The Greens and an anti-cable car group say a long-delayed government review of Kunanyi/Mount Wellington could help clear the way for a cable car, even though the plan takes no position on the proposal.
The Kunanyi/Mount Wellington Action Plan, released yesterday, recommends scrapping the Wellington Park Management Trust and handing the park to a new managing authority with a ministerially appointed chair.
On a cable car, the plan says it is “not possible to definitively determine the impacts” on Pinnacle Road use.
Instead, it recommends the new management plan set “clear parameters” against which future proposals can be assessed.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff told parliament this morning the plan “provides a practical pathway to prepare the park for the future”.
Asked whether a cable car remained part of his vision for the mountain, Rockliff said “my view on sustainable access and transport at Kunanyi/Mount Wellington has not changed”.
Deputy Premier Guy Barnett was more direct. “We support a cable car,” Barnett told reporters.
“But the report makes it very clear that we need an independent authority to operate and manage the mountain.”
Labor MP Shane Broad said Labor was “open-minded to solutions to get up and down the mountain” in a video shared on social media in response to the action plan.
The Braddon MP publicly backed the project last month, saying a cable car could sit alongside Mona and Salamanca Market as a must-do for visitors.
“At the moment there is actually no project via cable car or anything else,” he said.
“If a project pops up then we will obviously consider it on its merits.”
Greens MP Vica Bayley, a former spokesperson for Residents Opposed to the Cable Car (ROCC), said the plan looked “more like a plan to pave the way for a cable car than the proper protection and funding Kunanyi/Mount Wellington deserves”.
“What function is the Wellington Park Management Trust not fulfilling that Minister Ellis thinks this new body could, aside from facilitating the construction of a cable car?” he said.
ROCC spokesperson Louise Sales also questioned how independent the new body would be when “the chair would be handpicked by the minister, who has made no secret of his support for a cable car”.
Business, Industry and Resources Minister Felix Ellis, who released the review, often posts in support of the cable car on social media.
Earlier findings from the ‘Our Mountain’s Future’ review put support for a cable car at 20% among people in Hobart, rising to 62% in Brighton.
A previous cable car proposal was refused by the Hobart City Council in 2021 and again on appeal to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (TASCAT) in 2022.
