Our cities need to change with the times – just like we do
It’s a warm spring day sometime in September 1988. The Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group (TGLRG), as it was known in those days, is in the middle of a summer of protest at Salamanca Market all because a petition to decriminalise homosexuality is available to sign on a market stall. Hobart City Council objects, claiming the stall and the petition is an “affront to decency” and that “homosexuals are not welcome at Hobart’s family market”. That’s how I remember it.
I arrived home that afternoon to my share-house to find my housemate slumped in the hallway. He told me he had been arrested at the Market that morning and charged with trespass. That was just the beginning. Each Saturday, more arrests.
Some weeks later a mixture of us queer folk plus family and friends decided to gather and sing songs of support for those brave enough to step over the line marking the boundary of the market and get arrested.
The morning wore on. It was hot now, well into summer. We sang our hearts out and the arrests continued with paddy wagons lining up. I stood there singing with my toes on “the line” and a rage overtook me. Surely this was my market too?
That market was a magic place to me from childhood. Mum would pack us kids into the Holden and trundled down to Hobart most school holidays to see my grandparents who lived in a tiny flat at the end of Battery Point. With my pocket money zinging in hand I was allowed from a young age to wind my way down Hampden Road, marvelling at the historic houses, and through Princess Park to where the sandstone warehouses waited and the newly established Salamanca Arts Centre beckoned. The city spread out before me and the river shimmered. This was the beginning of my love affair with Hobart.
At the market I would study the bric-a-brac stalls, buy a tub of strawberries and cream, stop to listen to the buskers and marvel at the crafts. There I saw my first street theatre, met my first hippies, republicans and monarchists - all part of my education. To a child from the relatively cloistered suburbs of the West Tamar the world seemed to open up. No one was going to tell me that I was not a fit person to be at that market. No-one.
Shaking, I stepped over the line. The young policeman that arrested me seemed just as scared as I was. When we got to the paddy wagon he realised it was locked and he didn’t have the key. Glibly I asked, “Do you want me to wait here while you go and get it?” His reply, “Would you?” Later, after hours of stuffiness and sweat in the back of the wagon, I remember the policewoman at the processing desk snapping on a pair of latex gloves and remarking with a look of revulsion: “You people disgust me!”
I left Tasmania to study and make theatre, film and television. In my absence dedicated campaigners kept up the steady and sometimes daunting task to change attitudes and change laws. My admiration for them is endless.
After moving home to Hobart many years later I was invited to a reception along with the other 129 Salamanca arrestees and Council formally apologised to us. “The Yellow Line” public artwork at Salamanca Place was unveiled on May 17, 2013. Today the Hobart City Council maintains a highly supportive, progressive, and collaborative relationship with the queer community and actively works to promote inclusion, equity, and visibility through several formal initiatives.
My point in telling this tale is that attitudes change. The world changes and cities change. Our urban environment reflects our attitudes and values. Adapting to change is part of a city’s job and the weighty responsibility of those elected to its Council. And people of good heart, working cooperatively can effect change without abandoning the very things we love about this place.
Hobart today faces a multiplicity of challenges. COVID, online shopping and the rise of suburban shopping complexes have impacted retail trade in the city. Housing prices and construction costs have exploded causing a housing shortage and greater homelessness. Our infrastructure is ageing. Our creative industries are struggling to find a home in a city that has enjoyed a reputation as a creative and cultural hub. Our arterial roads are often choked and fuel prices are through the roof. We know we need as more resilient city as climate change is ever-present and bushfire season looms. A shortage of accommodation options has seen whole homes moved from the rental market to short-stay. Cost of living pressures are very real and forcing some into poverty. And hovering above all that is a deep uncertainty about the future of Kunanyi, the mountain we love. Hobart City Council has important and urgent work to do.
Tackling these challenges and supporting the development of diverse, thriving neighbourhoods in our city requires an energetic Council with a determined, co-operative, “can do” attitude. A Council that is genuinely here to help and not squabbling amongst itself.
And so, this year, this former arrestee has decided it’s time to stand to be on the very Council that once declared her unwelcome in her city.
**** A shortened version of this piece was published in The Mercury Newspaper, Tasmania on Monday Sept 21st 2026
Susan Wallace is a writer, celebrant and communications professional and an advocate for housing and the creative industries. She is a candidate for Deputy Lord Mayor and Councillor in the upcoming Hobart City Council election.
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