A recent Right to Information document disclosure revealed information on proposed developments in national parks has been hidden from the public. The Office of the Coordinator General has failed to publicly update the status of these developments despite having the information since February – no doubt to hide the scale of the failures of this policy.
In a media statement, Eric Abetz MP made the absurd claim the policy that has failed to deliver a single contentious project in a decade “has been helping to revitalise regions”. If this statement were true Mr. Abetz and the Liberals would be proposing tourism developments in these small towns, beside wilderness areas not within them. Just as Tasmanians and the international community including UNESCO, have been repeatedly calling for.
The Greens’ tourism policy sustains both the economy and environment. Regenerative tourism, avitourism, dark sky sanctuaries, expanding the world heritage area and crucially restoring funding to the Parks and Wildlife Service so they can focus on their core responsibility of conservation.
Crucially the Greens policy respects the Tasmanian Aboriginal community’s connection to land, sea and sky country – all policy over protected areas must be produced in consultation with that community.
The withdrawal of proposals from the EOI process show that tourism operators are sick of the incompetence of the Tasmanian Liberals ill-conceived policy settings. The Greens will restore confidence by setting clear operational boundaries and respecting statutory management plans created by experts.
The Tasmanian Government should stop hiding behind spurious commercial in confidence claims designed keep Tasmanians in the dark and scrap the failed EOI process.
