TasWeekend: The Second Great Invasion of Tassie is under way — only this time it’s with campervans

Tourism is destroying the world. And CHARLES WOOLEY says this global plague is heading our way.

Tourists are ‘invading’ beautiful Tasmania. Picture: Tourism Tasmania/Chris Bray Photography

TOURISM is destroying the world. It’s a bit late for me to tell you this, because although you live in one of the most remote cities on earth you’re already starting to experience the effects of a global plague which is often far too politely described as “over-tourism”.

We are not yet suffering the plight of Venice or Barcelona, but for a little-known backwater I’m afraid we are well on the way to joining a lot of destinations I have visited where the locals have grown to hate the tourists.

Tasmania now gets 1.4 million tourists a year. That’s close to three times our population. Hobart, with only 250,000 residents, gets almost four times its population every year and that’s growing. Now if you own a hotel, a tourist facility, a campervan or car-hire company, or you’re renting out the granny flat, you might think this is all good news. But unfortunately most of you, like me, don’t earn a penny from tourism.

I also know that some of you might be reading this under canvas because you can’t find a rental house, the stock having been swallowed up for Airbnb. I also know many of you have spent hours in traffic this week on a work or school run that only a few years ago would’ve taken 20 minutes. And I hear this summer you finally decided to give up going to some of your favourite holiday spots like Coles Bay because the roads were so dreadfully clogged with hire cars and cheap rental vans. Then when you finally got there you couldn’t move for tourists. If you were annoyed, how do you think the locals felt?

We are in danger of becoming strangers in our own land, a salutary notion giving cause to reflect with wry empathy on the dramatic change of status that occurred for indigenous Tasmanians back in 1803, when they first sighted the sails of the Lady Nelson and the Albion. Did they, I wonder, even for one passing moment, cry out in naive delight?

“You beauty, we will now get rich selling our land to overseas buyers and flogging off our shell necklaces and wallaby skins at a huge profit.

“And how about improving the visitor experience by taking guided tours into Lake Malbena and putting those people up in some native accommodation in all that peace and quiet. Great idea. And while we’re at it let’s put in some easy access to kunanyi so even those unfit white fellas can enjoy the view from up there.”

Sadly, no. The traditional owners, those first Tasmanians, failed to draw up a business plan. Indeed, recent re-evaluations of Tasmanian history reveal that far from rolling over as we are doing today, the original indigenous population put up a brave but futile resistance before they were rounded up and exiled to the Bass Strait islands. Don’t worry. This won’t happen to you. We are already well into the process of flogging off those islands to foreign buyers.

Our first people failed to form a compliant “peak tourism body” to exploit and entertain a growing interest in travel and touring back in England.

In my version of “1803 And All That” this clearly explains why the Poms could think of nothing better to do with our wild and beautiful island than to build a colony here for low cost, heavily subsidised bogan tourists on compulsory long-stay visas. Hang around the Elizabeth Street Mall for just a short time and you will see that quite a few of them never went back home.

We are now in the Second Great Invasion of Tasmania, so how might our generation of islanders learn from what happened in 1803? So far, few are attempting resistance.

Looking across Coles Bay towards The Hazards, Tasmania. Picture: Tourism Tasmania/Rob Burnett

One of our bolder latter-day tribal elders, the respected tourism developer Simon Currant, has courageously stood up against cashed-up-communists from China making a huge land grab at Cambria Green on the East Coast.

Now Simon’s neither pink nor green. What he hates is mass tourism, which he says is not the way we should go. “I don’t think an Asian precinct on the East Coast is what our brand’s about. It will damage us,” Simon says. In a previous game of “Simon Says” he also announced he’d chain himself to a bulldozer to prevent the erection of any monstrous hotel towers in the old sandstone heart of our city.

Currant these days has been sounding a bit like another Tasmanian elder from a very different tribe. Bob Brown and Simon Currant have been warring for a long time.

When Simon dipped his toes into the sacred waters of Lake St Clair with his now celebrated Pump House Point Hotel, Bob Brown was horrified. He then described the acquiescent Liberal Party as “the Currant Government”. Bob has recently been absent, waging a foreign campaign at the Adani mine site in Queensland and helping ScoMo to his surprise federal election victory. Now all that’s over, Bob and Simon might usefully form a Tasmanian United Front and get on with the important task of driving the invaders back into the sea, or at least getting the balance right.

Today’s Tasmanian tribes make up a fractious mob, but if they can’t get together on this we are surely at serious risk of losing our identity — again.

I know unilateral action is unlikely on our island so, if I am ever driven from the sand dunes on the southern beaches, I will require somewhere to go into exile.

You would be surprised to know that there are some beautiful, quiet, unspoilt and affordable coastal towns in South China. The ruling Communist Party of China limits foreign ownership to one residential dwelling, so I might be in there with a chance. So long as I watch my words here.

Meanwhile, last week marked the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre, which the Chinese regime says never happened.