The Australian Greens leader is demanding the Commonwealth overrule the Tasmanian Government in approving a controversial bridge in southern Tasmania.
Tasmania’s Aboriginal community say Indigenous artifacts in a site dating back 42,000 years are at risk from a major bypass project near Hobart.
Tasmania’s Heritage Minister last week approved a permit for a 70-metre long bridge over the site (Tasmanian Times, HERE)
Greens leader Bob Brown is heading to Canberra this afternoon to push his case.
He has compared the bridge that is part of the multi-million dollar Brighton Bypass to Tasmania’s Franklin Dam dispute in the 1980s.
“The echoes of the Franklin River and Kuta Kina cave are with me at the moment as we look at a repeat,” he said.
Mr Brown says he will be meeting with the Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese to lobby for an independent review into the project.
“I’ve got the government’s ear to some degree from a minority view point in Canberra and I’m bending it,” he said.
“The Federal Government shouldn’t pay the cheque until there’s been an independent review which looks at less damaging alternatives to this very disruptive crossing as its currently proposed,” he said.
He says the Environment Minister Tony Burke could also intervene, by giving the site emergency heritage listing.
Meanwhile, Senator Brown is is standing by his Tasmanian counterpart, who’s been accused of abandoning the aboriginal community over the bypass issue.
Planning expert Gwenda Sheridan Earlier on Tasmanian Times: The Brighton Aboriginal heritage fiasco … Why have we waited 7 years for another Heritage Act, one that will bring Tasmanian heritage into the 21st century? Gwenda Sheridan’s devastating critique: HERE
phill Parsons: More Outdated Ideas
Adding insult to injury Premier Bartlett announces a 20 year plan to double the capacity of the Midland Highway, potentially extending the Brighton Bypass and its Jordan River levee bank debacle all the way to Launceston. And this announcement cynics would argue was to mask the announcement of a permit to build the Bypass being issued by the newly minted Minister.
Only last year the 4 lane highway idea was dismissed as an unfundable project, the Commonwealth supposedly having greater highway priorities and Tasmania without the $2billion to invest. We now have more understanding of the Tasmanian position.
Connecting 2 medium sized regional cities at a cost of some $10million a kilometre needs to have a purpose that we can see 20 years hence and be a of more benefit than the alternatives to achieve that purpose.
Is Bartlett sure that in 20 years Australia will be able to fuel its cars economically for it to be a road safety measure based on the future traffic volumes post 2030. Otherwise, with more expensive imported fuels the number of cars travelling the distance could decline, if not a consequence of peak oil certainly of rising demand in China and India.
Of course coal can be converted to liquid fuel and a dirtier, more carbon intensive Business As Usual approach to destroying our climate may prevail, but even in Australia the Federal Labor Government seems determined to put a price on carbon, ruling less likely that oil from coal will somehow be cheap and thus the staus quo prevail.
Abbott’s false alternative of direct climate action may avoid that cost if they are in government for 20 years without a serious global change of heart on a price on Carbon. And then there is the subsequent life of utility that a dual highway imposes on the community. Should Bartlett be banking Tasmania’s future in transport on fossil fuels motor car.
Of course, if a new highway is to send B doubles, or even treble sized road trains, along the road from the announced new Bell Bay container terminal [costed at $150M] to the transport hub at Brighton, then how does the highway measure compare with the cost of doubling the number of railway tracks?.
Such a measure, when combined with the already necessary realignment of the way, and a perhaps a wider gauge, could see a resumption of profitable passenger services as well, further reducing traffic pressure on the current road connection. Shocking as it may seem the railway may even return a profit under increased use.
Even if the cost is similar have the 2 futures been compared or are we seeing the Hobartcentric Bartlett in a bidding war with the Member for Franklin to build a better road to the North?. Does this fulfil an already decided plan lying in the Department of Infrastructure and to be stuck to regardless?. How does such inflexibility fit with any arrangements between government, unions and the road construction industry?.
Opposition Leader Hodgman tried to reach out to the road construction lobby and business last election, when he proposed a 4 lane Midlands Highway that Bartlett dismissed as unnecessary, unfundable and unaffordable in a Tasmanian context. Now, all of a sudden it has become an essential measure?.
Without a strategic plan or a comparative cost benefit study into the transport solution to serve Hobart, or even novelly, all of Tasmania, this idea becomes reborn at the same time as the decision to build over the Jordan River levee bank is announced.
Will Bartlett show the people of Tasmania the studies that have caused this change of heart and prove that if built, a 4 lane Midlands Highway, will have more lasting benefit than a double track railway?.
When Mr MacIlfatrick was arguing for continuing on the Brighton Bypass route, already decided in advance without any proper study into Aboriginal heritage, he stated that one danger of a last minute rerouting the Brighton Bypass was finding more heritage sites under the alternative bridge sites and approach routes.
Was he hinting at the obvious stone scatters about the Pontville landscape?.
Bartlett, in announcing his secret decision to double the capacity of the Midlands Highway has stated no works will commence for 5 years.
At least 40,000 years of Aboriginal occupation of the landscape left it mark in the Jordan Valley at one particular site we know about.
It is not unreasonable to assume that every well watered site with reasonable access to food resources and a tolerable climate, given clothing and shelters, was occupied for some part of some years. Thus, it is also reasonable to assume that the artefacts of that time remain in situ, if the 207 years of occupation since 1803 has not seen them destroyed or buried under the modern layers of human activity.
Tasmanian examples stand out; Kuta Kina cave with its 20,000 years, protected by its location. The shell middens of the coasts, legally protected in some instances by a park status governing the sites use. The abysmal failure to protect the petroglyphs, shell middens and other of signs from 4 wheel drive activities and other vandalism in the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area stand out as an example of government failing in its duty to us all.
Now we have this latest ‘development’, the Brighton Bypass, that has triggered a commitment to another 20 year project, albeit delayed for the first 5 years.
If the colonists flowed through a landscape wrought by 40,000 years of occupation it is reasonable to assume that their meanderings and subsequent impacts have crossed over the previous occupants’ sites.
The Premier has flagged a bypass for the northern town of Perth, where the route from the north-west [Illawara Rd] intersects that from Launceston to the south, as one of the firsts for his 20 year project.
Will there be adequate heritage studies of the route and crossing points of the South Esk River for this first replication of the Brighton Bypass?. Will other works addressing intersections also have appropriate studies?.
Also important is the legislation governing heritage in Tasmania, and in particular Aboriginal heritage.
Will the current State Government draft legislation that properly protects heritage, not artificially dividing it on a line 207, or even 233, years old?.
Remember Labor initially wanted to deny Recherché Bay, the first point of contact between Tasmanians and Europeans, a peaceful event. Now they have reignited a cultural war that needs to be resolved.
It puts Aboriginal Affairs Minister McKim in an invidious position, with the organization representing the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community unwilling to talk with government, indicating a lack of confidence in McKim’s ability to find a workable solution to the heritage issue.
If Tasmania’s leaders want to resolve the heritage matter as another step along the path to reconciling with our past their needs to be a tripartisan approach to a new Heritage Act covering all of Tasmania’s past.
Wednesday, ABC Online: Commonwealth seeks independent review
It has been revealed the Commonwealth is seeking an independent review of the Tasmanian Government’s approval of the Brighton Bypass.
The State Government last week approved construction of a bridge over the Jordan River Levee site, which contains ancient aboriginal artefacts.
Tasmanian Aborigines have today called for a Commission of Inquiry into the process.
It has also been revealed the Federal Government is engaging an independent company to review the state government’s decision to approve construction of a bridge over the bypass site.
Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown says he has been told by the Commonwealth they will review the process and costings involved in the approval.
“Government’s are now challenged with making a good decision out of a bad planning process,” he said.
A meeting of about 100 Aborigines at the bypass site voted to seek support for an immediate ban on all Aboriginal heritage surveys.
They plan to write to heritage officers and archaeologists working in Tasmania, requesting they walk off the job.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s Michael Mansell says the ban would cripple a number of projects across the state.
“The effect of that ban will be to put on hold all projects in Tasmania that have not already had an Aboriginal survey,” he said.
“So it could effect Kingston, it could effect the Bagdad bypass, it will certainly effect the gas pipeline behind Westbury and a range of other projects.”
Thursday: Emergency heritage listing
Emergency listing for Jordan River levee
Updated 1 hour 44 minutes ago
Aboriginal protest camp near the Jordon River levee heritage site
Tasmania’s aboriginal community is celebrating federal intervention in its efforts to protect ancient artefacts in the path of the Brighton road bypass near Hobart.
The Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, has given emergency heritage listing to a site on the Jordon River levee, where archeologists have discovered three million artefacts dating back 42,000 years
Mr Burke says it provides Tasmanian Aborigines with a direct link to their ancestors and is culturally important for future generations.
The Federal Government says the listing does not stop a bridge being built over the levee as part of the $176million bypass project.
But but that has not stopped celebrations at the site where Aborigines are staging a protest.
Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre says it is a good development.
“This is an absolutely wonderful piece of news and it is a tremendous boost to the campaign to gain, not only recognition of the importance of this area to the people of Tasmania generally, but also to the struggle that we’ve had to endure and maintain to get the federal government to intervene,” Mr Mansell said.
The Commonwealth will now undertake an assessment to determine if the site needs permanent protection.
First published: 2010-12-20 02:40 PM
