Public Access at Preminghana (Mount Cameron West)
The issue of public access at preminghana always generates a high level of public debate. So, is it purely an argument of the right to drive vehicles onto a beach? No. The debate is about the right of a landowner to determine what is important and needs protection on the land and who may enter their land.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal community is a landowner and must have the right to make decisions about what happens on the land it owns the same as any other land owner, Aboriginal or not.
When preminghana was returned to the Aboriginal community in 1995, the Aboriginal lands Act 1995 specified that public access to the coast be retained. However there were provisions in the legislation which limited this access, i.e. 15 metres above high-water mark, similar to the coastal reserve provisions applied to other coastal areas around the state.
The legislation included a map or site plan for preminghana which identified a vehicle track (commonly called Mt Cameron Road) that allowed visitors to drive to a point outside 15 metres above high-tide mark and then to walk along a pedestrian track to Annes Bay (also called Carvings Beach).
Coincidentally this track was established before 1995 against the wishes of the managers, Parks and Wildlife Service, during their period of management.
Section 27 (8A) of the Aboriginal Lands Act states:
‘There is reserved to the public at all times, in relation to the land referred to in item 2 schedule 3 [Preminghana], a right of pedestrian access over the land 15 metres wide immediately above the high water mark except that area of land between points A and D shown (site of rock carvings) as being on the high-water mark in the Plan 3467 in the Central Register.’
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