The Lennon Labor government will decide within the next month whether to accept Walker Corporation’s request for Project of State Significance (POSS) status for its canal estate and marina proposal on the Ralphs Bay mudflats.

Save Ralphs Bay Inc holds the strong and widely shared view that the POSS application should be rejected on the grounds that the Walker plan would be to the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the peninsula and Derwent River environment, and community, now and in the future. 

The proposal also directly contravenes the principles of the State Coastal Policy 1996 and disregards the critical value of Ralphs Bay to the Derwent river ecosystem, recognised in the State of the Derwent Report 2004 and the State of the Environment Report 2003. 

The Parliamentary Labor Party is split on the issue, with some more enlightened MPs expressing disgust and disbelief privately.  Other Ministers may not have engaged with the Ralphs Bay debate, mistakenly believing it to be a problem for another electorate.  Yet no electorate is completely landlocked and untouched by the coastal development push.  All Cabinet members have a duty of care to their coastal constituents to tune in.

SRB Inc understands from informed sources in local and state government, that Premier Lennon is right behind the Walker push, believing the protest bloc is confined to a few disgruntled, noisy residents and greenies who reject everything.

Those of us who wish to see the coastline treated with due respect must show Paul the error of his thinking, and without any delay.  He is the member for Franklin, along with Economic Development Minister, Lara Giddings and Education Minister, Paula Wriedt.  Write to them all.  A handwritten letter packs a powerful punch in a political office, but emails can be very effective too.  (If you get a chance, follow up with a phone call their offices in your lunch hour!)

To assist in this task, you might like to go to the website http://www.saveralphsbay.org and download our most recent letter to Paul. Please consider printing it out, adding your own thoughts in the space provided and sending it off to the eleventh floor…to that office overlooking the Derwent and Ralphs Bay.

This is SO important.  Time is running out and Lang’s convoy of diggers, dumptrucks and dozers grinds inexorably towards the sandy, tidal flats of the bay….we have to stop him!

If Cabinet decides to send his rotten plan to the Resource Planning and Development Commission, it could take up to two years for the matter to be determined.  If - against all logic and environmental decency - it is approved, the community has no right of appeal.  While the RPDC jealously guards its independence, it will have trouble shaking off the scepticism generated by Walker State Manager, Lia Morris’s tenure as a founding RPDC commissioner until April this year, before she took up the position with Walker Corporation.

Thanks again, in anticipation of your continued, practical support.  All of us together just may be able to turn the proverbial tide.

We represent the living spirit of democracy.  Please act now, then tell your family and friends and tell them to tell their friends to ring the offices of Labor members, and to write, and say…”Take your hands off Ralphs Bay!”

It belongs to us all.

Cassy O’Connor
Communications
SRB Inc.
(m) 0400 628 939