As we move into the new year, I reflect on the personal stress created by an unwanted development proposed for years and years. I have for the last eight years or so been involved in the struggle to stop the building of a cable car and associated buildings on kunanyi. I had at first thought there was no risk of this occurring because the mountain is protected by the Wellington Park Act and the Wellington Park Management Plan, both of which make it clear that recreation and tourism uses are only permitted to the extent that they are consistent with natural values.
There are also many details in the management plan that would appear to preclude this sort of development. Alarm bells rang for me when a proponent succeeded in persuading the Wellington Park Management Trust (WPMT ) to propose an expansion of the Pinnacle Specific Area to suit their proposal. The WPMT rammed this amendment through despite community opposition and the Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC) finding WPMT’s responses to seven of the concerns raised by representors to be inadequate. (The TPC review is restricted to commenting on the adequacy of responses to representations.) Disappointing as it was to have this amendment go through despite our win in the TPC, the engagement and response from Hobartians (and also many further afield) was heartening. I read all of the representations (there were only 551 at this stage) and was impressed by the passion and erudition of those in opposition. Our next wins were a rally of 5000 people at Cascade Gardens and the Cascade Brewery announcing that they would not allow their land to be used to facilitate the cable car.
The state government passed the Cable Car (kunanyi/Mount Wellington) Facilitation Act 2017 to override the wishes of the Hobart City Council within the Wellington Park – and so it would go on. Every time we had a win there would be an intervention, so that we could never quite kill it off. We are now facing an appeal by the proponent against the council’s rejection of the project last year. This can all be very dispiriting, but through it all there is some sunshine. When the development application (DA) was submitted there were 16,589 representations, 71.7% against, but more importantly many of those against (I didn’t read them all this time) were impassioned, erudite and well researched. Many were technically detailed, disciplined and referenced and would not have been out of place in a technical journal. There are certainly a lot of thoughtful and smart people who are passionate to save kunanyi from this monstrosity.
Emotionally it has been an ongoing roller-coaster. But this struggle is far from unique. We could be discussing the Gorge Hotel proposal in Launceston or the proposed helicopter tourism at Lake Malbena. We hear developers complain about a lack of certainty or a slow process, but this is all brought about by proposals that are inconsistent with the planning scheme or the management plan. Often what makes the process protracted is government intervention to move the goalposts and sideline local government. The result is expensive for communities at a number of levels. Most obviously there is a monetary cost to running campaigns and fighting legal battles, but there is also the cost to the community of all those energies diverted from caring for the community and improving the environment, to fighting to retain what we have.
So, what about the personal stress? It’s certainly there, I think because the stakes are so high. We have put a lot of time, energy and money into saving kunanyi from this project that we will never get back, but if the project were to go ahead it would be a deep spiritual loss. I would like to close with an excerpt from my representation to the HCC in response to the DA. It followed 21 pages of technical arguments, but I think illustrates why these things are worth fighting for, despite the stress.
‘This proposal would be hurtful to the mountain we love so dearly and by extension hurtful to all of us who feel that deep sense of attachment to place that kunanyi evokes. For me as for many others kunanyi is a loved and respected friend who watches over our city. Yes, she has her scars (such as the monstrous concrete tower), but that does not mean that further injury is justified. For any who find that hard to comprehend – consider a much-loved elderly aunt with a scar on her forehead. Would you let somebody slash her face just because “she is hardly pristine”? kunanyi is our connection with the wild Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. From her pinnacle and from her ridges it is possible (on a clear day) to look deep into the southwest and by a turn of the head to look over Hobart and the settled southeast. This is deeply engrained in our consciousness and so when we look up at kunanyi we re-experience that feeling of a spectacular boundary between the wild face of the planet, little changed for millennia and the grossly altered and ordered landscape of modernity. ...’
Phil Stigant