Kamala Emanuel, Hobart

More than 700 people rallied in Hobart on July 15 to save Ralphs Bay in the Derwent estuary from a huge canal and housing development. If Walker Corporation's plans are allowed to go ahead, the Ralphs Bay Conservation Area will be revoked.

The plan includes the damming of the bay, which will then be dried out, and the dumping of two-and-a-half million tonnes of material into it. The “development” will include 800 houses and a 200-berth marina.

Although Tasmania's minister for economic development Lara Giddings claims there is “no concrete proposal” before the government, it is understood from “community consultations” that have taken place that the Walker Corporation wants to connect the Ralphs Bay development to a re-opened Lauderdale canal to provide easy yacht access to Dunalley and the state's east coast.

The rally was organised by the Save Ralphs Bay Action Group (SRB). SRB spokesperson Cassy O’Connor called for the ecologically sensitive bay, with its endangered species and migratory bird habitats, to be protected so as not to become a “toxic canal estate”. She demanded that the community come before Walker’s profits. To much applause, she declared, “We shall fight them on the mud-flats! We will stand between the bulldozers and the birds! We shall not surrender Ralphs Bay. Ralphs Bay conservation area is not for sale. We will not give [it] up at any price.”

Dr Jamie Kirkpatrick of the University of Tasmania geography department outlined the damage to coastal environments caused by canal developments. He said that most tourism operators he had spoken to “abhor the onslaught of development in national parks. National parks are the basis of their income. It is what people come to see... getting a suntan and going to nightclubs is not why people come to Tasmania.”

Kirkpatrick called for an “almost 100% tax on windfalls from rezoning land”. “If our politicians are as dumb as mainland developers think, we should replace them with a more user-friendly crew”, Kirkpatrick declared.

ALP MP Lin Thorpe, who represents the Ralphs Bay area in the Tasmanian upper house, expressed some concerns with the development but defended the state Labor government’s planning system, claiming it was “robust” and could prevent inappropriate development.

In response, O’Connor repeated the SRB’s demand that the government obey its own rules, reject the development outright and not let it enter the planning system at all.

[Kamala Emanuel is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal seat of Denison.]

From Green Left Weekly, July 21, 2004.
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