Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honouraable Speaker, heritage listed Halls Hut sits in the middle of a little island today identified as Halls Island on the idyllic Lake Malbena. This rustic bush hut was constructed by its namesake Reg Hall in 1952. Widely admired by generations of bushwalkers and backccountry anglers, Reg is remembered as being the father of the Walls of Jerusalem. He produced the first maps of this area and named many of the features of the park that are now globally recognised and Tasmania’s wilderness jewels.
Hall’s Hut was first a back country home for Reg Hall to base himself out of while he was on sojourns in the Walls, Lake Sinclair and the Du Cane Range. The Hut soon became a staple part of Tasmania’s intergenerational bushwalking legend.
Greg French’s book, Wild Heart of Tasmania, details how Bill Tomlin took hundreds of school children to Halls Island as part of their outdoor education. These trips played a far more significant role than teaching them how to survive in Tasmania’s wild places. It played a formulative role in their lives of, and not just of those children, but many Tasmanians who hold that back country and its cultural heritage dear. For Bill’s students and anyone else who has spent a night in Hall’s Hut, absorbing its history and learning the exploits of Reg and his pioneering companions, was an absolute highlight. I can attest to that, honourable Speaker.
The heritage listing for Halls Hut, states that it is a place important to the course or pattern of Tasmania’s history and possesses uncommon or rare aspects of Tasmania’s history, and has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social or spiritual reasons. In all, eight areas of heritage significance are attributed to Halls Hut. So, rightfully, many people are dismayed and distressed at the news that Halls Hut is degrading, and in danger of collapse.
Since January 2018, Halls Island has been the subject of an exclusive possession lease. In that time, leaseholder Daniel Hackett, has done zero maintenance on Reg’s revered bush hut. In the past seven years of holding this exclusive lease, and being the famed custodian, Mr Hackett has let gutters and flashings fall off the hut, rafters, bearers and joists have been rotting due to an ingress of water, the floor has started to collapse along with the doors, and there are other problems as well.
An exclusive possession lease precludes the public from visiting Halls Island, and the heritage hut on the island, without expressed permission of the leaseholder. Mr Hackett has subsequently denied public access to Halls Island and Halls Hut, due to the need of these urgent repairs, but zero maintenance has been undertaken in all this time.
Stakeholder group, Fishers and Walkers Tasmania, wrote to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and Heritage Tasmania with a building condition report and a request for urgent action, but they have been fobbed off. The secretary of the department, Mr Jacobi, who has long been associated with the Malbena Halls Island Project and its proponent, wrote to the Fishers and Walkers group claiming that because the project has been under assessment under the federal EPBC act for an exclusive tourism proposal on the island that no restorative work could be done on the hut.
Then a lock step response came from Heritage Tasmania. To be clear, both Heritage Tasmania and the departmental secretary have said that nothing can be done to ensure that this crucial part of Tasmania’s high‑country heritage is saved, and that that is due to the present EPBC referral. That is false. Halls Hut sits on a separate lease to the Halls Island Development Proposal. It is the island development, not the hut which is subject to the EPBC assessment. There is no reason whatsoever why works cannot be done to save Halls Hut. No reason other than an ideological‑driven position from the secretary department and this government, that is once again supporting a property developer, over our wilderness areas and back country heritage.
This is a developer who is responsible for the degradation of Tasmania’s heritage listed property, and is proposing a helicopter tourism operation that will degrade over 5000 hectares of pristine wilderness. Since Halls Hut was constructed in 1952, walkers have been welcomed to this island refuge. Reg Hall sent open invites to the Hobart and Launceston Walking Club, to its members, indeed all bushwalkers, to use this hut as they pleased.
The Heritage minister must step in and immediately correct her secretary. She must demand the exclusive lease over Halls Island and the hut lease are dissolved, and that groups like the Walkers and Fishers Tasmania, indeed all bushwalkers, can do what they have always done: respect and care for our precious heritage and wild places.
This is a view shared by two of Reg’s children, John and Liz. They believe, as do so many, that the exclusive proposal for Halls Island and Lake Malbena, must be dropped.
This is a magnificent, pristine part of the world and it should be maintained for the public, as a freely available wilderness walking destination for bushwalkers today and future generation.
