Transcript of media conference with Cassy O’Connor, Greens’ candidate for the Legislative Council Division of Hobart, and Greens’ Leader Rosalie Woodruff, The Goods Shed, Hobart, 18 April 2024.

Cassy O’Connor

We’re standing here in front of the newly-listed Goods Shed which the Heritage Council has given a permanent place on the Tasmanian Heritage Register. And that’s after a long exhaustive and comprehensive process. It’s an acknowledgement that the Goods Shed has a really significant role a role of state significance in understanding our European history and the role of rail transport in our development.

The fact now that we’ve got this beautiful heritage listed building smack bang at centre half forward on the field on the stadium site is just yet another reason why the Planning Commission should reject the Project of State Significance. Parliament should reject it, and the Premier should walk away.

There are so many issues with this stadium: a billion dollar price tag, the scale of it, the impact on the sacred ground of the Cenotaph, the fact that there’s no mandate for it, the lost opportunity on investing in housing and health and real climate action. It’s really just a sign of how little thought Jeremy Rockliff put into his stadium proposal after being duped and rolling over to the AFL.

Journalist – Elliott

What is the significance of it being included on the Register? What does that mean in terms of how it can be redeveloped in future? Or can it be moved?

Cassy O’Connor

Well the Heritage Council was very clear in its statement yesterday that this building, in this place, has enormous heritage value to Tasmania. If there was a plan for example to move it that would just add to the billion dollar price tag. But it would also remove its heritage value because the Goods Shed has been recognised and put on the state’s Heritage Register as a place of significance to our understanding of where we came from.

Really, Jeremy Rockliff just needs to have a look at this decision and rethink. You know, Macquarie Point should not be the home of the Tasmania Devils. That should be York Park with away games at Bellerive and spend those hundreds of millions of dollars building homes for Tasmanians or investing in our hospitals, which is what we believe overwhelmingly Tasmanians want.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

If the government does barrel through and tear down the shed or move it, what will that say about [inaudible]?

Cassy O’Connor

First of all, that would be a disgraceful attack on heritage values and potentially unlawful under the Heritage Act. The Heritage Council was very clear in its words yesterday that this building in this place is what has state significance and any attempt to move it would have to be done under very strict guidelines.

That said, can you imagine the cost of moving this extraordinary building? And what that would do to the heritage values of the Goods Shed? What’s the point of having the good shed on the Heritage Register if it isn’t in the place where it’s served us as a hub for rail transport in Tasmania?

Tasmanian Times

The Heritage Council also said yesterday that they are discussing the importance of this listing with the Macquarie Point Development Corporation and other stakeholders. Do you think these discussions should be public?

Cassy O’Connor

Well, wouldn’t it be great if we had some sort of transparency in discussions about the stadium more broadly. If the Rockliff government – which alleges it’s into openness and transparency – was actually genuine about that, if there are conversations of consequence to be had about this site, and this state and significant heritage building, there needs to be maximum transparency about that.

But more importantly in some ways, what we need here is for Jeremy Rockliff to understand he’s backed in a dud. It is hugely expensively unaffordable, unpopular, and now we have a a heritage building, smack bang centre-half-forward on the field. I mean, this is just another reason for Jeremy Rockliff to walk away from the Macquarie Point stadium and accept that York Park should be the home of the Devils and that they should play their away games at Bellerive.

Journalist – Elliott

How would you like to see the Goods Shed used into the future?

Cassy O’Connor

The Goods Shed is quite often used. It is a public space. There are events here. It’s part of the fabric of our city. Plenty of people in and around Hobart go to gigs at the Goods Shed just where it is with its now precious heritage protection. It’s really important. It belongs to the people of Tasmania. It is important that it stays where it is, that it’s looked after. And Jeremy Rockliff walks away from his stadium folly.

Journalist – Elliott

[inaudible] to John Kamara, do you take issue with that?

Cassy O’Connor

I just felt ill when I saw some of those disgusting comments from cowardly trolls hiding behind their anonymity. No one in public life deserves abuse like that. No one does, full stop. It has no place in a civil society, no place in our democracy and I hope that John’s going okay. And take some small comfort from the fact that there’s no evidence any of those accounts are in fact Tasmanian.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Were you disturbed by the briefing you received on the Blake Review?

Rosalie Woodruff

I was disturbed by the briefing. I was extremely disturbed actually. I left feeling very angry, very angry at Jeremy Rockliff for having created a fundamentally flawed process. What we’ve got now is a report that didn’t answer the questions that Tasmanians need to have answered.

We’ve got you know, the reviewer, Jeremy Rockliff gave the job of the review to Tasmanian when he was warned to get an independent person from out of state. And we heard from Mr Blake yesterday that personal conflicts were in his mind and it did affect the questions that he asked. It did affect the information he was prepared to receive or not receive. So, very concerned at what Jeremy Rockliff has created: a report that is fundamentally flawed, that doesn’t actually give us any more information than we knew beforehand from the Commissioners’ own report. When

Journalist – Josh Duggan

When you say personal conflict, my understanding is he did not ask for the sector list of who received section 18 notices, because that would, he said that would affect, that will be awkward for him if it was people on the list that he knew? Is that correct? And does that demonstrate that he almost certainly had a conflict of interest?

Rosalie Woodruff

It is correct. He said words to that effect. And what it shows is that he was hampered in being able to do the investigations, because he might feel uncomfortable at the information he would receive. It should have been given by the Premier to a person who’s not Tasmanian.

It’s obviously the case that people who have been senior state servants, people who’ve been around as long as Mr Blake, there will be connections. One would have hoped that that wouldn’t have stood in the way of him being able to do part of his job, but clearly it affected him. And so that is just one of the reasons this is fundamentally flawed.

The second reason is that the reviewer wasn’t given the resources that he needed to do his job properly. He clearly didn’t have all the information before him, and that was withheld because of matters of of legal cases that are ongoing. So critical information was not available to Mr Blake. And he was not given the resources he needed to meet personally with the Commissioners who asked him to have a conversation. They needed to have their legal counsel present, for obvious reasons. They’re just ordinary citizens. And yet, Mr Blake did not have conversations, one on one conversations, with the Commissioners that they asked for.

Journalist – Josh Duggan

Mr Blake seems to have been the least curious person in Tasmania about the Commission of Inquiry. How much blame does he deserve? For not asking fairly simple questions and requesting fairly basic information?

Rosalie Woodruff

I think a lack of curiosity is a fair comment. That’s that was what I felt and listening to the conduct of the review that Mr Blake undertook a real lack of curiosity, not asking the critical questions that we want asked that everyone in Parliament want asked. That was the reason that we got the review: to understand if there were any state secretaries who were on the list of 22 people against whom the Commissioners were not able to bring an adverse finding because of a range of circumstances that happened. We didn’t get the answer to that.

And we didn’t get any more clarity than any member of the public could get from reading the Commission of Inquiry Report. That wasn’t the job that should have been done. And that is Jeremy Rockliff’s fault, it is his mistake. And it is a fundamentally flawed report. And unfortunately, for victim survivors and people who are looking for clarity, it needs to start again.

Journalist – unidentified

Just out of curiosity, do you believe that he was set up to fail? And that perhaps the terms of reference from the very beginning were not wide enough?

Rosalie Woodruff

No, I think the terms of reference actually were wide enough. You know, he didn’t have the resources. He wasn’t the right person for the job because he’s Tasmanian, no other sort of comment on on Michael Blake himself. But he didn’t do the job. And it was because he didn’t have the the resources. He wasn’t a non-Tasmanian, and he didn’t have all the information before him.

I believe he also should have ‘called time’ and stopped the job, because it was clear that he couldn’t do it properly. That’s a matter for Mr Blake. But fundamentally, the Greens are concerned at what Jeremy Rockliff started, which is a sham investigation, unfortunately, and it’s left victim survivors very disappointed that yet again they’ve been let down by this government.

Journalist – unidentified

Going forward do you think this review should be withdrawn and [inaudible]?

Rosalie Woodruff

Yes, I do. Because we need to have the answer to the questions and that the investigation hasn’t been done. It hasn’t been done because it wasn’t done by a reviewer who was able to ask the piercing questions that were needed to be asked, he didn’t have the resources he needed to do his job properly and he didn’t have all the information he needed to make an assessment. So it needs to be redone. It’s fundamentally flawed in its current form.

Journalist – unidentified

[inaudible]

Rosalie Woodruff

I’ve got no idea except there’s been a succession of things that Jeremy Rockliff has started since the Commission of Inquiry, all about providing – supposedly providing – reassurance to victims survivors and Tasmanians. None of them have worked, because he hasn’t actually been able to demonstrate he’s prepared to have full transparency about the matters at hand. We have to know if any members of the State Service in senior roles as Secretaries or previous Secretaries were involved in what the Commissioners wanted to make as an adverse finding, but were unable to.

Journalist – Elliott

Labor has been out a timber mill today backing in the industry. Do you believe that the forestry industry was used as a political wedge during the election?

Rosalie Woodruff

Yes it was. And that’s not surprising because Liberal and Labor politicians are both in lockstep in wanting to continue logging and burning native forests until 2040. So the Liberal and Labor parties are both on a unity ticket in wanting to destroy native forests in a climate emergency, when the most important thing we should do is to end the emissions coming from that logging and burning every year. There’s no doubt that Labour will try and signal each way.

Fundamentally, the Greens support sawmillers and the logging industry in Tasmania, we want a transition plan to move to plantation forests. Contracts end in 2027, it’s past time to end native forest logging. Regional communities across Tasmania are left in in limbo and being used as a political football by Liberal and Labor politicians playing divisive wedge politics?

Journalist – unidentified

Climate 200 is targeting Franklin. What does that say to Labor about their [inaudible]?

Rosalie Woodruff

I think Labour had better watch out because they’re being dishonest with Tasmanians when they say they really care about taking strong action on the climate emergency. Strong action on the climate emergency means ending the massive emissions that come from native forest logging and burning every single year. The Greens did that successfully. The biggest reduction ever in our in our state’s emission profile was when we ended the logging and burning of thousands of hectares of forest in 2014 and put 170,000 hectares into protected forests. That’s what we need to be doing with our beautiful biodiversity. We’re in an extraordinary place in Tasmania to protect species which are on the point of extinction and labour could stand with Tasmanians who want a future that includes beautiful native species like sweet parrots and masked owls by ending native forest logging and burning.