Tasmania’s new Senator Nick McKim, who replaces former Greens leader Christine Milne, devoted a paragraph of his first speech to The Senate to Lake Pedder:

We should also start work on a business case for draining Lake Pedder, that absolute jewel of a wilderness lake in the south-west wilderness with its spectacular quartzite beach. Pedder was flooded in the 1970s, breaking the hearts of so many Tasmanians. But it also became the crucible of the environment movement in this country and led to the formation of the United Tasmania Group, the world’s first Green political party. Restoring Lake Pedder could be achieved with a loss of just two per cent to Hydro Tasmania’s system energy output in a state that is forecast to have an electricity glut until 2027 at the very earliest. It would put Tasmania on the front page of every newspaper in the world and establish us as a global leader in environmental remediation, one of the industries that will boom, and is booming, in the 21st century. I have in my office a bag of sand that belongs on the Lake Pedder beach. I do look forward to the day that I can pour that little bag of sand back onto that magnificent, one-kilometre-wide Lake Pedder beach.

Senator McKim delivered the speech on Wednesday, 9 September 2015. For the full text of the speech, click here.

Lake Pedder Restoration is currently planning the development of a business case for a reconfiguration of the Middle Gordon power scheme and the restoration of Lake Pedder. We greatly appreciate Senator McKim’s support of our efforts, his advice and his advocacy in the Commonwealth Parliament for this important national project.