Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens Leader and Member for Clark
It is a complete distortion of fact for Minister Gutwein to claim he wants the divisive kunanyi/Mt Wellington cable car to ‘stand on its own two feet.’
The Liberals have been propping up this project from Day One.
They introduced a Bill to remove the veto power of the Wellington Park Trust and secured Labor’s support to have it passed in 2013.
The resources of the Department of State Growth have been dedicated to pushing the cable car ever since the Liberals came to government in 2014.
In 2017, Minister Gutwein brought in the cable car facilitation legislation. It sets in place the mechanism to bypass Hobart City Council as the landowner, and to privatise the pinnacle of the mountain.
When the proponent has stumbled, the Liberals have given them a lift.
The proponent has simply never stood on its own two feet.
Now a permit authorising drilling of a fragile landscape in the face of strong community opposition.
The estimated 6,000 people who gathered at Cascade Gardens last May demonstrate the feeling many Tasmanians have towards the mountain.
Along with Aboriginal people who regard kunanyi as sacred, we won’t stand idly by while it is desecrated and privatised for profit by Mr Gutwein and the Liberals.