Hobart Lord Mayor Sue Hickey has said she does not want a proposed Aboriginal memorial for the city to be a "guilt-ridden" place, adding that she "didn't kill Aborigines".

The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has announced plans to transform the industrial site at Macquarie Point into a cultural precinct highlighting Tasmania's Aboriginal history.

The $2 billion proposal vision includes a "Truth and Reconciliation Art Park" that acknowledges Tasmania's colonial conflict with the Indigenous population.

Sue Hickey says people today should not be blamed for the atrocities of the past. ( ABC News )

The Macquarie Point concept, which Premier Will Hodgman conceded could take up to 30 years to build, features a major fire and light installation dedicated to celebrating 40,000 years of continuous culture and a Tasmanian Aboriginal history centre.

The idea is the brainchild of MONA founder David Walsh and creative director Leigh Carmichael.

Alderman Hickey told 936 ABC Hobart she welcomed MONA's vision for the precinct but was concerned the strong focus on Tasmania's Aboriginal history could result in it being a "guilt-ridden" place.

"I would like to see [the proposal] really thoroughly consulted with the community and with the Aboriginal community, because I wouldn't like it to be tokenistic," she said.

"Whether they want this to be a shrine, [or] equally if it's just a place where they can explain their culture and show off some of the things that they do that are very significant to them, well I'd be very supportive of that."

"I think it very much has to be something that the Aboriginals are on board with, but also that it's done tastefully and it's not a guilt-ridden place.

"It's a place where we just simply acknowledge a tragedy that happened 200 years ago.

"Whatever happened 200 years ago is really, really sad, but lots of atrocities have happened. People came away here in ships, torn away from their families for stealing a turnip."

Ald Hickey said people today should not be blamed for the atrocities of the past.

"I didn't kill the Aborigines, and nor would I; it was a different era," she said.

An Aboriginal history centre is also part of the MONA Macquarie Point proposal. ( Supplied: Fender Katsalidis Architects with rush\wright associates )

State Liberals welcome controversy

Premier Will Hodgman said Ald Hickey did not need to apologise.

"This is exactly what we expected, a conversation off the back of a bold and brilliant vision," he said.

"Of course governments and the broader community always want to be looking forward, but it's hard to ignore our past and people have different perspectives and they categorise things in ways that are relevant to them.

"What's happened is that a conversation has been started."

Opposition Leader Bryan Green condemned Ald Hickey's comments.

"I think Sue Hickey's comments don't represent what most Tasmanians feel about recognition for the traditional owners of Tasmania's land and what they went through," he said.

"If we can't learn from the past it doesn't say much about our society."

Past never confronted, Aboriginal consultant says

Mr Carmichael said MONA had been working on the plan "for quite some time" and he hoped the community would get involved in the ongoing discussion.

He said the early reception to the project had been more positive than he had anticipated and welcomed further debate.

"We've put something forward, that is what sparks the conversation," he said.

"Sometimes community consultation process is about box ticking. That is not real, this is real. Everyone should be listening, everyone should be contributing.

"If someone wants to say something, they should say it. This is about changing the direction of this state and where we are headed."

Aboriginal consultant Greg Lehman, who has collaborated on the project with MONA, said "people want an honest relationship with the past".

He said Sydney's Barangaroo precinct served as an inspiration for MONA's vision in Hobart.

"Confronting difficult histories can sit right alongside the most energetic and the biggest enterprise developments," he said.

"People have thought for a long time, 'Oooh, you can't talk about that stuff if you want a tourism industry'. The opposite is true."

He said Ald Hickey's comments probably reflected the view of some Tasmanians.

"I think the reason that these sort of concerns arise is because we've actually never properly confronted Tasmania's colonial history, and especially the difficult aspects of that history, in relation to what was called at the time the extermination of Tasmanian Aboriginal people," he said.

Mr Lehman said open and frank conversation was essential to the healing process.

"To hit people over the head because they express their fears or concerns about this is not the way forward," he said.

"We may as well not bother if that's going to be the response, because it just drives people into a corner."

Mayor's comments condemned by Aboriginal leaders

In a statement Heather Sculthorpe, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre CEO, said Ald Hickey had shown a "sad lack of moral leadership and should apologise to the Aboriginal people of Tasmania".

Greg Lehman (L) and Leigh Carmichael said Tasmanians wanted to acknowledge their past. ( ABC News: James Dunlevie )

"To mention in the same breath as the theft of our lands and the massacres of our people, the export of English law breakers for stealing a turnip, is to misunderstand the nature and consequences of the recent history of our island," she said.

Ms Sculthorpe congratulated MONA's "visionaries" on the plan and said Ald Hickey "is a perfect reminder of why that is so very necessary".

She pointed to Hobart's Cenotaph honouring Tasmania's war dead as being in Ald Hickey's "jurisdiction".

"To deny one for the black fallen while approving one for the white fallen is a double standard," she said.

Ms Sculthorpe said Ald Hickey "need not feel personal guilt about the fact that all Aboriginal people traditionally of the Hobart area were wiped out. But she can show moral leadership by supporting some permanent arrangement to remind us of the facts."

Tasmanian Aboriginal leader Michael Mansell condemned Ald Hickey's comments and said regardless of who was at fault, society shared a "moral responsibility" to remedy injustices.

"It is not enough to say, 'I did not do it'. Do we absolve ourselves of responsibility to feed the starving children of the world, even though their plight is not of our doing?" he said.

"People can share personal guilt for failing to remedy the effects of injustices, or they can take pride in the fact they took on the responsibility of making their society a better place to live in."

The Aboriginal components are in the proposal's second and third stages of the 30-year project.