Bulldozer approach
IT is concerning to read the State Government is pushing on with a scheme for a cableway at Cradle Mountain ( Mercury, April 18). Where is the community consultation on this proposal? The social licence? The Government transparency? This would seem to be a repeat performance of the non-disclosed government deal to conduct preliminary works for a cableway on kunanyi /Mt Wellington.
This bulldozer approach to development in sensitive wilderness whereby the Government simply bypasses community consultation and due process is not acceptable. Once these special places are overrun with metal paraphernalia and besieged by tourists, we have lost all that visitors and Tasmanians hold dear. by the proxy war of oppression promulgated by Israel with their generous backers and cheerleaders in the US. We also see the shrill vitriol and ad hominem attacks on anyone who raises a voice of concern about the murders and human rights abuses by Israel in the name of religion. I am in no way anti-Semitic, but by protesting the abuses being carried out by Israel, I fully anticipate a barrage of accusations of anti-Semitism and personal attacks. people about this proposal. Like so much of the Government’s secret agenda, this has passed under the public radar. Hobartians have been busy being rightly incensed by traffic problems, the lack of accommodation, the bungling of health care and the worry that our streetscapes will be exchanged for a carbon copy of every other undistinguished city. All can be sheeted home to the disastrous inability of the Government to forward a plan or to bother about long-term consequences.
Once wilderness is gone, our brand is trashed. Government has been told time and again its rash, ill-judged attempts to cash in on the popularity of our state as a tourist destination will kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Helicoptering the rich into the heart of the wilderness is a terrible idea. Helicopters and wilderness are not compatible. The noise will shatter any illusion of wilderness. While Dick Smith’s idea of pitching at the exclusive market rather than cheapening the brand is good sense, this proposal does more than cheapen it.