Finding our voice in a community at the crossroads

We should all have a stake in the state’s future, writes Natasha Chassagne

TASMANIA is at a crossroads, says the Mercury’s Tassie 2022 series. It’s the perfect metaphor for this small island state at a moment in time when some very important actions and decisions have to be taken to ensure the sustainability and wellbeing of its environment and communities.

There is a lot of discussion right now about the future of a state that is in the midst of a tourism boom and an influx of people from the mainland, either coming to live or to visit. Some very pertinent points have been made in these discussions. The Tassie 2022 series found that a key issue is population growth. At this point it is inevitable, but how this is managed is of key importance.

Many international and mainland migrants to Tasmania talk about how friendly Tasmanians are, but how hard it is to find your place in the community. This is a major issue if we are talking about increasing the population because feelings of exclusion and isolation do not make for a cohesive and strong community. And the latter will be needed to make sure that the population growth impacts are primarily positive rather than negative.

On some levels, the idea of community is strong in Tasmania, shown by projects like Tassie 2022 and the Hobart City Council’s Only in Hobart, which seeks the community voice in the future of our state and leads the conversation about what is important. On other levels, community welcoming, openness and solidarity seems elusive, especially to new arrivals. The Only in Hobart project found many participants said it took 20 years to become “accepted” here, and how well Tasmanians welcomed new people became an uncomfortable topic.

Mercury editor Chris Jones said, “We should all welcome these new arrivals – be they tourists or new Tasmanians … Shutting the doors on our little island is not the way forward.” So right he is.

At the same time there is an increasing gap between the haves and have-nots, especially as investment and migration grows and the housing crisis worsens. The collective wellbeing of Tasmanians, whether born here or new arrivals, should be of concern to tackle the issues that arose in Tassie 2022. The feeling of acceptance and being part of a community on one hand, and a greater sense of social justice and equality on the other, are key to building the resilience of Tasmania to grow, be sustainable and have happy, healthy communities.

The environment here plays a big role too. The pristine nature of the natural environment is precious and the way the new tourism boom will be managed will have either a beneficial or detrimental effect. In Tassie 2022, 55.48 per cent of readers said greater protection of the environment was important. Our world-class wilderness is a tourism selling point, but it is

also fragile and susceptible to damaging tourism impacts.

Since environmental issues are high on the agenda, perhaps a new approach is needed that affords equal priority to social and environmental wellbeing to ensure the sustainability of our environment and its people well past 2022. After all, one is integral in the other.

This kind of approach aligns with a concept for sustainability and wellbeing that is being used in Latin America called Buen Vivir (the Good Life), which emphasises the community and collective wellbeing, just as equally as it does environmental sustainability. Local government is important in such an approach. Professor David Adams said “local councils are at the crossroads of relevance” (Talking Point, January 15). He was right in saying that councils are closest to the people and so have a great stake in their wellbeing.

The distinctiveness of Tasmania should be something to be celebrated not guarded, but at the same time a level of protection is needed. Projects like Only in Hobart and Tassie 2022 have given a voice to the community in the political processes of the state. Wouldn’t more of this approach be warranted with enhanced genuine participation and less politics driving the agenda? Local governments can support these processes, but it is local communities that drive them, provided they are given the spaces to do so. When local communities are involved there is generally a greater impetus towards putting community and environmental protection on the agenda because greater participation means greater accountability for the outcomes.

More approaches like this could also help reconcile the needs and priorities of Tasmanians with new arrivals or recent migrants, along with the environment, to enhance the future collective wellbeing of our state.