The Track is a controversial
road located in the Daintree region in the tropical north east of Australia — a
region famed for its remnant tropical rainforests and unique convergence of
mountainous rainforest with inshore coral reefs. The issue is historically marked
by a lack of public participation and a particularly bitter history of contestation
between political interests. Constructed amid public controversy and protests
during the mid 1980s, it remains a largely unsurfaced road, 30 kilometres in
length. Its crudeness reflects its mode of construction: a single bulldozer
negotiating difficult terrain and protesters — sometimes buried up to their necks.
It is plagued by a combination of problems: an unstable surface in a region where
Deliberation and the Public Sphere Simon Niemeyer
annual rainfall is measured in metres, steep slopes and river crossings. And it
remains a thorny issue, implacably stuck in an unsustainable status quo.