected to anything beyond ourselves. There is always a point in imagining an alternative and trying to bring it into being. There is always a point in taking risks to defend what you love.
The commons is not just a place, it’s a social relation—a way of life and relating at odds with the rotten system we live under. Against exploitation, individualism, and private property, the commons puts forth reciprocity, communalism, and solidarity. You cannot fence off a social relation, or bulldoze it. It cannot be destroyed.
Where else can you go where the land is held in common, where no money changes hands, nobody’s boss, where all decisions are democratic, all labor is collective according to people’s ability and all our labor’s fruits are shared based on need?
They’ve now made that impossible in that place, but the struggle goes on, and every day it becomes more possible everywhere.
We made that place and we can make it again.
Long live the commons.
The Commoners
1 July 2026