To whom it may concern,
I read with dismay of the closure of the Batman bridge rest area to free campers for overnight stays, I have spent a lot of time in Tasmania over the last 15 years, for work and in the past 5 years as a retired free camper, in the last 5 years I have traveled to Tasmania at least once a year and stayed for up to 4 months, that is until last year.
Closing these rest areas to free campers on the advice of vested interest group of Van park owners is very short sighted on your part, it will cost you, after having a run in myself with the owner of the Gowrie Vanpark owner, who chased me to the free camp in Gowrie park and proceeded to call me and my family parasites and freeloaders on the hospitality of Tasmania, we had been in Tasmania that time for a week and had to that date spent $2500 by the 4 of us, FREELOADERS!!!!!, I beg to differ, we didn’t stay in Van parks I agree but we paid our way in other ways.
The Van parks don’t offer what we want most of the time and that why we free camp, when we wanted to stay in a city or town, we stayed in the Van park, if they offer what we want they get our money, free enterprise!!!! that’s the way it supposed to work, I have visited Tasmania for the last time and will actively campaign for others not to go there until you as a government make the Caravan park owner responsible for their own decisions, council regulations and rates are heavy I know, that yours and their problems, sort them out without laying the blame on the travelling public.
The owner of the Gowrie park Caravan park made a decision to buy the park and spend money on it, without thinking it through!, Gowrie park has nothing there except the free camp, (how will it stay there?) and the Van park, I had spent money in the town before, the previous owner of the Van park used to have the dining room open as a cafe, with coffee, meals, cakes etc. this is why the present owner saw us pass, we were looking for the cafe to have lunch, it was closed and will only open by prior arrangement with the owner for guests!!!! that was his decision, we wanted to spend money in the place but he decided how we were going to spend it, that’s not how it works, my money, my decision,we didn’t agree, so we went elsewhere to spend our money.
These Caravan park owners should stand by their decisions and stop blaming everyone else for their poor business decisions, the state of Tasmania will suffer because of these selfish mongrels who want a guaranteed success for their businesses by legislating mandatory van park stays, when the government of Tasmania stops pandering to a minority group of vested interests and makes them succeed or fail by their own efforts the better, then I may revisit my favourite state again.

Sincerely and with regrets,

Kevin Buckley.