Brighton Bypass Decision

An additional $12 million will be invested from the Nation Building Program to protect Aboriginal heritage at the Jordan River levee near Brighton.

The Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage, Brian Wightman, said he had decided to sign the Aboriginal Heritage Permit for the Brighton Bypass to cross the levee on a four-lane fly-over.

“This decision will protect the significant Jordan River levee and enable further protection and investigation of the surrounding Aboriginal site,” Mr Wightman said.

“It is a positive balance that protects the levee and ensures a safe road for all Tasmanians.”

He said the single arched 70-metre span means that the levee will not be disturbed.

“This levee is a significant place, not just for the Tasmanian Aboriginal community but for all Tasmanians,” he said.

“I understand its value and the emotion that surrounds it; I am convinced that this is the best way to protect this heritage.”

Mr Wightman said he had visited the Jordan River Aboriginal site, studied all available information and met with the key stakeholders in recent weeks.

“A key consideration was to ensure the levee was undisturbed by these important road works and I am proud to have been able to deliver on that,” he said.

“This is the biggest ever expenditure to protect Aboriginal heritage in this state and that demonstrates the importance the Government places on the Jordan River levee.

Mr Wightman said the Permit will be conditional on a construction and environment management plan being approved.

“The levee is safe but we will also be working to further protect the surrounding Aboriginal heritage site, much of which is on private land.

“The Federal Government has agreed to unlock funds to allow us to negotiate to purchase some of that land,” he said.

Andrew Wilkie:

The Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, has welcomed the Federal Government’s commitment of additional funds to reduce the impact of the Brighton Bypass on the Jordan River levee site.

“While it is far from a perfect solution, it’s still a positive development that the Federal Government is going to provide an additional $12 million to adjust the design of the bridge, as well as funds to buy the levee site and put it in the public’s hands,’’ he said.

Mr Wilkie said it was a shame the State Government had needed to be dragged kicking and screaming to recognise the importance of the aboriginal heritage site.

“There is no doubt that the levee is an Aboriginal heritage site of national, and probably world, significance,’’ he said.

“The State Government had no intention of protecting the levee site until the aboriginal community, the Federal Government and I became involved.’’

Mr Wilkie said the State Government had to start taking aboriginal heritage seriously.

“The fault lies squarely with the State Government, whose disregard for proper process resulted in the discovery of this important heritage site coming much too late,’’ he said.

“The Brighton Bypass should act as a warning to future governments that they need to follow proper process and seek to identify areas of heritage value earlier on and adjust their plans on the drawing boards, rather than during construction.’’

Mr Wilkie said he had asked the Federal Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese, to consider more funding for an interpretation centre at the site.

“I’ve discussed today with Mr Albanese the merits of an off-ramp down to the site and an interpretation centre, pending the aboriginal community’s agreement, and he’s seen value in the idea,’’ Mr Wilkie said.

“I now call on the State Government to progress the idea.

“Today I have also spoken to the office of the Environment Minister, Tony Burke, and am advised the Federal Government is still assessing an application for emergency heritage listing for the levee site.

“A listing would not stop the road, but it would at least give proper recognition to the extraordinary heritage value of the site.’’

Nick McKim:

The Tasmanian Greens today expressed their disappointment that the Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage, Brian Wightman, has made his decision to grant the permits necessary for the next stage of the controversial Brighton Bypass.

Greens Leader Nick McKim MP said that the internationally recognised Aboriginal site at the Jordan River levee site, that is at least 40, 000 years old, deserves protection for current and future generations.

“Today we saw that a bridge, albeit many years in the development stages, can be prioritised over 40, 000 years of heritage so significant to our first Tasmanians,” Mr McKim said.

“It is bitterly disappointing that all the consultation and hard work to identify viable alternatives undertaken by many stakeholders, was unable to find a way through.”

“We must all learn from this distressing, and potentially divisive, situation. This should and could have been avoided if the appropriate and rigorous site investigation, planning and consultation had occurred at the beginning of this project.”

“The Greens are the only party in the State Parliament who have consistently stated our opposition to any impacts upon the Jordan River Levee site, and have called for its protection to be prioritised over the planned route of the Bypass.”

Mr McKim again reiterated that the decision on the permits issued by Minister Wightman did not go to Cabinet.

Earlier on Tasmanian Times, Gwenda Sheridan:

HERE

And,

Sue Neales, Mercury: Bigger picture ignored

…

But in giving the freeway flyover the go-ahead, Mr Wightman once again perpetuated the myth that such an historic site throwing light on Australia’s earliest civilisation is only of significance to Aboriginal Tasmanians and that only their interest would be served if the bridge was not allowed to be constructed over the Jordan River levee bank.

Whether that’s quite what Abe Lincoln meant in his definition that a government should be for all the people is open to debate.

What is less arguable is that at the heart of Lincoln’s manifesto is a belief that every government should strive to make life better, fairer and more bearable for all citizens.

That’s a hard ask in the modern era of complex and tangled government, with its myriad executive layers, political advisers, bloated bureaucracies and virtually independent government-owned businesses.

When a government, even one as small in terms of the number of people it governs as Tasmania’s, is essentially divided into dissociated silos separate departments and government enterprises each charged with achieving the best internal results who then in government keeps oversight of the bigger picture.

And that’s the bigger picture in Abe Lincoln’s terms, the greater social good.

An obvious example in Tasmania of this shortcoming is poker machines.

Clearly for the Treasury Department, keeping poker machines in the state is important to the Government’s bottom line. Poker machine taxes mean more money for the state, that is the simple orthodoxy of the bean counters.

The Government’s “for the people” line in this case is that poker machine taxes paid by the state’s monopoly operator, the Federal Group, pay for hospitals, schools and roads.

But the “greater good” argument is not assuaged even hardly considered in this simple view of poker machines.

If, as anti-poker machine campaigner and independent federal MP Andrew Wilkie argues, the social damage caused by poker machines through cash-strapped households, broken marriages, burglaries and gambling addiction actually costs the Tasmanian community more than it benefits from in taxes, who is responsible for doing the holistic sums?

And where does that fit in with the role of a government being to govern and make decisions benefiting the overall community, or as much of it as it can?

Sue Neales’ full comment, HERE

• Brian Ward, Mercury, Bypass fight:

BRIGHTON bypass protester Aaron Everett says he will stand his ground in opposition to the $177 million Midland Highway upgrade’s encroachment on a significant Aboriginal heritage site.

Newly appointed Heritage Minister Brian Wightman announced on Friday that a fly-bridge would be built over the Jordan River levee at Brighton.

The news angered many protesters because of the heritage of the site, which archaeologists say contains ancient relics dating back 40,000 years.

Mr Everett, of Tea Tree, said he would remain at the site for “as long as it takes” for the State Government to reassess the construction, and he is ready to fight to the end should the development continue over the Jordan River levee.

“If they’re gonna go ahead and bring their machines in, well, anything’s possible to the point where we might be looking at arrests,” Mr Everett said.

The protests could become the biggest in Tasmania since anti-dam protesters occupied the Franklin Dam site in 1982, which triggered 1217 arrests and national media coverage.

But Mr Everett insisted that his group would keep the protests as peaceful as possible and that there was no cause to incite extreme methods to stop the development.

“We are here to let the Government know that this kind of treatment will no longer be tolerated and people won’t stand by and let it happen,” he said. Mr Everett and archaeologist Rob Paton confirmed that human remains, estimated to be more than 40,000 years old, were found on the site.

Full story HERE