Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Speaker, on 18 June 2024, I spoke on the heritage-listed Halls Hut. An RTI revealed the consequential paper trail between government departments and the current Halls Hut leaseholder, also the sole director of Wild Drake, who is in a court‑ordered liquidation. The RTI paper trail reaffirms what I said in June. The urgent repair works on Halls Hut are not stalled by the ongoing EPBC assessment for the proposed heli-tourism standing camp at Lake Malbena. These works are stalled by the leaseholder.
The RTI also revealed slandering by the leaseholder about me and others to government departments. This is not acceptable behaviour from a so‑called custodian of a World Heritage island. I will address the more civil claims from the leaseholder that I have launched misinformation without fact-checking or any due diligence by setting out some RTI‑derived facts in lieu of any transparency around the Lake Malbena chronicle.
August 2016: the lease transfer over Halls Hut was being negotiated between Reg Hall’s daughter, Liz McQuilkin, and the present leaseholder. I quote from the official transfer documentation:
Ms McQuilkin has agreed to transfer her licence over the island to Mr Hackett providing that the heritage values are maintained.
November 2021: Halls Hut was listed on the Tasmanian Heritage Register. Repair and maintenance work on the hut had not been done.
May 2023: the leaseholder wrote to Heritage Tasmania with his account of advice provided to him by the federal Environment department and he claimed that he could not undertake repair work on the hut due to the EPBC Act (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) assessment over the Lake Malbena proposal. The actual advice from the federal department was not supplied to Heritage Tasmania. Where is the due diligence there?
I outlined the preceding events on the Adjournment back in June. These events were facts. Facts cemented in an RTI letter from the federal Environment branch head Ms Short, 15 July 2024, explicitly advising that the Lake Malbena proposal EPBC assessment did not restrict the leaseholder from undertaking maintenance work on Halls Hut. Ms Short advised that the department never received any follow‑up correspondence from the leaseholder since providing their initial advice back in April 2023.
In June, I also highlighted that Liz McQuilkin, who had trusted the leaseholder to preserve her father’s hut, was misled. As outlined, Liz transferred the hut lease on the understanding that it would be cared for, that the Lake Malbena tourism proposal would be low‑impact and respectful of wilderness, and that Halls Island and the hut would remain accessible to everyone. The fact is the project proposal is very different today than it was in 2016. Liz voiced her anguish in a letter to the federal Environment minister on 26 June, 2022, saying:
I initially supported Dan’s proposal. However, since 2018 his proposal has changed considerably and I have been alarmed by the dramatic increase of helicopter flights and by the shutting off of access to bushwalking and fishing enthusiasts. I do not support the current proposal by Daniel Hackett.
To fact‑check emails to my office from the leaseholder, from the 22 October 2024:
Tabatha, firstly and foremost, there is not a liquidation underway.
Later the same day:
Tabatha, please inform yourself of the status quo in regards to Wild Drake by contacting the liquidator who can confirm that the company is not currently being liquidated.
In fact, the current ASIC status of Wild Drake was and still is in liquidation.
The fact is you do not need a helicopter to fix a bit of guttering. There are entire huts that have been built and maintained in the wilderness without helicopters. Of course, I and others support work on the hut. That is literally what we are standing here calling for. It is because of the ongoing negligence from the state and federal government, who have let this shameful proposal proceed to this point, that Senator Nick McKim and I have written to the World Heritage Committee calling for action and accountability, to ensure that moving forward protecting the values of our World Heritage Area take precedent over pursuing degrading proposals like that at Lake Malbena.
This lease needs to be torn up and this saga has to stop. There are good people who are lining up to take care of this heritage hut as it deserves when it is returned to the public. It is not only a fact, but it is a promise that no matter how much slander, I, myself, the Greens and thousands of caring Tasmanians will not stop fighting for this magnificent wild place to be put back in the hands of all people.
