Mr Ambrose grew up in Launceston and returned to the city last year to live after retiring from racing.

He said the community had turned a blind eye on the Tamar’s health for long enough.

"It's a cancer – it's a cancer for Launceston,” Mr Ambrose said.

“It is a disgrace that the Tamar has got to the condition that it's in.

"I grew up here as a kid and it was nowhere near as bad as what it is now."

He said that a clean river could be a massive tourism attraction for the town.

"If I've got a friend coming from America to come down and hang out with me in Launceston,” Mr Ambrose said.

“I'm not going to take them to look at the Tamar, I'm just not.

"As a community, we need to just stop procrastinating and actually start delivering on getting the health of the Tamar back.

“We actually have to stand up and start looking at it for what it is: it's a safety hazard, it's a health hazard, it's just an eyesore, it's awful.

“If Tasmania is heading down a tourism path, the Tamar River has absolutely got to be on the agenda."

The Tamar has received only one new pledge of money this year.

The federal government, if re-elected, has committed $1.5 million over three years to the Launceston Flood Authority for silt raking it the upper reaches.

Federal Bass Labor candidate Ross Hart said he would lobby for funding from his party for a new sewage treatment plant to take pressure off the city’s combined system.

When overloaded, the system spills raw effluent directly into the estuary.

Bass Liberal MHR Andrew Nikolic said he would await the release of a report on the system before he lobbied for funding towards a solution.