Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I move-
That the bill now be read a second time.
The SPEAKER – Is a vote required?
Mr BAYLEY – A vote is required, thank you.
I acknowledge that we have in the Chamber with us today returned service personnel and members of RSL Tasmania, including Joe, the operations manager of RSL Tasmania, and Peter, a returned serviceman. I thank you for coming in and I will do my best for you and your colleagues.
I start today by acknowledging the land we meet on and the land that we are discussing today is unceded Aboriginal land. As we focus on the Cenotaph, Tasmania’s state war memorial, and its significance to our veteran community, their families and friends and its role in commemorating those who sacrificed so much, it is important to start with a statement about war.
The only war fought on Tasmanian soil was the Black War, a war of invasion, dispossession and colonisation. I acknowledge palawa warriors past and their campaign of self‑defence in what was a catastrophic time for their community, country and culture. I acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal community and those working to ensure the horror and history of the Black War does not go unrecognised. It was the first military engagement involving Tasmanians fighting over Tasmania.
The Greens abhor war and we will always stand against it. War is a manifestation of many things: hate, greed, ego, resource conflict, economics, politics, ideology or religion, amongst many other things. We Greens stand for peace, non-violence and the resolution of dispute through dialogue, diplomacy and agreement. We acknowledge the pain and suffering caused by war and the extreme trauma currently playing out in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and the myriad of places where armed conflict terrorises people, even if not formally recognised as a land at war.
We recognise the privilege of living on an island at the bottom end of the Earth, where global conflicts are distant, action looks like standing in solidarity and calling for a greater response from our elected leaders to end the arms trade and to bring about the moral, economic and other pressure required to prosecute for peace.
Notwithstanding our collective detestation of war, as Greens we consistently turn up to honour and commemorate our veteran community and their service to our country. We acknowledge the bravery, sacrifice and commitment of servicemen and women who act in line with the rules of war as articulated in the Geneva Convention. We also acknowledge that as a country, Australia has not always afforded returning veterans the welcome, dignity and support they deserve and require to enable a successful re-entry to our society. Too often they have been dispensable.
The Vietnam War was a case in point. It took over a decade to properly recognise Vietnam veterans with a welcome home parade in 1987. Now, 18 August is recognised as Vietnam Veterans’ Day, with a dedicated wreath-laying service at the Cenotaph and other war memorials around the country. The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide heard chilling evidence of the state-sanctioned neglect and indifference too often afforded veterans, and the devastating effect it can have on them and their families. Getting home from war does not translate into wars; wars end. Trauma lives on and off the battlefield.
As we engage in this debate about the Cenotaph, about protecting and respecting it and about legislation that would ensure that the values of the Cenotaph are properly assessed to prevent a negative impact, let me be 100 per cent clear about why we Greens have brought on this bill. We were asked to. As a stakeholder who, in any other circumstance, would have the major parties and every single member of this Chamber leaping to their support, the RSL has approached us as representatives in the Tasmanian parliament and asked us to take action in the face of what it sees as an unacceptable threat to something sacred, an injustice and a disgrace. RSL Tasmania, with the support of its sub-branches, requested the Greens develop legislation that, in the face of a planning process that throws out longstanding planning rules, enshrines those rules in laws and makes them binding.
For us Greens, this is a confluence of interests. We stand with veterans. We turn up on ANZAC Day, Vietnam Vets Day, Battle of Crete, Remembrance Day, and we are turning up today. We represent our constituents. We value heritage, we respect process and we are not afraid to step up and take a stand.
Yes, we oppose the Macquarie Point stadium – 54 metres high and located about 100 metres from the Cenotaph, dominating, demeaning and destructive. Let me also be clear, as the RSL has been every time it talks about the stadium and its destructive impact on the values of the Cenotaph: we share support for an AFL and AFLW team. We deserve them in our own right. The AFL cannot truly claim to be a national competition without the island state.
We were collectively led to believe that Tasmania’s bid for an AFL licence should not be contingent on a stadium. As it stands today, the stadium condition in the AFL licence agreement ‑ a stadium that is controversial, unfunded, unapproved and untenable – currently represents the greatest risk to Tassie realising the AFL team dream. It was never Premier Rockliff’s to agree to, not least on a site with an agreed development master plan, also because he was telling Tasmanians that it was not on the table. Even today on the AFL’s website there is a story quoting the Tasmanian Premier from August 2022 saying, ‘The stadium is not part of our bid’.
But of course, history shows that in true Tasmanian fashion, the lure of big business and the power it exerts saw a Mac Point stadium central in a dud AFL deal that neither Treasury, Cabinet, the parliament, nor the Tasmanian people saw before Premier Rockliff signed us up to it. That means the RSL did not see it either, despite a demonstrable interest as a near neighbour, cultural icon and significant stakeholder. The RSL have felt deceived and misled at every step since the deal was signed and the Cenotaph condemned to be collateral damage in the rush for a stadium.
In his letter to the Premier of 18 July, cc’d to all of us as members, RSL Tasmania’s CEO John Hardy lays it out, writing:
RSL Tasmania has been clear and steadfast from the start. It has always known the stadium would dominate the Cenotaph and we have always known that it would destroy key sightlines. The RSL has been disrespected and misled at every turn, be that by the Department of State Growth, Macquarie Point Development Corporation or Cox Architecture, with the former telling us that it will be no more than 40 metres high at our congress in 2023, and the latter stating only six weeks ago in a meeting with us that it would be six stories.
They said:
Premier, Sir, the very essence of the cenotaph is its sightlines. To destroy these sightlines is to desecrate, humiliate and play little more than lip service to our sacred place.
Earlier in the public debate about the Senate, the stadium and the cenotaph, Mr Hardy is quoted in the Mercury saying:
Sometimes, it is hard to stand against the wind. We have got to, we have no choice. In 50 years, if there is a stadium, I do not want anyone to be able to say, well, what did the RSL Tasmania do about it? If it stands or doesn’t, we have done our bit. That is our duty.
That is why we are here. That is why the Greens have developed this bill. We are taking action to support a significant stakeholder to take up the fight and to do our bit for the RSL because government has failed them. That is our responsibility. We are doing our bit.
What is so special about the Cenotaph? Why is it worth fighting for? Why should it not be sacrificed in an embarrassing and self-defeating acquiescence to the AFL and its arrogant insistence that we take a primo brownfield site already under plans for more community minded urban renewal, including Truth and Reconciliation Park, which could recognise the Black War and celebrate the survival of Tasmania’s Aboriginal people. You all actually know the answer because you all turn up to Anzac Day too. You know the site; the structure and its symbolism are sacred to those who served and significant to every single one of us who has not. You know it because you turn up as well.
For the record, let me lay out the significance of the Hobart Cenotaph. It will be 100 years old in December next year. That makes it the oldest state war memorial in the country. It was designed by noted architect Bernard Walker and erected with funds largely raised by the public. Originally conceived and constructed as a memorial for those who served in the First World War, it has subsequently encompassed all following conflicts to which Tasmanians have been sent. It now formally commemorates the Second World War, the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, the Indonesian Confrontation, the Vietnam War and peacekeeping operations. Inside the cenotaph, interned in a zinc casket, are the names of 522 Hobartians who died in service in the First World War. Their bones lie buried in foreign fields; their names were recorded on a board in the Hobart Town Hall and transcribed and interred into the Cenotaph prior to its completion.
The site of the cenotaph is on the old Queen’s Battery, ceded by the Commonwealth and vested in the City of Hobart in 1925 to accommodate the Cenotaph. Chosen from numerous potential sites, the cenotaph’s location was explicitly selected because of its prominence to both the city and the Derwent River. As reported by the Mercury in 1925, the site occupied:
A conspicuous position on the Queen’s Domain, almost in line with Macquarie Street and visible from most parts of the city. The memorial is particularly conspicuous from the harbour, from any part of which it is clearly visible.
Now central to a collection of public structures and memorials, the Cenotaph is physically linked to Anzac Parade, the Remembrance Bridge, the Boer War Memorial and Soldiers Memorial Avenue, a stunning pathway through the Domain with a conifer planted adjacent to a plaque commemorating each and every fallen soldier. Just last week, we attended the unveiling of plaques with their associated tree to commemorate two fallen soldiers only recently researched and recognised as having been killed in action.
Friends of Soldiers Memorial Avenue shares RSL Tasmania’s concerns about the loss of ambience and the impact on the cultural values of the Cenotaph should the stadium be built. In correspondence to us as members, President John Wadsley writes:
The Soldiers Memorial Avenue and Cenotaph Precinct are part of the most culturally important remembrance landscape in Tasmania. At its heart is the Cenotaph, which was intentionally cited to be seen from all around Hobart, and it overlooks Sullivan’s Cove, from where so many soldiers left for service in the Great War and in subsequent wars. The visual prominence of the Cenotaph, in particular, is intrinsic to its landscape and heritage values, with visual prominence being a specific hallmark of military commemorative sites around Australia, for example, the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne and Canberra’s Australian War Memorial.
Permanently listed on the Tasmanian Heritage Register, the Cenotaph meets five of the eight listing criteria. This includes:
(a) The place is important to the course or pattern of Tasmanian history.
(g) The place has a special association with the life or works of a person or group of persons of importance in Tasmania’s history
(f) The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social or spiritual reasons.
Under criteria (f), the listing document goes on to say:
The Cenotaph is a prominent landmark within Hobart, commanding a number of important sight lines through the city. The site has a strong and special meaning to Tasmania as the site of ANZAC remembrance ceremonial services and other events since 1919.
I take it as fact that we all in this Chamber can accept that the Cenotaph is a unique and important cultural site of extreme significance, particularly to veterans and their families. That is why its values have long been protected in planning rules and regulations and a principle now seemingly abandoned – that development should be properly assessed against clear criteria and only approved if and when deemed sympathetic.
Since its inception in 1997, the Sullivan’s Cove Planning Scheme has articulated the cultural heritage and reverential ambience of the Cenotaph and identified sight lines deemed worthy of protection. These sight lines hold significance to the origins, purpose and practical use of the Cenotaph itself. For example, the scheme sets height limits on the Macquarie Point site and has clear statements that development:
… not adversely impact on the cultural heritage and reverential ambience of the Cenotaph and its surrounds.
The scheme explicitly lists five sightlines to and from the Cenotaph and ensures via assessment and determination that a development ‘not unreasonably impact on important views’. But those longstanding rules applicable to anyone else proposing development within the area covered by the scheme are lost through the Project of State Significance process (POSS).
While the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s final guidelines against which the Macquarie Point Stadium must report references the Sullivan’s Cove Planning Scheme and requires the development application to address issues within it, the guidelines do not set specific thresholds or criteria.
The POSS process and the other processes listed in this bill jettisons the planning scheme’s criteria against which the impacts of development on the ambience and sight lines of the Cenotaph be assessed. To illustrate this, on page 2 of the final guidelines for the integrated assessment of the Macquarie Point Stadium, the commission explicitly states:
The final guidelines are not rigid criteria for the assessment of the proposed project. The issues the final guidelines cover should not be taken as suggestive of the consideration or waiting that may be given to those issues in the commission’s integrated assessment.
Let me be clear: this is not a criticism of the Tasmanian Planning Commission nor a vote of no confidence in the assessment panel that has been stood up to assess the stadium. Let me be clear about that. I do not know them personally or have a judgement on those individuals on the panel. I fear the impact of the political weight and perceived cultural imperative of approving a stadium so as to facilitate the teams, but I do not hear any claim that they will not conduct themselves professionally and in line with the Project of State Significance process.
That is the problem. Through the Project of State Significance process, the criteria to protect the Cenotaph are lost. The imperative to ensure the reverential ambience, sightlines and cultural values of the Cenotaph are written out of the process and the decision is entirely left to the discretion of the panel. We do not think that is good enough.
The Greens did not support the POSS process when it passed the parliament. We argued against the abandonment of longstanding planning rules, the loss of third‑party, merit‑based appeal rights, and the way this process bypasses local councils and their planning responsibilities. This brings me to the bill.
This bill does nothing more than take what is in the planning scheme and ensure that it is considered and can be considered early as part of the project assessment processes that sit outside of the normal application of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act, where the relevant planning scheme and its rules do apply.
The Project of State Significance process, the Major Projects process and the Major Infrastructure Development Approvals Act all establish standalone processes that dispense with the requirements of the relevant planning scheme in the area where the development is proposed.
The Hobart Cenotaph Bill 2024 ensures that these three processes are not able to approve any development, stadium or otherwise, inconsistent with clauses 32.3.3 and 32.3.8 of the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme 1997. The bill sets out that a relevant approval under any of these three processes cannot be issued if a proposed development would adversely impact on the cultural heritage and reverential ambience of the Hobart Cenotaph and its surrounds, or unreasonably impacts on Hobart Cenotaph sightlines.
The bill provides that this requirement does not apply to any development approved through these processes before the bill comes into effect, but it does apply to any process underway but not concluded before the bill comes into effect. The effect of this is to not interfere with the approval of any project whose assessment has already concluded. Of course, a project such as the Macquarie Point Stadium, still in the early stages of the Project of State Significance process, is captured. This bill would ensure that the Tasmanian Planning Commission, as a matter of priority, assesses the development against the requirements of the bill, which mirrors the planning scheme.
While ensuring proper assessment of a development’s impact on the Cenotaph, this process has additional benefits. Should the process laid down in this bill determine that a development would have an adverse effect on the cultural heritage and reverential ambience of the Hobart Cenotaph and its surrounds, or unreasonably impacts on the Hobart Cenotaph sightlines, integrated assessment via the POSS process, major projects process or major infrastructure development approvals process ceases through the publication of a notice of cancellation. Not only will this avoid impacts on the Cenotaph, a treasured cultural heritage icon, sacred to some, special to all. It would also enable an early determination of a critical element of assessment and, through cancelling the process, avoid further cost, time and community angst. This process could save us dearly. It could save the Cenotaph, its values, sanctity and ambience. It can save dragging the community, the RSL and veterans through a lengthy, painful and arduous process of assessment. And it can ensure that proper consultation with Cenotaph stakeholders is undertaken.
The RSL has been scathing of engagement with government and its agents: deceived and misled, first reassured that the stadium would be simpatico with the Cenotaph; then sought to be placated by the constraint that the stadium would be kept at 40 metres, already double the current height limit at Macquarie Point; and eventually outraged when the thing grew 25 per cent higher, to 54 metres, deepening the impact and unequivocally taking out three of the significant, until now protected sightlines.
Even the engagement around the review of this impact was disingenuous. In a glossy publication, more PR than proper planning process, the stadium proponent first released the visual impact renders from around the vicinity of the Cenotaph, but not from the actual Cenotaph itself, which the RSL had requested. When called out and pushed, the renders requested by the RSL were created but privately released and not published on the Macquarie Point Development Corporation’s website with other public relations renders.
This bill enshrines a process that mandates engagement with RSL Tasmania. It gives the option for the assessors to engage with any other person considered fit. This is important. The current POSS process contains a fundamental flaw when it comes to public engagement. The planning commission, through its assessment panel, does not consult stakeholders and the public on the application submitted by a proponent before it considers that application and formulates its draft assessment report. The commission only consults once the draft integrated assessment report is released, limiting the feedback from third parties until after the commission has already formulated its draft opinion.
A more credible process allows the public to submit their views to a planning authority before it turns its mind to drafting findings, so as to understand the perspectives of stakeholders and the public early and give it the opportunity to respond in its draft assessment.
Enshrining consultation with the RSL in this bill is a good thing, as government and the Macquarie Point Development Corporation have demonstrated a fundamental failure to be able to extinguish this responsibility in good faith. There is some catching up to do.
To recap, the bill ensures a development’s impacts on the values of the Cenotaph are considered, considered early and considered against the planning rules that any other development not going through one of these special planning processes would have to abide by. It has been explicitly requested by the RSL and its sub-branches. We Greens take our responsibility to represent their views and stand up for their interests seriously. We are prepared to take action where the government has failed.
We seek to fix a fundamental flaw in the three planning processes that disregard the planning scheme and abandon the Cenotaph along the way. We take values protection seriously. Born of campaigns to protect iconic values in wild places on behalf of constituents and stakeholders, we will doggedly defend place, stand up for people and protect values.
The Cenotaph is far from wild, but it is very special. No one here can deny that. It is a sacred site commemorating the service and sacrifice of Tasmanians sent far afield to defend what was seen at the time as our interests. Under any other circumstance, the Cenotaph would be sacrosanct, but such is the power of the AFL and the acquiescence of our leaders when lined up next to the stadium, it appears it is dispensable.
Our bill helps balance the ledger. It ensures credible assessment against existing criteria with genuine consultation. Who can argue against that? As a society, given the significance of the Cenotaph, our service personnel and their sacrifice, we should expect nothing less. I commend the bill to the House.
