Broken promises litter Keswick Island and have left residents anguished for years.
Long-term resident Craig Gilberd said government inaction had led to a lack of development and misuse of the area off the coast of Mackay, in the Whitsundays.
A parliamentary inquiry is underway to investigate the current state and management of island resorts across Queensland, which Mr Gilberd welcomed.
"There's a lot of collateral damage," he said.
"If [the government] had done their job, those islands would not have gone into the disarray they are.
"The government needs to sharpen their pencil on who they let head lease these islands because it's a dismal failure."
This week, Mr Gilberd welcomed the six members of parliament who make up the Transport and Resources Committee into his home.
There are 23 private residences on Keswick Island and almost a dozen property owners were present.
They said they felt as though they had finally been heard.
Concerns over lease transfer
Mr Gilberd outlined six of his biggest concerns to the committee.
They included how the current head lease was transferred to a China-based company, the criteria for this selection and why residents were not consulted.
He said the state and local governments had also failed to uphold agreements they created.
"It's such a complicated mess," he said.
MP Shane King said the committee had heard similar concerns throughout the state.
"We're working our way down [from Cairns] ... and hearing from people about what's going on, what their thoughts are and what we can do to correct it," he said.
Keswick Island has had four owners.
In 1996, a 99-year lease agreement was set up between a head lessee and the state government for developing a section of the island.
In 2004, the second head lessee successfully lobbied the state government to have two key infrastructure and development conditions removed from the agreement.
Infrastructure never built
One of these was a condition for $150 million worth of land infrastructure and $50 million of marina infrastructure to be built on the island.
A free public jetty formed part of another agreement signed in 2008 but it was never built.
Access to the island remains its biggest challenge.
Julie Willis, who has lived on the island for nine years, said it took social media and a public outcry to get a response from the government.
She also expressed her contempt towards the level of engagement with traditional owners.
However, she said she felt positive about the way the relationship with the current owners, Oasis Forest Ltd or formerly China Bloom, was growing.
Land values plummet
Mr Gilberd said people had gone bankrupt over blocks of land they purchased some 20 years ago.
"They're in their 80s and the land has gone down [in value] from $250,000 to $25,000," he said.
Ms Willis said some had not been able to afford to build on their land.
"And there hasn't been infrastructure to enable those builds," she said.
"People have sold and people have had mortgage foreclosures where the bank has repossessed property and they've had to move on.
"It's really distressing for people who bought 20 years ago and have never realised their retirement dream."
But for Gold Coast couple Adrian and Lee Corbett, it was like they had won the lottery.
"It was the most bizarre thing. We're driving out for coffee on a Sunday morning ... and my husband goes, 'There's this block of land on this island for sale and it's $25,000'," Ms Corbett said.
"I went, 'Buy it ... just buy it'."
When they went to look it up online, they saw the house across the road was for sale for $250,000.
"We rang the real estate on Monday and said, 'We'll buy that too'," she said.
Ms Corbett said she would love to see an ecological resort on the island.
"It shouldn't be the best kept secret," she said.
Possible solutions
Mr Gilberd said he wanted to see a separate government portfolio to manage the state's islands.
He said it should conduct regular reviews and enforce penalties.
"Basically like a CEO does in a business ... they need to make sure everything gets done and done correctly," he said.
Ms Willis believed if companies did not meet lease agreements, they should be made to forfeit their lease.
"There are options there, it's just no one has ever explored them," she said.
Public hearings have now been conducted in Cairns, Airlie Beach, Mackay, Keswick Island and Yeppoon.
A report by the committee is due to be tabled in December, and the community on Keswick is hopeful it will finally enact change.
Shane King said the report would include a series of recommendations based on what the committee has discovered.
However, it will remain to be seen what action the government will take.
Craig Gilberd said residents won't stop making noise.
"We love this place and we're going to be here forever," he said.
"We're going to hold them accountable."
