The Tasmanian Conservation Trust has been in operation for more than 50 years. Throughout out our fifty years of operation, we have worked and continue to work on many issues relevant to the Committee’s terms of reference.
Wildlife Regulations Review
The information sheet ‘Protecting People, Places and Property’, provided by DPIPWE as a part of this review, has a title that is misleading and disingenuous. It more properly should have been titled ‘Culling native wildlife to protect pasture and crops’. Given the relatively low level of actions taken to control wildlife through lethal means for protection of people and places, the brochure should have focused on the much bigger issue of culling for the protection of pasture and crops.
Submission to the Review of Tasmania’s Local Government Legislative Framework
Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission in response to the ‘Review of Tasmania’s Local Government Legislative Framework Discussion Paper December 2018’ (Discussion Paper). In this submission, we refer to the entire review process as the Local Government Legislative Framework Review. The Local Government Act is referred to as the LGA.
Firearms Law Reforms Inquiry
The Tasmanian Conservation Trust (TCT) wishes to provide a late submission to the Legislative Council Select Committee – Firearms Law Reforms Inquiry. The TCT is very concerned regarding the subject of the committee’s inquiry but we were unable to provide a submission by the advertised deadline due to numerous urgent and important deadlines. We hope that our submission can be taken into account.
Environmental Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2019
House of Assembly Select Committee on Firearms Legislation and Policy
The Tasmanian Conservation Trust (TCT) wishes to provide an additional submission to the House of Assembly Select Committee on Firearms Legislation and Policy. The TCT made a submission to the previous Legislative Council Select Committee – Firearms Law Reforms Inquiry and I understand that the House of Assembly Select Committee has been provided with a copy of that submission.
Submission to the Draft Waste Action Plan, Consultation Draft June 2019
The Draft Waste Action Plan is frustratingly incomplete and contradictory, containing a number of ground breaking commitments e.g. waste reduction and diversion targets, a container refund scheme and a statewide landfill levy while also missing many of the elements fundamental to an effective plan e.g. lacking over-all goals and objectives, failing to address roles and responsibilities, postponing decisions on governance structures, not making any specific commitments on infrastructure and omitting many policy and legislative reforms that industry and the community are demanding.
Draft Single-Use Plastics By-law
Cat Management Amendment Bill 2019
ROSNY HILL DEVELOPMENT
No Fast Track for Cambria Green
The Liberals refuse to rule out giving the proponents a special fast track deal via their Major Projects law.
The 3,000 hectare Cambria Green mega-development would create a private town, with its own airfield north of Swansea on Tasmania’s east coast. The mega-project would carve the whole area out of the Tasmanian Planning Scheme, allowing for carte blanche building in a remote part of Tasmania.
In November 2019, the Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC) decided that Cambria Green could not proceed because signatures provided by one of the owners appeared different to signatures on company documents for one of the landowning companies, registered in Hong Kong.
Signatures for another of the four identified owners were simply not provided. Regarding representations from Ronald Xiaojun Hu, “The Commission considered that much of his evidence was not credible and not supported.” (TPC Decision, 2019)
Mr Hu is a director of Cambria Green Agriculture Development Pty Ltd, the only Australian registered company of the nine land owning entities. Mr Hu was the sole representor at the hearings for Cambria Green.
It is in the public interest to know who owns this 3,000 hectare mega-project including an airfield on Tasmania’s remote east coast.
The TPC’s decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, where it has sat for 10 months awaiting action from the Liberal government (Attorney General), the proponent, or the court. Who is holding up the court hearing and for what purpose is unclear.
Despite controversy, widespread community opposition and a rejection by the independent Tasmanian Planning Commission, the Liberals may rescue this contentious mega-project with a Major Projects fast track.
The proposed Major Projects law is designed to fast track very large projects. Planning Minister Roger Jaensch would determine Cambria’s eligibility against a set of largely arbitrary criteria which he has just written. All of the power lies with him.
The Liberals resurrected the Major Projects Law after a two year hiatus. The timing is suspicious and the Tasmanian Conservation Trust (TCT) has suggested the law was brought back to rescue Cambria.
TCT has called on Planning Minister Jaensch to rule out Cambria as a Major Project, given the irregularities of the signatures on Cambria’s documents.
The Minister has refused to rule out declaring Cambria a Major Project.
TCT has asked Minister Jaensch and Premier Peter Gutwein to confirm if they met with Cambria’s owners or their agents.
Neither the Minister nor the Premier have responded.
Most recently, TCT wrote to the Treasury asking if the Foreign Investment Review Board had done due diligence on Cambria. This was followed by a right to information request. The Treasury has refused to divulge any information relating to Cambria.
The Liberals must be honest about any previous meetings with Cambria’s owners and rule out cutting a deal with them to rescue their stranded development via the major projects fast track.
The long-spined sea urchin
The long-spined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii) is on the verge of a population explosion that will see it cause lifeless ‘barrens’ in the biodiverse reef habitats across large areas of Tasmania’s east coast.
The Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) released a report in December 2018 that shows that the long-spined sea urchin has exploded in numbers and that an average of 15% of reef habitat has been lost in the 4-40 m depth range on the east coast from Tasman Island to Eddystone Point. The report shows that, in some parts of the north east coast, 50% of reefs have already been destroyed. In 2018 IMAS produced modelling that predicts that 32% of east coast reefs will be destroyed by 2021 and that with no action an average of 50% of east coast reefs may be lost to urchin barrens in the longer term.