Media release – Toby Rowallan, President, Hobart Northern Suburbs Rail Action Group (HNSRAG)
2025 Annual General Meeting
It has been another difficult year for us on the Hobart Rail Action Group (HNSRAG).
As you know, despite all of our hard work over the past sixteen years, the State Government has ignored our proposal and is pressing ahead with their plan to destroy part of the railway and turn it into a busway.
This despite their other plan to build a major stadium at Macquarie Point, and ignore the far greater capacity offered by rail at the same time, despite wanting to have thousands of people attend events there!
We do not support the stadium as it is currently planned, because it is not planned to have rail!
They are intending to destroy the remaining rail corridor near Hobart for a Northern Access Road to the stadium, a cost of some $76 million for less than one kilometre of road!
This alone proves the lie they are perpetuating about the cost of their busway versus rail.
For this year’s (unexpected) state election, we sent out a pledge request to candidates, asking them to commit to supporting rail and not the destructive busway.
Whilst we did receive a number of pledges back, unfortunately, we did not get any from any members or candidates of the Labor party, despite our efforts to engage with them in previous months.
We do not yet understand why this is. It is very clear to us that there are only three choices for the railway; the current state of affairs which is do nothing, destroy it for a busway, or keep it as a railway and reinstate a commuter rail service of some kind.
We do not understand why anyone can ‘sit on the fence’ with this issue, given the clear choices available.
We have a very specific view on what kind of rail service it should be, using the existing gauge and trains with a normal or ‘heavy’ rail wheel profile, to enable use by the Tasmanian Transport Museum for special events and other heritage organisations.
As you may have seen from our Facebook page, we did indeed receive a response to the pledge from Jeremy Rockliff’s office, and it was filled with distortions, assumptions and falsehoods.
We went through that document in detail, debunking every point, and we have sent that back to the Premier’s office, also to the House of Assembly opposition and crossbench members in the Lower House, as well as those in the Legislative Council.
The other significant issue for HNSRAG is the imminent destruction of the old Bridgewater bridge, which of course carries the railway line.
The cost of destroying the bridge, already tendered for $14m, would cover its maintenance for many years. The old Bridgewater Bridge was also heritage listed, but this too has been ignored by the State Government.
Whilst it does not make a renewed rail crossing on a purpose-built bridge impossible, the destruction of the old bridge will make that much more expensive and much more difficult. Indeed, at every stage, the Liberal State Government has deliberately made it harder and more complex for rail services to return.
There is no doubt in our minds that this is not due to any consideration of the costs or benefits but solely the agenda and decision of the Liberals that they did not want rail and have sought any excuse to justify that.
For the HNSRAG committee, it has also been a difficult year due to the lack of a treasurer, we have been unable to find someone to take up that role following Jan Dunsby’s untimely passing last year.
Former President Michael Hangan, who had been acting in the role of Secretary, also stepped away from the Committee in April, leaving us with no Secretary. The loss of these key positions has greatly hampered our ability to organise events and continue our campaign.
For 2026 we have a number of things we hope to progress, in particular persuading Labor to make that full commitment to rail, and a few other key things that will involve regular contact with members of State Parliament.
We also hope to further progress the public awareness campaign – we know that we have public support, but we need the public to make more noise about that.
As you may recall, the Annual General meeting held in March was actually supposed to have been held in 2024.
So this year it is just a short gap between AGMs, the 2025 AGM will be held in the correct year, and I’m pleased to announce, as per the enclosed graphic above, that it will be on Saturday 15 November at 15:00 at St Albi’s in Moonah.
Our Special Guest Speaker will be Greens MHA Helen Burnet, the Greens shadow spokesperson for transport. Helen has previously made strong commitments to rail both with Greens policy announcements and of course has stood with us beside our ‘Rail or Fail’ banner.
I hope that you can make it.
I hope that you will also please renew your membership with us, or even consider donating to help our campaign. We can’t do it without you.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions.
Sincerely, with kind regards,
Toby
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