Image: ‘Clydes Island’, an oil painting by Kim Peart, completed on Sunday 28th April 1996 in one of the old shops in Bellerive, my studio now demolished, as news of Tasmania’s tragedy came over the radio. This work was later given to the people of East Timor to celebrate their independence in 1999. ~ Through tragedy and pain new dreams are made.
Natasha Cica, a Tas Uni academic writing in The Conversation, asks the bristly question ~ Does Tasmania need an intervention?
Lacking a bridge for cars, trucks or trains, the Tasmanian pond tends toward isolation and once anyone leaves, they don’t get back that much.
I escaped from olde Van Diemen’s Land in the dead of night in late 2007, driving north to family in Brisbane in two days, after projects failed and crisis loomed.
As an outsider now, I lament the slow draining of Tasmania’s life-blood, the opportunities lost that could have created a brighter future, such as the neglect of Bellerive’s heritage and tourism potential in favour of an international cricket circus.
No strategic planning there, just a political football, with election money from Howard driving locally vested interests to deliver a totally inappropriate development.
The Glenorchy Show Grounds would have been a far better venue for global events, where the trains run to the stadium.
Such are the wars of Tasmania that cause the denizens to miss the boat, leaving a scar in the community that is then sprinkled with hoopla sugar.
Bellerive retains a percentage of its heritage potential, but the opportunities discovered in Salamanca were totally lost across the river, where even the old Fort on the Bluff was nearly turned into a sewage treatment plant in the 1950s.
In the 1960s the Army mooted bulldozing the Kangaroo Bluff Battery for a parade ground.
To survive the destructive nature of Tasmanian society, maybe one needs to lose touch.
I love Tasmania with a vengeance and hope to return one day, at least to throw eggs at that ghastly stadium and be quiet in places I know, where dreams spread through time and land with the sheoaks and the ocean sand.
I once approached the old Hydro, in about 1980, to ask if solar power stations in space might be of interest to them, but it was not their game and the prospect may have sounded as practical as building a Bass Straight bridge.
Now I wonder if stellar energy could be a national project, with participation by all States, including Tasmania, to invest the nation’s resource bonanza in building a future that will enable our access to the resources of space.
Some of my ancestors, the Youngs of Clarence Plains, chased the dream to Ballarat and dug up the gold to buy land in Rokeby, rubbing shoulders with illegal immigrants from around the world at the diggings.
It was a different world then, but it was mining that launched Australia from a convict backwater to the beginnings of a nation and the Southern Cross of Eureka born into legend and onto our flag.
Why shouldn’t we all be Diggers now and take a direct interest in the future that we can create, Down Under and among the stars.
We have 7 months to grab the ears of those who would wield power in Canberra and hammer this nation into a new shape that will be stronger and ablaze with imagination.
With stellar energy from solar power stations in space, we could become world-leaders in the fight to win back a safe Earth, by cutting the carbon umbilical cord that is pumping poison into the biosphere.
With stellar energy we could extract excess carbon from the air and sea and reprocess the carbon back into a useful resource for Earth and space industries.
Could extracted carbon become the new gold?
There is plenty more carbon in the atmosphere of Venus, once Earth’s biosphere is stabilised for a safe climate.
Unless Tasmania participates in a national vision, even leading the way, mainland Australia will continue to look down past the buckle of Canberra and wonder what exactly lies below Bass Straight.
The fate of Tasmania may well be intervention, as dangerous climate change makes large swathes of the continent uninhabitable in a hotter world.
Like the power of one, individuals can make a huge difference, when they know what they want and strive with others who share the vision.
We can remember Eureka and we can complete the saga of Australian independence, across the great southern land and among the stars of the Southern Cross.
The potential of olde Bellerive might now only exist as a recreation in a virtual world, so much is gone, but in the virtual world any Tasmanian can meet with others from anywhere in the World, to explore ways to win back a safe Earth and create an amazing future among the stars.
If the spirit of Eureka can be found, we will dig up among the stars for gold now and if we dare, create a stellar economy without poverty, where each member of society is empowered in a creative life.
In the age of automation and robotics, we must think in a completely different way about work, as former paid employment is vanishing into the machine, leaving humans to compete like slaves for crumbs.
If Tasmania finds its wits, the Vandemonians could lead an intervention into the mainland, to demand a stellar vision for the nation, by building solar power stations in space.
This will create a much stronger Australia, better able to defend itself in the troubled years ahead as the carbon crisis drives increasing chaos.
It may be a simple choice, for Tasmania to wait for the human invasion, or lead the counter-attack to hitch a wagon to the stars and win the climate change wars.
NOTES ~
Vandemonian ~ An old word for a denizen of or from Van Diemen’s Land, the name of Tasmania until 1853.
Virtual Worlds ~ Second Life was the first, but there are many virtual worlds now, including InWorldz, where we have projects, including a Ross Bridge exhibition. For more information, I can be contacted via our website ~ http://www.islandearth.com.au/
1952 Memorandum on the Bellerive Bluff ~
31st March 1952
MEMORANDUM for :-
The Secretary,
Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board
20 Murray Street,
Hobart
BELLERIVE SEWERAGE SITE FOR TREATMENT WORKS:
If this problem is considered purely as an engineering one, that of finding a site with sufficient area to contain a treatment plant from which the effluent can be discharged into a tidal river, the old fort at Kangaroo Point is satisfactory, though not necessarily the most suitable place in the district.
Personally, I think that other aspects of this matter must be taken into consideration. The fort site is practically the only open space left in a residential area that has been rapidly built up and is now closely settled. It is a very attractive spot, with an exceedingly pleasant view; and I understand that the fort is of considerable historic interest. In my opinion, if the site be no longer required by the army, it should be reserved as a park. In this connection I could point out that a “recreation ground” for organised athletic sport, football matches etc., does not fulfil the same function as a park, because, when organised sport is in progress the ground is not available for those who might wish to use it for more restful purposes. Therefore the fact that such a sports ground may exist a quarter of a mile away is no reason why there should not be a park on the bluff.
I suggest that there are several suitable alternative sites. One would be on the end of Rosny Point, where the contours would enable the installation of a plant which could be extended in planned stages to cope with the sewerage of Bellerive, Montagu Bay and Lindisfarne, and ultimately the whole of the eastern shore from Geilston Bay to Howrah. I would point out that this portion of Rosny is quite uninhabited at present, and therefore it would be possible to plan the subdivision of the whole area in such a way that the proposed works would fit unobtrusively into the plan.
In my opinion there are serious objections, from the town-planning point of view, to the proposed site on Kangaroo Point, and I feel that consideration should be given to these objections, and that the whole plan should be re-cast before it is too late.
H. M. L. Murray
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH
