Hobart takes steps to forge Antarctic link

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 20

Hobart takes steps to forge Antarctic link

By

ANDREW DARBY

of A.A.P. Hobart Climbing a wall in Hobart’s main business street is a new bronze sculpture that could be a symbol for Tasmania’s future. It is not a model hydroelectricity dam, nor is it a wilderness platypus — though the powers and pressure groups behind each of these recognises this particular future.

Ice towers, elephant seals, penguins and skua birds form the sculpture commissioned by the Reserve Bank.

It symbolises Tasmania’s link with Antarctica, a link that the State is planning to exploit in a way that recently brought the first signs of a new confrontation. Roald Amundsen, the first man to the South Pole, and Australia’s heroic explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson, were among the Antarctic adventurers to pass through the port of Hobart earlier this century. More recently it has been the main port for Australian and French resupply voyages, a regular meeting place for nations working on the frozen continent, and the headquarters for the Federal Government’s Antarctic Division.

With this growth in mind, the Tasmanian Government recently began to outline plans to develop Hobart as a major supply base for the undeveloped continent. “My Government is looking south, for we are conscious of the resources locked under the ice over the ages,” the Premier, Mr Robin Gray, recently told a petroleum industry convention.

“Expanding international interest in both Antarctica and the Southern Ocean is

creating long-term commercial opportunities for Tasmania.” Research by the state’s development authority has been ordered on the supply and equipment needs of all nations working in the Antarctic. Encouragement is also being offered to other nations to work through Hobart. In September, Mr Gray sought to take the United States’ Antarctic business away from New Zealand, earning a Federal rebuke for what was said to be undiplomatic action. Unabashed, Mr Gray’s office produced an information paper pointing to the attractions of the deepwater port, airport, and cold weather training facilities available. “Any change to Antarctic supply facilities from New Zealand would immediately lead to Hobart as the logical alternative,” he said. Now said to be steaming towards Hobart from France is a new international problem, a resupply ship called the Polarbjorn. The ship is said to be carrying machinery and explosives to continue building an airstrip at the French Dumont d’Urville base due south of Hobart.

Greenpeace International has been campaigning against this airstrip because it says important penguin colonies are being destroyed.

The cause has been taken up in Tasmania, led by the wilderness campaigner, Dr Bob Brown, who predicts demonstrations will greet the Polarbjorn if she berths at Hobart in early December, as planned.

“This is an uncivilised action that the French are' taking part in,” he said. “It has got all the hallmarks of their continued bombing of Mururoa, where they are flouting World Court opinion. “They are now flouting the Antarctic Treaty.” . When Dr Brown, an Independent member of Parliament, recently asked the Government to refuse its facilities to the Polarbjorn, Mr Gray made his priority plain. “The state Government welcomes the use of the port of Hobart by all vessels involved in the Antarctic,” he said.

“It would be absolutely ridiculous for Tasmania, which has a very good opportunity to capitalise on the development of this region, to start curtailing its use by treaty member countries.”