In Parliament, the Greens asked the Acting Minister for Parks to cancel the private lease over Halls Island, on behalf of Liz McQuilkin, the daughter of the legendary Reg Hall. Shamefully, the Minister wouldn’t honour Liz’s request to protect this special wild place.
Almost a decade ago, Daniel Hackett of Wild Drake, proposed a highly contested luxury helicopter tourism venture with accommodation on Halls Island, Lake Malbena – a degrading idea set to erode the very heart and soul of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Hackett has routinely failed to fulfill the requirements of his lease on the island, has been thousands of dollars in arrears to Parks for lease payments, failed to progress an adequate Aboriginal cultural heritage assessment for the project, and his company is in liquidation. Meanwhile, the heritage-listed Halls Hut on the island is deteriorating.
Any reasonable government would consider this plethora of failures and contempt of a private lease on public land, reasonable grounds to cancel the lease, and to protect this globally celebrated wilderness area for all. But this Liberal Government keeps handing lifelines to Hackett, extending his exclusive possession lease over world heritage listed Halls Island.
The Aboriginal community, bushwalkers and fly-fishers have all called for this precious wild place to be brought back into the hands of the community and the private lease to be scrapped. Now the daughter of Reg Hall, Liz McQuilkin, has joined them.
Hackett has failed to honour the wishes of the Hall family to keep Halls Island open for public use, and to protect Halls Hut. We asked the Acting Minister for Parks to step in and cancel Hackett’s lease, on Liz’s behalf:
My father, Reg Hall, was a Tasmanian wilderness identity known as the ‘Father of the Walls of Jerusalem’, having mapped and named this special area and constructed the Heritage-listed hut on Halls Island.
Before my father died, he passed the Halls Island lease to me.
Years later, in good faith, I transferred this lease to Mr Daniel Hackett on the strict provisions that he looks after the hut and honour my father’s wishes that Halls Island be kept away from developers, and open to all.
Mr Hackett betrayed our understanding by proposing a helicopter tourism development for the island. And the hut is rapidly deteriorating.
By March 31 Mr Hackett must have all project approvals in place to satisfy the lease requirements – it’s impossible Mr Hackett meets this deadline.
Minister, on behalf of the Hall family, the Tasmanian bushwalking and fly-fishing communities, will you use your power to cancel the lease?
Against the wishes of Reg Hall’s daughter, the Minister would not commit to cancelling Hackett’s lease on Halls Island when the March 31st deadline for all project approvals comes – a timeframe the proponent can’t make. It’s a shameful betrayal of the family of the Father of the Walls of Jerusalem.
Halls Island and the Wilderness World Heritage Area should be open for the public to admire, not used as a private playground. The Liberal Government needs to honour Liz’s calls and heed the mounting evidence of poor custodianship, and cancel Hackett’s lease for good.
