Residents Against the Cable Car public meeting at Hobart Town Hall as public comment deadline looms

With just one week left before the council’s public submissions close, a group strongly opposed to the Mt Wellington cable car have held a public meeting. LATEST >>

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THE Tasmanian Greens will table two Bills to state parliament next week with an aim to repeal legislation relating to Hobart’s contentious cable car development.

The Mt Wellington Cableway Company’s plans for a cable car on kunanyi/Mt Wellington – comprising more than 1300 pages of documents – were revealed last month and released for public comment, which closes next Tuesday.

Mount Wellington Cableway Company artists impressions of what the proposed cable care on Mount Wellington will look like. Picture: supplied

The council is expected to then consider the application for a vote in late July.

Hundreds of people packed the Hobart Town Hall on Tuesday afternoon for the Residents Against the Cable Car ‘Stand up for our mountain’ public meeting.

Anti-Cable Car Meeting at Hobart Town Hall. Picture: Chris Kidd

Speakers included Nala Mansell on Aboriginal cultural heritage, Graeme Wells with an economic analysis, Maria Grist on European cultural heritage, David Day on traffic and visual impact and Peter McGlone on the environment and process.

Anti-Cable Car Meeting at Hobart Town Hall, TAC campaign coordinator Nala Mansell. Picture: Chris Kidd

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor announced at the meeting her party would introduce a Bill aimed at repealing the Cable Car (kunanyi/Mt Wellington) Facilitation Act 2017.

“We will also table the Land Use Planning and Approvals Amendment Wellington Park Management Trust veto Bill to restore the Trust’s power and have a real say over what happens with the park,” Ms O’Connor said.

Graeme Wells of Wells Economic Analysis told the meeting the project’s five-year-old economic impact report “overstates the benefit and understates the cost.”

He said construction costs since the report was first written had likely “doubled” and the number of days the project would be able to operate had been “overstated.”

Mr Day said the traffic impact assessment submitted as part of the cable car development application had not looked at the impact of Macquarie and Davey streets nor emergency vehicle access.

“This report doesn’t not meet professional standards and I’d be asking for my money back if I’d commissioned it,” he said.

Anti-Cable Car Meeting at Hobart Town Hall. Picture: Chris Kidd

Ms Mansell said the Aboriginal heritage assessment did not attempt to understand spiritual and cultural connections Aboriginal Tasmanians had with the mountain.

“The company flew in a white archaeologist from the mainland to assess the Aboriginal heritage values of kunanyi and in his report, he claimed there was no significant Aboriginal heritage values at risk from this monstrous cable car,” she said.

“Can you imagine the uproar if they flew in a white archaeologist from Tasmania to do a ‘stone and bones’ survey of Uluru and then attempted to tell the traditional owners of Uluru there is no Aboriginal spiritual or cultural significance of Uluru – we are just as outraged as they would be.”

Mount Wellington Cableway Company artists impressions of what the proposed cable care on Mount Wellington will look like. Picture: supplied

MWCC chairman Chris Oldfield previously said the company had been willing to consult, but the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre “has put a precondition on discussions with us, which is that while we are committed to the project, they see no point in having discussions with us.”