Hobart City Council has shot down a motion to force it to table its sources for claims a Tasmanian premier mutilated aboriginal remains.
Councillor Louise Elliott’s motion was rejected 7 votes to 4, after she claimed local historians have questioned the narrative of William Crowther removing Willian Lanne’s skull.
Dr Crowther’s statue will be removed from Franklin Square in coming months.
Councillor John Kelly says council needs a monuments policy.
“We are going to talk about the John Franklin statue next, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars are we going to spend on that, tear the community apart for another three years, I just think there’s a big lesson to be learned from this.”
Councillor Ryan Posselt denies it’s splitting the community, given the lacklustre response to a petition against the removal.
“That petition has garnered just 774 signatures or less than 0.1% of the Tasmanian population, so the community is not divided and the vast majority of Tasmanians appear to support Hobart City Council’s actions otherwise they would have signed the petition that was before them.”
