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the new Commonwealth Government would be responsible for coastal lighthouses. This included major lights used by vessels travelling from port to port, not the minor lights used for navigation within harbours and rivers. There was a delay before this new arrangement came into effect and existing lights continued to be operated by the states.
Since 1915, various Commonwealth departments have managed lighthouses. AMSA, established under the Australian Maritime Safety Authority Act 1990 (Cth), is now responsible for operating Commonwealth lighthouses and other aids to navigation, along with its other functions.
  3.2 Tasmanian Lighthouse Administration
The table below outlines the timeline for Tasmanian lighthouse management.

Time Period   Administration
1915 – 1927   Lighthouse District No 3. (Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania), Hobart Headquarters.

              Deputy Director of Lighthouses and Navigation, Tasmania.
1927 – 1963
              Department of Shipping and Transport, Regional Controller, Tasmania.
1963 – 1972
              Department of Transport [III], Regional Controller, Tasmania.
1972 – 1982
              Department of Transport and Construction. Victoria-Tasmania Region, Transport Division (Tasmania)
1982 – 1983
              Department of Transport [IV] Victoria-Tasmania Region, Hobart Office.

1983 – 1985   Department of Transport [IV], Tasmanian Region.

1985 – 1987   Department of Transport and Communications, Tasmanian Region.

1987 – 1990   Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

1991 --

  3.3  King Island: a history

Aboriginal history
The Office of Aboriginal Affairs (Tas) advised that although Aboriginal people did visit King Island, there was no permanent inhabitation of the island. Numerous Aboriginal heritage sites were recorded in the Victoria Cove area and around Lake Wickham on the island.

Further information from the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania will be included in this section in future updates of the plan.

Early European history
In 1798, the passage of water separating Tasmania from the mainland was charted by British explorer George Bass, and British navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders. Named 'Bass Strait', this passage was traversed by countless ships that had previously been forced to journey around the south coast of Tasmania. However, the maps of the Strait Flinders created and sent back to England in 1800 did not include King Island. In 1799, Captain Reed sighted King Island while on a seal hunting expedition aboard the schooner Martha. Reed informed Flinders of the Island's existence and in Flinders' second map of the Strait made mention of a "Land of considerable extent".[10]

Following Reed's sighting, British Privateer, Captain John Black, visited the island and named the island after New South Wales governor Phillip Gidley King. In that same trip, Black named Harbinger Rocks, located off the island's north-west coast, after his ship Harbinger. It was here that an abundance of fur seals and Southern elephant seals were found – the seals were exploited into extinction shortly thereafter.[11]

Governor King, concerned the