Pledges from our pollies of positive protection for Tasmania’s built heritage should be an integral part of their platforms for the looming state election. But it’s a conservation plea that has, as yet, failed to yield a response from either Labor, Liberals or the Greens. I made the point in my article Rise and Fall HERE, contrasting the present pro-development push in Hobart with our older buildings languishing in urgent need of tender loving care.
The parties may, of course, wake up (finally and in time) to make some pronouncements although, as we all know, there’s an ocean of difference between pre-election promise and post-election action.
Yet I raise it once more having just read Leo Schofield’s “Dear David” letter in his weekly Mercury column, examining the subject of valued legacies state leaders have left (and, as he mused, most eminent politicians are concerned with their legacies). Leo implores David Bartlett to do something right by the people.
Leo saluted Neville Wran in his time of holding the reins in New South Wales, particularly for his decision to create the Historic Houses Trust of NSW “which is ahead by a country mile of any other comparable conservation body in the country”.
Citing constructive cultural achievements by other leaders, Leo posed this point for our Premier: “You might profitably ponder these examples and, in the dying days of your Premiership, make at least one bold, visionary, long-reaching policy decision by which you will be remembered.”
Leo went on to target the woes of our built heritage: “For what it’s worth, this outsider’s view is that some long-term plan to preserve and profit intelligently and responsibly from Tasmania’s treasure of unique natural and built heritage could change perceptions of you and your government as well as gain international acclaim and prestige.
“One is not encouraged by recent events.
“Ministers acting as international train bearers for John Gay as he seeks backing for his grotesque pulp mill and a quiescent Heritage Council prepared to ignore Fahed Elali’s transcendently awful scheme to develop the Macquarie House site, thereby abandoning the chance to unite this historic building with its dining room and in doing so create a new and highly significant historic city precinct, are but two instances of lack of vision.
“The litany is nigh unto endless but if you want to focus on a single initiative then let it be Hobart.
“Pace opposing views from the north, Hobart is the capital of this state. But it is gradually being torn apart by unsympathetic development, wretched planning and massive loss of historic buildings.”
So my call is – what’s it to be David? And what’s it to be Will and Nick? Let’s hear it for our heritage!
