Come clean on cable car: Flanagan
WORLD- RENOWNED author Richard Flanagan says the company wanting to construct a kunanyi/Mt Wellington cable car must release specific plans.
The Government has granted the company approval to start drilling on the mountain to prepare a development application, but the Man Booker Prize-winning Flanagan said: “There are so many questions about this secretive project and you have to wonder why the Government and proponent refuse to answer any of them.”
THE battle over a cable car on kunanyi/Mt Wellington is intensifying with both sides of the debate saying the longmooted project is no longer an unrealistic pipedream.
Since State Parliament first began investigating the possibility of a Mount Wellington Aerial Railway in 1905, the idea of a cable car has continued to fuel debate, albeit with a healthy level of scepticism among Tasmanians.
However, with the recent passage of special legislation and the granting of ministerial approval to facilitate planning work by the Mount Wellington Cableway Company, both the proponent and those opposed to the development are urging Tasmanians to start taking the project seriously.
“Rather than just protesting to try to stop the project, it would be nice if they [opponents] could say ‘Let’s be reasonable. If it’s going to happen, let’s minimise the impacts and find the best way forward’,” Mount Wellington Cableway founder Adrian Bold said.
Company chair Jude Franks said she was “99.9 per cent confident” the cable car would be built. Although the company is yet to lodge a development application, opposition to a cable car is also gaining momentum, with South Hobart residents organising a Mountain Mayday community event in Cascade Gardens on May 6.
Speakers will include former Greens leader Bob Brown, independent MP Andrew Wilkie and author Richard Flanagan.
“The cable car cuts against the whole meaning of the mountain to countless generations of Tasmanians, beginning with the Palawa people,” Flanagan said.
The Man Booker Prize winning author is among those who fear a cable car will become a “white elephant”.
“If the cable car is for the cruise ship passengers and we have the tourism industry saying we have to scale back the number of cruise ships, are we building it for a declining section of the market?” Flanagan said.
Tourism Industry Council chief Luke Martin recently reiterated the need to avoid “losing control” of the growing cruise ship market, which accounts for 20 per cent of the state’s tourists but a mere 2 per cent of the visitor spend.
Although Mount Wellington Cableway Company says the $54 million project will be 100 per cent privately funded, Flanagan said both the figure and that statement were unrealistic. “It’s a grand Tasmanian tradition that the state government subsidise with our taxes great follies that no one wants and which always end up destructive,” Flanagan said.
“If they are so confident of it commercially why can’t they release detailed costings? There are no rivals, they are the only proponent. There are so many questions about this secretive project and you have to wonder why the Government and proponent refuse to answer any of them.” Read more in TasWeekend,
in tomorrow’s Mercury