Losing our home

been decimated. About 10,000 people from 12 nations or language groups had been reduced to less than a few hundred in a lifetime. Medical demographers are still uncovering the lasting social costs of the convict era for today’s non-indigenous population.

Have we learned from our past? Too many Tasmanians seem complacent about their lives. We are regularly assured we are doing well, despite a health and housing system in crisis and a growing gap between rich and poor.

Aboriginal people remain cautious about the prospect of reconciliation as our unique heritage continues to be sacrificed to recreational vehicles and the politics of division. Social programs that bring public good are cut back, while industries that cause lasting damage are subsidised. The madness continues. Increasing numbers of commentators are now pointing to tourism as the latest threat to what we hold dear about our home. New Zealand has been grappling with the losses that come with over-tourism for years now, due to its new identity as a “Middle Earth” destination.

Tasmania’s infrastructure is

by Sophie Underwood and Greg Lehman

already straining with a 9 per cent visitor increase in the past year, and serious questions have been raised about the limits of such growth, including by Tourism Tasmania itself.

However, it’s not only visitors who threaten our quality of life. One of the consequences of international exposure is that many who like what they see here now seek to control it.

Foreign ownership of agricultural land in Tasmania, at 24.3 per cent last year, is already the second highest in Australia. Only the Northern Territory is higher at 25.6 per cent. Next highest is WA at only 16.7 per cent.

More disturbing is that, while close to 80 per cent of foreign-held farm land in Australia is leasehold, in Tasmania 87 per cent of such land has been sold, not leased. These figures, from the Register of Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land, do not include land held for other purposes. So the real figures will be much worse.

The recent exposure of plans for a mega-development at Cambria Green should serve as an urgent wake-up call to those who do not want to see acceleration of ownership and control of land and economic resources being taken up by foreign interests. Rest assured there are more covert deals in the pipeline.

The mantra of attracting investment can be a dangerous euphemism for divesting our freedom and independence. And losing more and more of the island we call our home.

The danger is that huge concentrations of wealth will enable proponents such as Cambria Green and the Fragrance Group to significantly change the social and cultural fabric of Tasmania. Our planning schemes struggle to offer