Comments
Gunns don’t seem to understand basics do they. I guess that brown paper bags stuffed with cash or other incentives such as reduced court costs would have been part of the deal.
The chances of getting the people of Tasmania to accept that Gunns should be allowed to convert the rest of the state to woodchip plantations and to continue to be propped up by massive subsidies whilst sacking more workers is not much above zero.
I for one would never accept that this company should be allowed to destroy our air, water and lifestyle while we pay them to do it.
If they can run their business without poisoning our air, water, destroying native forest ecology, breaking the forest practices code, at the same time paying for all the road damage they do and not need any subsidisation then maybe. Oh a pig just flew past my window.Posted by Pete Godfrey on 10/11/09 at 06:13 AMSounds like we don’t need to protest about the Pulp Mill anymore. Gay’s stubborness and refusal to take the slightest bit of advice from anyone else will be what kills this project. I wonder if he talks like this to the “Preferred Joint Venture” Parteners.
Posted by Stephani on 10/11/09 at 06:51 AMNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to the pulp mill. We don’t want the pulp mill !
Posted by Arnold Parnham on 10/11/09 at 07:06 AMPerhaps a coincidence Pete, I had an un-announced visit from Bryan Geen MP on 9th Nov 2009.
Many issues were incorporated into our discussion, that Bryan Green is still a staunch defender of Gunns Ltd and F/T, you betcha?In fact my past lettered and emailed grievances with this MP, have in the past have ever been about trashing of so much the State’s Forests for woodchips and the odd number of saw-logs.
To consider that there is now an intelligent interest in speciality timbers by Forestry Tasmania, as a most recent inclined deviation from the usual burning of those non-suitable species for wood-chips, this came about through a Tasmanian member of the woodworkers guild, a special thank-you must be given to this person, (a regular contributor to the Tasmanian Times,) for his personal achievement to bring this into being.
As for any immediate changes to the Forestry industry and their pursuit of Ancient Forest Timber material for mostly wood-chips, unfortunately, not a lot of real change in this pursuit can be expected.
This appears to be a ‘set in concrete’ deal that has the full support of the main offending ministers within the State labor Party.The present thinking as announced to me by our pro-forestry minister Bryan Green, is that Ancient Forest access will go on forever in the belief that this State will soon in time (say 80-100 years,) see a lot of the past clear-felling zones, will have magically regenerated back to the Ancient Forests of today is an absurd concept.
Oh yes, the increase in conversion of Old Growth Forests into tree plantations is a known statistical certainty.
(Even though this is disputed by Forestry Tasmania.)
It is my strongly held belief that of Gunns Ltd and Forestry Tasmania, do not expect any change to their credibility, nor to their continuing release of misleading statements to the media.Posted by William Boeder on 10/11/09 at 07:30 AMWhile members of the Tamar valley community opposing the mill are being arrested, in typical Tasmanian political style Brown is having dinner with Gay trashing out a secret deal. More than disappointing to read this and not a good look for the greens integrity outside their core support.
Posted by Tom on 10/11/09 at 07:34 AMThis certainly confirms my article speculating that TWS was doing a deal with Gunns/forestry.
On whose behalf is TWS acting?
Where does an environmental group get the authority to do deals that will affect so many in the community?
Posted by Mike Bolan on 10/11/09 at 07:35 AM“Senator Brown is understood to have outlined the Greens’ bottom line that any mill be based entirely on plantations and that the bleaching technology involved be totally chlorine-free (TCF). . . .”
I think it’s about time that Bob Brown made acquaintance with the Greens actual Charter.
See: http://www.tas.greens.org.au/charterThe relevant paragraphs that ‘The Greens’ (who are they?) miss:
Ecology:
• Ensure that human activity respects the integrity of ecosystems and does not impair biodiversity and the ecological resilience of life-supporting systemsTHE PERPETUATION (not to mention the establishment) OF VAST MONOCULTURE TREE PLANTATIONS DESTROYS ECOSYSTEMS AND IMPAIRS BIODIVERSITY.
Democracy
• Increase opportunities for public participation in political, social and economic decision makingA TINY MINORITY OF PEOPLE IN THE GREENS HAVE SET BROWN’S ABOVE-STATED POLICY.
Social Justice
• Eradicate poverty by developing initiatives that address the causes as well as the symptoms of povertyTHE AGRIBUSINESS PLANTATION INDUSTRY IS A CAUSE OF POVERTY IN TASMANIA. It represents the conversion of farms and pasture (and native forest) to a single crop that costs our water, soil and air. It limits economic gain to a tiny handful of corporate players and impoverishes the general community.
etc.
http://www.geocities.com/rosserbjPosted by Brenda Rosser on 10/11/09 at 08:26 AMI have posted this before & I will continue to post it:
Maybe, just maybe, there is conflict between the Tasmanian forestry industry & the Tasmanian people because Tasmanian people are continually wondering why their businesses & their industries aren’t receiving the same level of taxpayer funded subsidies, bureaucratic & political attention, as well as specially written legislation (ie, PTR, PMAA, PAL, MIS) that one (1) forestry company receives. A company that directly & indirectly employs fewer & fewer people as time goes by. Also in the mix is the Tasmanian forestry industry’s intense focus on wood chips & monoculture plantations of eucalyptus, with the associated loss of millions of taxpayers’ dollars through Forestry Tasmania, & all at the detriment of so called ‘lesser species’ of timber that could be used for construction & furniture, . The continued destruction of old forests & valuable agricultural land by monoculture, eucalyptus plantations with their attendant aerial spraying of pesticides & ferociously intense debris burns, become easy & understandable focus points for the anger of people who see the obscene waste & despair continuing year after year, right next door to them. The Tasmanian people see these conundrums everyday & are naturally angry at the obvious bias, unnecessary kowtowing & embarrassing fawning of the LibLab coalition toward the forestry industry.
Revoking the special legislation, refocusing on timber instead of wood chips, stopping the clear-felling of all old forests & the better control of plantations would be a good start for the Tasmanian forestry industry. If not, the people of Tasmania will remain angry toward the forestry industry & the conflict will continue. The forestry industry has to make at least these changes; the people of Tasmania have already given the forestry industry enough.So sure, the destruction of old forest for the spread of monoculture eucalyptus plantations is one reason for the conflict, I believe that Gunns’ entire corporate, social & environmental attitude & the politicians & business groups that support it are the main problem.
Until new blood is injected into Tasmania’s political system to expunge the Liblab Coalition, things will remain the same.
Posted by Christopher Purcell on 10/11/09 at 09:15 AMThose persons that are looking to describe our Senator Bob Brown as a turncoat [see comment above by Tom] are seeking to find fault where none is due.
To begin to believe all press reports that might suggest otherwise is a mischeivious activity.If any possible negotians are being discussed it will be in the interests of all Tasmanians, so do not start any pernicious unwarranted suggestions of derision, it is extremely poor form by any Greens inclined persons.
Posted by William Boeder on 10/11/09 at 09:46 AMLarge mills of any kind, however ‘clean’, are not the way to go. Let’s get small and smart. Let’s also get labour intensive. The pulp mill as planned will cost over $2 billion, if TCF closer to $3 billion. That works out at about $10 million per long-term job even before operating costs come into the equation.
Plantations are sucking our arable land dry (not to mention our purses).
Economically, the best use for our forests is as carbon storage. They could be worth billions if left standing, much, much more than the current pittance for woodchip royalties and more than exported pulp could ever earn.
I’d even put myself through the ordeal of dining with JG if it gave me the chance to explain these simple facts to him. Especially if he paid for the meal.
Posted by Justa Bloke on 10/11/09 at 10:09 AMThe TWS and Greens, and any other group for that matter (including the Tasmanian Labor and Liberal Parties and Gunns Ltd), should keep in the very fore of their mind what happened to the Democrats when Meg Lees sold the party out over the GST.
Tasmanian Independant Brian Harradine had all but knocked the GST on the head when that stupid bitch bent the Democrats over for John Howard. As a direct consequence they no longer exist and everyone is paying for it.
Any pulp mill proposal must go through the correct processes as they were originally in the RPDC before being corrupted and fast tracked by the Paul Lennon Labor Tasmanian Government and since then by David Backdoor Bartlett. It must be free from Government influence, finance and support, it must be closed loop, chlorine free, 100% plantation based and sized and located in an appropriate place, NOT in the Tamar Valley.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 10/11/09 at 10:10 AMWilliam Boeder writes: “If any possible negotians are being discussed it will be in the interests of all Tasmanians, so do not start any pernicious unwarranted suggestions of derision, it is extremely poor form by any Greens inclined persons.”
Secret negotiations involving a handful of people. This is not what one would call ‘democracy’. By the way, when ordinary Tasmanians write to the Tassie Times in response to these secret deals they are engaging in legitimate discussion.
If there exists any “pernicious unwarranted suggestions of derision” (and I haven’t read any here) then it is up to Senator Bob Brown and the others involved in secret talks to declare publicly what they are saying and inform any of these so-defined writers. Senator Brown, you’re invited to speak! Right here. Right now.
Posted by Brenda Rosser on 10/11/09 at 10:25 AMThe very fact that meetings have been secret is sufficient to invalidate a process which can not countenance secrecy.
Gunns simply doesn’t have the plantation resource to start or run the mill. There is evidence, however, that native forest is being hastily flattened by FT and other parties to provide some semblance of sufficiency for FSC accreditation, provided no one checks carefully as to whether it occurred after 2006.
As someone noted of the Mafia, you can never trust them. They will always cheat.
John Hayward
Posted by john hayward on 10/11/09 at 10:26 AMLooks like highly trained operatives have penetrated gays mind. Now whose face would be redder, Fiona or the busted sav?
John Gay is doing what he should have done years ago.Consulting with his opposition
Like your style DG maybe the penis was an operative and john kept the cleaning rag in his pocket, very clever these operatives.Posted by Bruce on 10/11/09 at 10:32 AM# 10, 11 & 12 are all insightful.
Instead of ‘Gunns in secret talks with Greens…’ the headline could as well have read ‘Greens in secret talks with Gunns…’
I don’t doubt Bob Browns bona fides, but it’s certainly worth questioning the advice he’s receiving if it could leave the Greens exposed to community ire and misunderstandings.
Of course Tasmanians would like some rational way forwards in this entire debacle.
But secret meetings between environmental organisations and Gunns do not seem to be the way.
Surely the people who need to be heard and considered are those impacted by the proposal, and they were at the reported secret meeting.
This is an important lesson.
This is what happens when our paid representatives refuse to represent us.
Someone else tries to do it.
Can this really be what we want?
Posted by Mike Bolan on 10/11/09 at 11:59 AMI will spell it for the hysterical, undiscerning nin-nongs who are convinced that based on the Denholm article, that the Greens and TWS have gone to Gunns to broker a deal “with the devil” over a pulp mill in Tasmania.
I have it from very reliable sources including people who were in those meetings that no such thing happened.
The invitations to attend those meetings came from Gunns and were but one part of a series of invitations that went out to other stakeholder groups. O.k
It is not only the Greens and TWS wo were invited and have subsequently met with Gunns.My feeling is that this PR campaign by Gunns is mostly to do with giving the appearance to potential investors that they are consulting the community. I also have it from a highly reliable source that Don Burke was present at one of the meetings that Brown attended.
It may suit the agenda of some to frame these meetings as proof of a conspiracy by the Greens and Wildo.s to sell-out Tasmanians, in particular those of us in the Tamar Valley.
Those who are perpetuating this nonsense need to provide concrete proof before making sweeping statements.
I dont dispute the right of others to campaign against the wilderness society and the Greens or TAP for that matter. If that is your thing, whether or you are doing it from the left or the right I support your right to do this.
However, in the matter of what took place at these meetings between Gunns, TWS, the Greens and others, may I suggest to you conspiracy theorists (and there are a few around here) - you are barking up the wrong tree.Matt Denholms article confirms nothing of the sort.
All you dills are infact doing by stating that TWS or the Aus. Greens are selling us out behind close doors is constructing a conspiracy theory that could be detrimental to the overall campaign to stop a Tamar Valley pulp mill.
Whatever rocks your world I suppose.
Some of you may have tired of campaigning against the proposed pulp mill and are now focussing what I would describe as an untimely and spiteful smear campaign against other so called environmental groups based on what I see as some very tenuos arguments, unfactual sweeping statement and hearsay.
However, whilst I support open debate and opinions of all shapes and sizes those of you are driving this overwrought and divisive discourse can expect some opposition from me in the future. I have remained silent on you this until now, but I will do so no longer.
Cheers
Rick PilkingtonPosted by pilko on 10/11/09 at 12:00 PMLet’s talk about ‘common ground’. This is the ‘common ground’ without the restoration of which there can be NO negotiation or engagement by the community with the offending parties: Gunns, State Labor and the Liberals.
1. Equal access to the law. Denied to the people of Tasmania by the PMAA, Section 11 in particular.
2. Equal access to the public service. The resources of the public service were denied to the people of Tasmania while being provided to assist Gunns with their pulp mill proposal, free of charge.
3. Equal access to public subsidies or none at all to everyone. Gunns (and their service organization Forestry Tasmania) get a couple of hundred million a year. The people get zilch.
4. Installation of proper planning procedures and due process.
5. Separation of government and business. There would not be a Tamar pulp mill proposal if state Labor with the collusion of the Liberals had not sponsored and promoted the pulp mill so hard at public expense and in so doing corrupted due process, debauched parliament and deprived the population of their legal and human rights.
6. Repeal of the PMAA. Who could possibly engage with the offending parties with that iniquitous legislation on the books?Let’s have no talk about what sort of pulp mill would be ‘acceptable’. Until we have ‘common ground’ there can be no talk of compromise and there will be no surrender no matter how nasty the fight gets.
Posted by Bob McMahon on 10/11/09 at 12:08 PMWilliam Boeder, Gay, Lennon and Bartlett all tell me that the mill is in the best interest of all Tasmanians. I am pointing out the obvious, you play their game, talking about details of making deals over dinner behind closed doors in secret, only revealed by a National newspaper, and rightly or wrongly you will be tarred with the same brush.
In what other context and regard should I accept the Greens to lower their standard before I might as well vote LibLab? This can be spun anyway you or the greens choose to, it will still be just spin, to me even after some reflection the irony in this is bitterly disappointing.
Posted by Tom on 10/11/09 at 12:56 PM#8 Chris. The reason for the non-response could easily be that everyone already agrees with you.
The points you make are cogent and probably underpin much of the problem.
Keep your brain switched on and watch the whole thing play out. Unfortunately the ending is tiresomely predictable.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 10/11/09 at 01:37 PMRe #11 it is a common view that the Democrats died because they supported the GST but the reality is a fair bit more complex than that. The GST passed in 1999 with most Democrats supporting it but Andrew Bartlett and Natasha Stott Despoja voting against. In 2001 the party’s rank-and-file membership elected Stott Despoja as leader and despite the majority of the party’s Senators having voted for the GST, the party did not too badly at the 2001 Senate election, the Democrat vote only declining from 8.4% to 7.3%.
After the 2001 election Meg Lees undermined Stott Despoja who did not have the support of the party room despite being democratically elected by the rank and file membership. When Stott Despoja stood down in 2002 the rank and file membership elected Bartlett and Lees quit the party. As if the infighting wasn’t bad enough Bartlett drunkenly assaulted another Senator (and a female Senator at that) on the floor of Parliament. After all this, in the 2004 election the Democrat vote crashed beyond repair.
So to what extent it was really supporting the GST that killed them, or infighting over supporting the GST or not, or the rise of the Greens, or other factors not necessarily related to the GST - all this is a complex story. And did the Greens rise at that point just because the Democrats were in a mess over the GST, or would it have happened anyway?
In my view the biggest single cause of the death of the Democrats as an effective force was not the GST. It was the fatally flawed party structure in which the leader was elected directly by the rank and file members - an idealistic concept that fell flat on its face because it provided no guarantee that the person thus elected would have the support of the party room. Indeed, in 1993 the Democrats had already had a massive crash in public support (from 12.6% to 5.3%) after Janet Powell was acrimoniously replaced as leader by the unpopular John Coulter. The party bounced back from that once Coulter was gone partly because there was not yet an organised national competitor.
So I think the Democrats’ history shows that disunity is a bigger killer than pragmatism when it comes to doing deals with “the enemy”.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 10/11/09 at 02:20 PMRick Pilkington, great to hear that you support open debate, but it seems only as long as everyone agrees with your point of view otherwise they are pro mill dills, nin-nongs etc…
I don’t mind that you can’t see the contradiction in your statements.The mill got to where it is because it has been conceived, planned, developed and assessed through lunches and dinners, just like the one Bob Brown has attended. He new that when he decided to attend and I have an issue with that. Not because I am por mill or have any respect for John Gay but precisely because I used to have some for Bob Brown.
Posted by Tom on 10/11/09 at 02:20 PM#15 Ooops, sorry, missing ‘not’ - my post should have said…
“Surely the people who need to be heard and considered are those impacted by the proposal, and they were NOT at the reported secret meeting”.
Pilko, the ‘deal’ that I refer to is the arrangement to use TWS credentials to ‘Green wash’ plantations and a Gunns mill in exchange for lightening up on our forests. TWS must have spent over $20,000 for that campaign - what was the source of the funds?
I agree with Bob Mc - no arrangements, talks or anything else about what is acceptable until those affected are protected by due process and independent analysis of the proposals.
They are basic principles that I believe everyone should uphold, including TWS.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 10/11/09 at 02:22 PMIn view of the recently announced dialogue between Gunns and both Bob Brown and the Wilderness Society perhaps now would be an opportune time to review the Tasmanian Greens’ 2004 alternate strategy for the forestry industry and use this as a middle ground for further consultation. The Greens suggested that at $770 million, less than half the price of the pulp mill construction costs, Gunns could build 2 veneer mills, 2 laminated veneer lumber plywood plants, 2 sawmills and 2 engineered strand lumber plants, creating 1320 jobs instead of the less than 300 permanent jobs touted for the mill. This would hopefully be both economically and environmentally viable and presumably acceptable to both sides of the debate bringing an end to the community division and distress caused by the mill project over the past 5 years.
Posted by Estelle Ross on 10/11/09 at 02:28 PMNever believe all of what you read. Senator Brown put out this media release today:
“The meeting was not over dinner and was entirely amicable. The issue discussed was the pulp mill. No decision was made, but both parties agreed to keep the door open to future talks. Senator Brown said that it is in Tasmania’s interests for such contentious issues as the pulp mill to be discussed face to face by those on both sides of the fence.”
As it says there was no cosy dinner, it was a talk. No deals. Just talk. No selling out. Just talk.
There are few people, politicans or otherwise who work as hard for the protection of tasmania’s native forests, as Senator Brown. There are few people who have campaigned as hard against this mill as Senator Brown. There are also few people with the integrity and track record of honour as Senator Brown.
Posted by forestlad on 10/11/09 at 03:01 PMThe vaguest inkling of discussions or a *gasp* compromise and you are tearing each other apart. There is no indication in the article why the meetings are thought to have been secret. One would think that Gunns nor Brown nor TWS would be required to put out a media release detailing discussions with the ‘other side’.
The rantings of some on this issue show that there will never be middle ground for some people, recognising that you can’t change the past, but can shape the future. Hopefully those with actual influence and power (not just rantings on a web site) have more sense.
Posted by Mary on 10/11/09 at 03:06 PMCan I suggest pausing for a brief moment to reflect on the ‘Big Picture’?
Consider that John Gay is under INTENSE pressure to demonstrate to potential backers that this Mill has even a hope in hell of success. WHY NOT goad the opposition into “Secret Talks”?!?
Oogedy-boogedy!
It’s then a simple task for JG and his stooges to just sit back and observe as Anti-Mill groups are drawn into petty bickering by fear and suspicion. The media will predictably focus on a divided opposition, adding fuel to the fire. Gunns, by contrast, comes out looking like a professional operation opposed by a weak, disorganised rabble.
Given that we don’t have the full information, it could just come down to who you trust more: Bob Brown&TWS;, or John Gay and his puppet Don Burke???
Posted by Mark on 10/11/09 at 03:13 PMAny meeting whatsoever between “Bob Brown”! Forestry ! and Gay’s group ! is simply not on ! there is no argument about my personal opinion, NO MORE PULP MILLS ANY WHERE ! full stop.
If , as some are are suggesting, Bob’s stand is tenuous and or weakening , he must stand aside and make room for Christine to take the reins, in fact I have thought this for some time, as if we give these bastards an inch ! they’ll take a mile.
NO MILL IN THE TAMAR ! or any where else in Tasmania, that position is not negotiable ! and hopefully we can once more lead the world in eradicating them entirely from the planet, because it is the only way to save the worlds species and ecology.
We humans have caused it ! so whether we survive is neither here or there in the bigger picture.
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 10/11/09 at 03:16 PMThought I’d just throw in another conspiracy theory since that seems to be the tone of the thread. Maybe it’s Mat Denholm stirring the pot again? Bob Brown would NEVER sell out on Tasmania. He would have said a lot more to Gay than is referred to in the article. I agree with one of the comments that Gunns would be wanting to demonstrate to any potential JVP that they are “engaging” with the community - it won’t wash as long as the anti-antics continue and are widely reported. Also think this is another covert attack on leading conservationists - questioning their integrity. I’m still a believer!!
Posted by Maddie on 10/11/09 at 03:21 PMMike. You said
“This (being the contents of the Denholm article) certainly confirms my article speculating that TWS was doing a deal with Gunns/forestry.
On whose behalf is TWS acting?
Where does an environmental group get the authority to do deals that will affect so many in the community”?
Simple question for you Mike. What proof do you have that Brown or Oosting went to these meetings to stitch up the deals with Gunns/Forestry that you speak of in your article?
Do TWS not have the right to take up an invite to a meeting with Gunns if they are invited?
Do they not have the authority (mandate) to speak for their supporters.All i’m saying Mike is that if you are going to make assumptions about what took place at these meetings then back it up with some evidence, otherwise all you are doing is smearing the people and groups concerned.
Posted by pilko on 10/11/09 at 03:41 PMd.d , I think you are more likely to ‘sell out’ on the pulp mill than Senator Brown. I know who is more credible and has the history behind them.
Posted by forestlad on 10/11/09 at 03:50 PMIn the wash of discussion on this thread, Brenda #7 stands out, presenting cogent evidence that questions the entire scenario.
Yet her lucid and apposite comments receive not a murmur from posters.
Brenda lives with plantation and forestry problems every day. Her voice is the voice of experience.
We need to listen more to people like her.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 10/11/09 at 04:22 PMI’m with you RickP. Politics is about dialogue and outcomes. Bob Brown, Cheryl Kernot, Christine Milne, Peter Garret and the average man in the street are not political buffoons. Politics is part of human nature. At least the aforementioned pollies, excluding the man in the street, are doing what we pay them to be - politicians. That is all I have ever asked and expect. After 15 years of the RFA and “community lockout,” I am happy for the dialogue to occur.
Posted by Mark on 10/11/09 at 05:04 PMBy John Gay only consulting with the green groups, it shows Gunns is either very smart & trying to portray all opposition to the pulp mill as ‘greenies’, which enables them to enlarge the divide between ‘greenies’ & pro-pulp mill people, making it easier to run a black or white (‘green’ or ‘red’) political campaign for the coming election. Or, they have no idea at all about the extent of anger & hatred in the general populace, that this company with it’s special government treatment, evokes. Somehow, I don’t think Gunns’ washing machines are really that dumb…are they?
Posted by Christopher Purcell on 10/11/09 at 05:18 PMI agree entirely with Brenda #12
Re #16
Sorry Rick but I have to disagree with some of your post.Firstly, no-one said that Bob Brown had gone over to Gunns’ side, but to have a meeting specifically about the Pulp Mill and not to disclose to the public its occurrence at the time it happened and what was said was a mistake when Tasmanians are sick of hearing about things later, or too late, via media leaks.
If you have information from “very reliable sources” then you should have shared it with us, and still should rather than leave it at that. Everyone in this debate is a stakeholder not just whoever Gunns picks, or you for that matter. Again, who are these “other stakeholder groups”(?), don’t just leave it at that. I for one have every right to know what’s going on.
It is well known that Don Burke was employed a long time ago by Gunns for PR. So what? I don’t know why you put that in. He has never had much credibility when it comes to paid representation, long before Gunns was on the radar, in my view anyway.
I don’t think anyone said anything about any stupid conspiracy between the TWS or Greens and Gunns. The points made were to warn them not to do anything stupid which would erode their support base as Democrats’ Meg Lees did. That’s where the rot started Dr Kevin Bonham #20, don’t start getting bloody technical with your electoral statistics. They did die over a period but Meg Lees and the GST was “the catalyst.” Everyone knows and accepts that, except maybe you, pure and simple, not complex at all.
Back to #16, no, it is you Rick or Bob Brown more specifically who needs to give proof in the form of a statement of what was actually said at this or these meetings. Why should it be privy? We are entitled to know. It affects us directly and indirectly. We are the stakeholders. No-one here is campaigning against anyone, we just want the facts so we discuss it. This is what a forum is.
Then, in your post is written “However, in the matter of what took place at these meetings between Gunns, TWS, the Greens and others, may I suggest to you conspiracy theorists (and there are a few around here) - you are barking up the wrong tree…..Matt Denholms article confirms nothing of the sort.”
Rick, I suggest the heading “Gunns in secret talks with Greens leader to win mill support” says it all, without even reading the content. None of us wrote the heading, Matt Demholm did. How did you read it?
And I really doubt if anyone here will stop campaigning against this disgusting Pulp Mill and the associated corrupt process until it is well and truly dead and buried.
Re #23
Good points, I didn’t know that, and four times the number of jobs at only a third of the cost. And, much much higher return for the end products compared to woodchips and pulp of which hardly there is a market left worldwide.Re #24
The “media release” still doesn’t make us any the wiser. What was said? What are the Greens’ and TWS’ position after the meetings? What did Gay say?I don’t doubt Bob Brown’s integrity or honour, but why the secrecy? There is no need or good for it.
Re #25
Mary Mary quite contrary. “Rip each other apart.” You do always talk some absolute shit!Re #27
I don’t mind them meeting d.d. but I, and everyone else, want to know what is said.Re #28
Matt Denholm certainly seems to have gone slightly off the tracks recently.Posted by Russell Langfield on 10/11/09 at 06:16 PMWell Mike (currently #31), I have rebutted scientific errors in similar claims Brenda has made many times before, and when dealing with posts that contain bits written IN CAPITAL LETTERS FOR NO REASON it’s sometimes difficult to find the energy to bother.
But since you have asserted that her comments are “cogent evidence”, I shall point out that at least one of her assertions is extremely dubious.
That is:
“THE PERPETUATION (not to mention the establishment) OF VAST MONOCULTURE TREE PLANTATIONS DESTROYS ECOSYSTEMS AND IMPAIRS BIODIVERSITY.”
This very much depends on how the plantations were originally established. If they are established on former farmland then their creation and perpetuation neither destroys ecosystems (since the damage was already done) nor “impairs biodiversity”. In fact, conversion of farmland to plantation is a net plus for many native species of invertebrate, especially where this can be done adjacent to small bush remnants.
Even when discussing conversion of native forests to plantation (which the Greens do not support anyway), it makes sense to speak of the destruction of the original ecosystem and deterioriation in the hopelessly vague catch-all term “biodiversity” at a coupe scale. But analysis at a coupe scale misses the point. At a landscape scale (where the question really should be asked in most cases) it is an open scientific question whether the conversion of some coupes in a forest area to plantation represents a net gain or loss in the ecological complexity of the region, and also whether it is likely to lead to an increase or decrease in the number of native species that occur in significant numbers in the region.
At the coupe level, where a plantation coupe is surrounded by forest then it’s likely a restorative abandonment of a plantation to allow it to revert to more or less native forest will lead to it supporting more species diversity than it did as a plantation. Indeed I have made exactly this point against anti-plantation posters who try to argue that conversion necessarily entails permanent destruction. But that does not mean its perpetuation as a plantation destroys or impairs anything.
Most likely with defenders like me the Greens don’t need enemies but Brenda’s attack on them is still wrong in this instance.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 10/11/09 at 08:40 PMI hate to say it but I think that Kevin at #20 is right on the money; “So I think the Democrats’ history shows that disunity is a bigger killer than pragmatism when it comes to doing deals with “the enemy”.”
I also agree with pilko at #16. Save your efforts for the pulp mill. I don’t think it’s coincidental that all these little wedges are being driven into the anti mill movement just now.
Think about it, these people deal in obscene sums of money. Spreading a little discord among the opposition is ridiculously easy. Mind you, if I was Bob McMahon I’d be taking heart. Judge a man by his enemies.. TAP must be hitting a nerve!Posted by Steve on 10/11/09 at 09:07 PMDoes it strike anyone else as being a little odd that these Gunns’ initiated meetings between John Gay and Bob Brown/TWS took place several months ago, and yet we are only hearing about them the day before Gunns’ AGM? Could it be just another little PR ploy on the part of Gunns to try and persuade us they’re liaising positively with the community and ‘green groups’ about the mill. If so then judging by the comments so far on this thread I’d say they’ve not been too successful.
And if these long-ago talks were in any way conciliatory or sympathetic to Gunns’ stubborn and unreasonable desire to plonk it’s despised mill in the Tamar Valley, don’t you think we’d have heard about it before now? Good heavens, if they believed they’d won any kind of concession they’d have been crowing about it all the way to The Ex’s editor at the earliest possible moment.
It’s perfectly obvious both Senator Brown and TWS told Mr Gay where he could stick his mill idea, and the only reason we’re hearing these discussions took place at all is because Gunns thought it might be worth a vote or two at the AGM.
Posted by anne on 10/11/09 at 09:09 PMRussell Langfield attempts to direct me: “don’t start getting bloody technical with your electoral statistics.” Russell, in debating changes in a party’s support over time (and causes of collapse in that support), electoral statistics are hardly “getting bloody technical” but are core material for any remotely informed discussion of what actually happened to that party’s standing with the voters.
Indeed, it’s not completely clear that the GST really was “where the rot started”. Following the impressive post-Coulter rebound under Kernot, the Democrats polled 10.8% in the Senate in 1996, but in the 1998 election they lost 2.4 points in public support, dropping to 8.4%. That was their worst result to that stage except for the 1993 wipeout under Coulter (5.3%) and also the 7.6% they polled in 1984 when they briefly faced severe competition from the NDP.
So the fact is that in 1998 the swing against the Dems was more than twice as large as the swing against them in 2001 - but it was in the term between the 1998 election and the 2001 election that they supported the GST.
There are two ways of looking at this. One is that the decline had already started at the 1998 election (the initial trigger in that case being the shock defection of Cheryl Kernot to the Labor Party, later revealed to be for non-political reasons) and the first post-GST election (2001) just continued this. Another is that the Democrats’ support had risen and fallen sharply in the past and therefore it could always do so again, and hence the loss of 2.4 points in 1998 wasn’t necessarily the beginning of the end. If that is true, the same can be said of the loss of a further 1.1 points in 2001.
You assert that everyone except me knows and accepts that “Meg Lees and the GST” was “the catalyst”. Saying that I don’t “accept” this is a straw man because the concepts of catalysis and primary cause are different. Party support for the GST was indeed the main catalyst for the events that later caused the doom of the party, but it was probably not the primary cause. The most likely primary cause was the party’s defective structure, which had nearly killed the party before and would sooner or later have killed it anyway even without the GST. Basically, once Don Chipp retired and took his personality cult with him, the party was fundamentally unstable. The party collapsed between 2001 and 2004 not specifically because a majority of its Senators had voted for the GST, but because the party’s organisational defects allowed rank-and-file members disgruntled with that decision to go to war with the majority of the party room in a way that made stable leadership impossible. Without that structural problem, the party would probably have survived its decision to “sell out” and might still be with us today.
If you don’t like this view coming from me then you can go to http://www.polsis.uq.edu.au/apsa2008/Refereed-papers/Economou.pdf and read much the same thing from a refereed paper by two Monash political scientists. I quote:
“The Australian Democrat vote fell between 1998 and 2001, but not by a significant amount (certainly not the previously achieved nadir of 1993) and, as already noted, the party succeeded in winning four seats – in sum, a fairly strong result. The collapse in voter support for the party clearly occurs between the 2001 and 2004 elections, with the 2007 election confirming the de-alignment of Australian Democrat support that had occurred at the 2004 contest. This pattern alone indicates that the search for reasons for the party’s demise has to focus on the period between 2001 and 2004, rather than between 1998 and 2001.”
and
“The party’s internal polling mechanism, called in to action three times between 2001 and 2004, prolonged the struggle and transmitted a sense of seemingly unresolvable leadership crisis to the general public. Herein lay the basis of the party’s chronic organisational dysfunctionalism. This is what the voters responded to in the 2004 election.”
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 10/11/09 at 09:45 PMWhere to start?
Brevity is too often rewarded with invective or detailed correction but so little time, so many issues…
Dr. Kev #35. OK I’ll defer to your expertise on plantation matters here. I still stick to my point that people suffering from plantations are entitled to consideration. I didn’t see Brenda’s comments as ‘an attack’ but rather her pointing out areas where she believed that the Greens weren’t meeting their own standards. I believe she has a point…well several really, technicalities of monocultures aside.
Pilko. My post at #6 was probably in error in that I shouldn’t have implied that a ‘deal’ was reached. I’d apologise but I don’t know who I’m apologising to! My issue is with TWS acting as though they represent communities and as if plantations and Gunns mills are somehow OK. I should have said ‘understanding’ rather than ‘deal’, meaning an understanding that TWS could legitimately bargain about plantations or pulp mills.
#32. I’m happy about dialogue too and I believe that the community’s impacts should all be represented, not just conservation groups.
I will try to contact TWS again to get some authoritative answers on these questions and report back.
Cheers.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 10/11/09 at 09:48 PMIt was 1692, Salem town and surrounding Puritan villages of Massachusetts were in the grip of witchcraft.- or so it seemed.
Imprisonments and executions followed.Later, in the early 1950’s a different form of witchcraft again was evident according to Senator Joe McCarthy. Reds were everywhere, -in the military, unions and especially the Hollywood movie industry.
The evidence was clear and straight forward, - or was it? Later the ‘facts’ were found to be thin and corrupted.
Arthur Miller, (American playwright), would link the two historical events into his play, ‘The Crucible’, exposing the hysteria and false accusations of his time, but hidden in the past. A fiction based on fact.
The ‘Salem witch-hunts’ were in reality a means to dispossess land to those of the favoured and wealthy.
But McCarthy, in the late 40’s and early 50’s was motivated by political aspirations and a fervent hatred of communism.
He had a true believer in Edgar Hoover.It is now 2009, and the unity of anti mill groups is threatened and distracted from true purpose.
What is the motivation – the agenda?I don’t believe that destruction of the anti mill movement is purposeful – but certainly this is the road one travels if that is the desired result.
It may be that the focus on TWS is for personal political aspirations or even worse, driven by an oversized ego.
But why just TWS? Gunns most certainly would have attempted or achieved dialogue with other anti mill groups. It is inconceivable that only TWS and the Greens were singled out.
McCarthy said this;
“coexistence with Communists is neither possible nor honourable nor desirable. Our long-term objective must be the eradication of Communism from the face of the earth.”
Replace ‘ Communists’ with ‘Timber industry’; - similar sentiments are echoed throughout this post..
American journalist. Edward R. Murrow , - during his broadcast said this of McCarthy in 1954;
“The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully”
Sounds familiar, - doesn’t it?
We are supposed to learn our lessons from history.Posted by Tom Torquemada on 10/11/09 at 09:48 PM(30)
One can always find some cretin unable to read between the lines to have a snide little dig “anonymously” ! what part of the word “if” don’t you understand ? put you glasses on and read it again,
Sigh !
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 10/11/09 at 11:36 PM(37)
Arrr, Annie me coleen ! the voice of reason ! I tink is is , ya are !
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 10/11/09 at 11:57 PMOf course it is a PR ploy # 37. Gunns is in no man’s land at the moment because the ALP is not going to be in control after March 2010.
Who would want to be a Liberal when a mandate had been removed from the previous party?
Posted by JohnWade on 11/11/09 at 05:33 AMAccusations against Bob won’t help anything. Just because there is an entrenched attitude that nothing will change does not mean nothing can change.
Posted by salamander on 11/11/09 at 05:36 AMHaving private discussions with Gunns, who may have mainipulated those discussions by releasing the content, is dnagerouse ground.
25,000 members of the community have indicated they do not want a Tamar Valley pulpmill
Associating the Greens with a solution is like the association betweeen the Greens plantation policy and the reality of plantations.
Hayward has it correctly expressed, sup with the devil and you become tainted.
The only defence is to make it public post haste.
If the devil will not agree then you know not to go.Where is my nemesis Bogus Fiasco?
Posted by phill PARSONS on 11/11/09 at 05:46 AMRe #35
Replacing native endemic forest with non-endemic monocultures which do not belong to the area, or even the state, does not provide the food, therefore, ecosystems or biodiversity that also belongs there.Re #37
I too saw Bob Brown briefly interviewed on the ABC news last night, which was welcome, but if he had have said something ‘months ago’ at the time of the meetings, this would never have surfaced or been able to be manipulated. It proves once again that public transparency is essential always.I’m looking forward to the media coverage of Gunns’ AGM today.
Re #38
As your own long-winded reply explained Kevin, the Democrats’ support base declined continuously from the Meg Lees/GST fiasco onwards. Simple.Posted by Russell Langfield on 11/11/09 at 06:08 AMRussell (34)
Ill save Rick the trouble of responding.
I was also at this meeting.
It was simply a personal meeting between two men with a long history of conflict to discuss their differences and try to find some common ground. Both men had advisers. Given the Pulp Mill was an obvious point of contention, my role was simply to advise on any technical aspect of discussion or debunk any “spin”.
No “deal” took place nor was it the spirit of the meeting.
I know of many others in the community who have also had meetings with Gunns, many you would be quite suprised by. Additionally, John Day, the head of TAP, has also recently met with Mr Gay for an extensive discussion and I dont hear any of you ranting about his “secret meeting”.
Maybe because secret isnt a appropriate word ?
There was no dinner, and the meeting was amicable, though passionate (from both sides)at times. It finished (as Bob said in his media release) with a committment to hold further discussion. Im not going to discuss any specifc details on what EXACTLY was discussed(its not my right), except to say Bob was, as ever, the perfect statesman for the conservation movement and the people of the Tamar Valley.
The fact meetings and dialogue are taking place betwen Gunns and the conservation movement (including TAP) is a positive in my book. There is no harm in talking. If these talks come to nothing then at least its an option that can be dismissed after being explored.
As a systems consultant Mike Im suprised you dont see the logic in this process. I wont be making any more posts on this subject , but as I know many of you personaly, Id be happy to discuss face to face any time.
Posted by Peter Whish-Wilson on 11/11/09 at 06:11 AMd.d. while I’m naturally pleased you agree with my take on the Gay/Brown/TWS meetings, our online relationship will certainly be soured if you persist in calling me ‘annie’ :) With apologies of course to another regular TT poster who uses that name!
Posted by anne on 11/11/09 at 06:30 AM(42)
Arrrrrh! seems oive, dunn it agin ! well, me little colleen, oive slapped meself soundly about the hed and will abide wiv ya wishes, in da meantime ye can call me anythin ya likes, as long as its not lait fer breakfast ! an its hopin i am, that ya chooks dont tern inta Emu’s an kick ya fowl howse doon.
heh,heh,
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 11/11/09 at 07:11 AMBob Brown has been shown in his true colours as a person truly committed to serving in the best interests of this country.
How could a man who has given so much toward the protection of all that most of us hold sacred be doubted.
Before anyone answers this please be aware that i am not a member of the Greens and have never met Bob Brown but i sure as hell don’t condone the path our leaders have taken to subsidise Gunns and Forestry Tasmania to ruin our truly magnificent assets.Posted by D.I.Nicholas on 11/11/09 at 07:13 AM(16)
Seems to me Rick ! I took a similar stand in regards to abuse of the Examiner’s editor, having said, I have to wonder where your moral outrage was at that time, as you seemed quite happy to rattle my cage.
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 11/11/09 at 07:24 AMFrom where I stand - I think a few of you need to take a step back.
The use of the term ‘secret’ seems to be the product of another piece of compromised writing by Matt Denholm whose recent pieces seem to be more akin creating parody of Zoo magazine. All thats missing is the silicone.
Just because 2 blokes meet - sorry - just because a statesman and a pig get to meet, doesnt mean its clandestine and that all of a sudden theyre going to man-hug.
But it does mean Gunns desperately want to show one or two stupid potential investors that they are arm in arm with the various movements.
Oh, and just because those who have historically represented conservation meet with Tasmanian Forests equivalent of the anti christ doesnt mean theyre all in a dack-drop party.
Or is it that no-one believes the likes of TWS any more.
Like those perfect burns, if there’s smoke ........
Posted by Richard Butler on 11/11/09 at 07:33 AM#47 Peter. Of course I see the logic of people meeting to discuss whatever.
What I do not see is the logic of TWS paying tens of thousands of dollars to ask the public to ask their politicians to support plantations and a Gunns built mill (with conditions).
You should know that the socio-economic impacts of a pulp mill include risks of significant rural job losses, many created by plantation activities (or inactivities). Warwick Raverty has warned that the mill operator needs skill and that the existing proponent lacks the basics required.
So why is TWS supporting those things without consulting with impacted communities first?
I’ve been told time and again that community members should somehow just line up behind TWS but I don’t understand why we should do that when their agenda is both partial and potentially threatening to communities.
I’m not the person threatening more plantations and asking people to support Gunns building a mill. Neither did I write the ‘secret meeting’ story. I just made the mistake of thinking that as a person in the community I was entitled to raise objections to policies that could create harm.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 11/11/09 at 07:52 AMRe #47
Thanks Peter, but “rant”? I think not, I think my points and response were pretty reasonable. Agreed, “secret” certainly wasn’t the best way to head the article.“Additionally, John Day, the head of TAP, has also recently met with Mr Gay for an extensive discussion and I dont hear any of you ranting about his “secret meeting”.” Of course not Peter, because I also didn’t know about that until you just mentioned it. What was said there???
Public disclosure, is it too much to ask considering the hornet’s nest it obviously can and will stir up? Especially, and I can’t emphasize this enough, when Tasmanians, people like you and I Peter, are sick of “secret” Government/Gunns meetings and backdoor deals. Why do the same stupidity on our side?
Yes I agree, “there is no harm in talking”, quite the opposite.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 11/11/09 at 08:52 AMI would like to try to add some perspective to the fierce debate in TT over whether or not it was appropriate for Bob Brown and others to meet with John Gay and others.
For people who feel disempowered and have campaigned strenuously on an issue, it is a common reaction to feel resentment when other people, typically less disempowered, begin, without formal consultation, to negotiate on their behalf with their opponents. People want to say THEIR piece. They worry that the seemingly self-appointed negotiators don’t understand the real issues, will let them down, sell them out and so on. This is a dangerous phase in a campaign, one where if participants don’t manage their own emotions, they can end up blaming and hating each other rather than defeating their opponents.
Please - each of you involved in the immediate campaign to prevent the Tamar Pulp Mill project and the broader struggle to reform the Tasmanian forestry industry - you must accept that it is highly unlikely that you personally will get face to face with your opponents. Your role has been to write, to talk and to demonstrate. You have done a very impressive job. No one in Australia, from Kevin Rudd down, is in any doubt that you are a formidable coalition, and that an attempt to force this project through in anything like its present form is going to result in very serious disruption to an otherwise peacable society.
Remember, your political, trade union and business adversaries are highly experienced in the various phases of negotiations and political campaigns and are watching everything you do. Gunns and Forestry Tasmania corporate people, the staffs of David Bartlett, David Llewellyn, Michael Aird and Will Hodgman and CFMEU state and national officials have READ AND DIGESTED EVERY WORD of this debate. When you squabble in public, they know what is going on and they take heart. Fascinating and informative to observe as it is has been, please now take your disagreements out of TT, get together around someone’s kitchen table and discuss your differences in private.
Please keep in mind that your job is not finished. This project is hanging in the balance and you must maintain your enthusiasm and discipline. Two more months or two more more years of effort might be required - who knows? Stick to your last and keep working on what you have done so well - articulating community opposition to the project and the laws and financial expenditures of the Tasmanian Parliament that underpin it.
One other point I would like to make: it is apparent that many Australians are working in good faith to resolve this issue. For example Bob Brown and Geoffrey Cousins; doubtless many others we are not even aware of. What a sad reflection it is on the impotence and incompetence of the Tasmanian Parliament that yet again, a problem they have created and allowed to fester will have to be resolved outside of Tasmania’s formal democratic mechanisms. The Gordon below Franklin dam, the Wesley Vale pulp mill, now this.
A conclusion: Tasmania’s political class needs to recognise the common pattern in these episodes. They then need to strive to build a new consensus so they can begin to govern Tasmania rather than divide it.
Posted by Peter Fagan on 11/11/09 at 09:52 AMI’d have to agree with Russell #34 & #45.
#47 Peter WW advises that there were many meetings between Gunns and different people/groups but insists there was no ‘deal’ on the basis of his attendance at only one of these meetings.
TAP has published several pages showing the steady diet of misinformation and outright lies from the authorised pulp mill sources.
How can any of us be expected to take anything on trust from any of these people?
I get no comfort from TWS press release that states…‘Gunns and conservation groups have therefore started discussions needed to find a path forward that best serves the environment, community and all Tasmanian business interests.’
Are conservation groups representing the community and all Tasmanian business interests now?
If not, who is?
These are real and vexing questions that only exist because of the failure of our paid representatives to represent us.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 11/11/09 at 10:50 AMRussell (#46), I have pointed out clearly in my previous post that the Democrats’ support base started to decline at the 1998 election and that election was before the Dems’ GST fiasco even started. Indeed it declined by much less at the election immediately after the majority of the Democrats supported the GST than it did in the elections before or after that. That it declined from the point of GST support onwards is not the point since (a) it was already declining before that and (b) the reasons why it declined so savagely in 2004 were not that the party had (largely) voted for the GST, but that it had been structurally unable to deal with the fallout. This matters because the object lesson of the death of the Democrats is not that supporter backlashes based on perceptions of “selling out” are necessarily fatal, but that a party dies if it lacks the structures to manage and resolve such backlashes effectively.
Plantations provide a wide range of food sources. Examples include but are not limited to: decaying litter fallen from trees, decomposing branches felled during thinning, stumps from previous rotations, woodrows created during plantation establishment (these eventually decompose away over successive rotations), and undergrowth (where not vigorously removed, which in most cases it isn’t) of native shrubs, grasses, weeds and fungi. The fact is that many native species can and do eat this stuff, and move into plantations from adjacent unlogged bushland where it exists. In particular, many native invertebrates are already adapted to living in the leaf litter mulch of any of a dozen or more species of native eucalypt. Generalist litter dwellers like this are just as happy in the litter of the mainland Eucalyptus nitens or the mainland forms of E. globulus (a species which occurs in Tasmania anyway). Many native log dwellers also find old Pinus radiata logs to be a good habitat. You can make all the simplistic in-theory arguments you like but it is a scientific fact that many native species, sometimes including species that are relatively rare in natural ecosystems, make use of the food supply that plantations provide. Of course, there are some native species that have very specialised food requirements and these are unlikely to occur in plantations.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 11/11/09 at 12:22 PMThe comments by Peter Fagan [#55] are exceptionally pertinent to what is actually happening with many of the comment writers/posters/followers of this forum, in that they must remain united.
Gunns Ltd have been the originating cause of this major divisive and disharmonious gloom and despair issue of, them and us.To continue to challenge ourselves as we see happening here in Tas Times, also to ramble on about who thinks what and whom is now suspect, will ruin all the good work created by the entirety of the Greens Party and the various Conservation Groups in Tasmania.
United we must stand, let not the enemy cause any fragmentation among our honorable ranks.
William Boeder.
Posted by William Boeder on 11/11/09 at 01:22 PMHear hear to no. 58 (William Boeder). That old adage: United we stand, divided we fall. Let’s stay united!
Posted by Maddie on 11/11/09 at 04:37 PM58/59 United around what exactly?
Did you read Peter Hennings article Dissent and be Damned of 5/11?:
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/article/dissent-and-be-damned
If we were to be united around not creating threats to communities, then an environment lobbyist is already threatening that rule.
So what do you mean by united folks?
Do we all stand together like redcoats while the enemy decimates us with chain shot?
Does the effectiveness of asymmetric warfare not count for anything?
Pete’s article?
Posted by Mike Bolan on 11/11/09 at 08:48 PMWell, who says that ‘we’ haven’t tried to resolve differences in private??
Who are the people that are ‘united’ over the TWS and Greens plantation policy??
I, for one, have NEVER supported a plantation policy. Yet I support the Greens’ charter. Pity the policies this party has doesn’t reflect this document.
By the way, how does a democracy work ‘in private’?
As for Whish-Wilson’s statement: “Im not going to discuss any specifc details on what EXACTLY was discussed(its not my right), except to say Bob was, as ever, the perfect statesman for the conservation movement “
First, WHO is the ‘conservation movement’? (and do they all support a ‘plantations policy’?)
Secondly, as to Whish-Wilson’s attempt to deny the existence of secrecy. Well, geez! Secrecy happens when people refuse to allow the public to know what was discussed at a meeting.
Posted by Brenda Rosser on 11/11/09 at 09:40 PM#58, Unity should not mean lack of debate, even a robust one at that, as it should improve or confirm everyone’s perspective. But when difference in opinion descends right into personalised vitriol - I believe some in this tread even had a go at the Mathew Denholm for being simply the messenger (nothing he has written has been denied by anyone) - then this forum, the Greens and their supporters are beginning to behave more and more like Gunns and the LibLabs. And that is most regrettable as it was most likely the outcome John Gay was looking for.
More alarmingly Bob Brown stated that he has much in common with John Gay, and he is right, it does frighten me because I would vote LibLab if I wanted waste my vote on an (Anonymous Personal Observation Deleted).
Posted by Tom on 12/11/09 at 08:52 AMMike - I should have been more explicit. I mean ‘united’ against this proposed pulp mill. We can adopt different strategies to achieve this but I believe we are still ‘united’ in our aim. My own stance (and I realise that it is somewhat idealistic but that’s me) is that if there has to be a mill it MUST be at Hampshire, MUST be TCF, MUST use only plantation fodder, MUST be closed loop, MUST NOT be the monstrous size of the type currently on the table. AND… the agreement for 30 years wood supply from our native forests MUST be scrapped because if the mill is meant to be about ‘value adding’ and is only using plantations, the woodchipping industry must cease so the’agreement’ is no longer necessary. I can’t see Gunns agreeing to most of the foregoing, so the result should be NO PULP MILL anywhere in Tassie. I think that the Greens and Wildos are engaging with Gunns because it is a sensible tactic. It doesn’t mean they will sell out on us.
Posted by Maddie on 12/11/09 at 09:24 AMMaddie # 63.
The points you raise are consistent with the Greens overall charter of primarily pursuing environmental concerns.
However, corporate lustings and their greed deserve their remote far distant secondary consideration.Corporates bring evils, yet the environment produces and supports life.
Posted by William Boeder on 12/11/09 at 10:06 AMI’ve had a day or so to think about how this thread has developed and to gauge the opinions of everyone out there, so here is my reply.
Firstly, I take exception to Peter Whish-Wilson’s reply #47 being posted as a separate TT article tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/i-was-also-at-this-meeting/ where he seems to have deliberately singled me out from all other contributors here and refused any right of reply by comment on that ‘closed thread.’
What was your intention in doing so Peter? Could, or should, you have posted it without specifically pointing me out? I don’t mind in the thread here, but I do mind in the context of a separate opening post.
I also take exception to the cop-out line “I wont be making any more posts on this subject , but as I know many of you personaly, Id be happy to discuss face to face any time.” When do you think I will ever meet you, and the others I want answers from, “face to face”?
Secondly, I also agree totally with the second paragraph of Peter Fagan’s post #55, Brenda #59 and #61 and Maddie #63.
And thirdly, I am still waiting for the answers to my, and others’, requests for more information about all these other “secret” (yes there’s that word again) meetings. The silence of your replies is deafening and the apparent evasions are most unsettling.
Some people seem to have this opinion of themselves as some sort of ‘elite’ because maybe they write ‘beautiful pieces,’ which I admittedly often have to use the dictionary (but I understand them), and that only ‘they’ are or should be capable or worthy of knowing what goes on behind closed doors. Wrong! WE are very wary of such crap.
If you want your support base to remain intact, you must be open and honest with it. If you think the nature of it is too sensitive to post publicly here, then you have my and others email contact details, use them. If you have been made ‘special’ offers or concessions by Gunns or anyone else, I would also like to know that to understand what I am dealing with. Do NOT ever give me some “commercial-in-confidence” or similar rubbish excuse.
I run a small business in partnership, and have been for the past 9 years, and it is based entirely on a handshake agreement. My word is as good as it gets, and better than any paper contract. I base my whole life on trust, being entirely open, honesty and unquestionable integrity. I expect no less in return from everyone else, there are no second chances with me. If you stuff me around once, you will do it again.
Now, some answers thank you.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 12/11/09 at 10:43 AMOK Maddie.
I’ve heard the theory that you offer but, I argue that there are serious risks, and that TWS method of going ahead without community consultation is a mistake.
I have a major problem with communities being treated like mushrooms by professional lobbyists like TWS, particularly when the results of their policies could be so harmful to so many and when they rely on tax exemptions that the rest of us must pay for.
They are engaging in political efforts that are not consistent with their mission and charter.
The most common issue with Gunns proposal is that it requires up to 7 million tonnes of green lumber a year. That is tantamount to shaving Northern Tasmania bald over a decade or two. The impacts will be horrendous but TWS is nonetheless welcoming a Gunns/Sodra pulp mill.
TWS doesn’t actually defend the wilderness, they lobby, and there’s a lot of evidence that it’s not working.
Jaakko Poyry has been pushing plantations onto Australian governments for 20 years. The result produces the argument ‘well, we’ve got to do something with the plantations’ and, guess what, it’s a Poyry pulp mill that we need. $2 bn to Poyry plus a hundred million a year or more in fees to run the thing. Ka-ching!
Supporting pulp mills and plantations suits the forestry industry. It’s what they want. It appears to give them false Green credentials, encourages government in their support for forestry and increases the likelihood that taxpayers will have to subsidise the result.
TWS haven’t discussed supporting any mill with the community that would have to live with it (e.g Hampshire) neither have they discussed whether their support of plantations may be harmful to people.
Instead, they’ve dressed up in suits and started to ‘negotiate’ with one of the world’s most destructive industries.
In reality, the community agenda is varied, some want a mill, many not. There is no unified position.
Remember TWS developed an anti-pulp mill alliance to attract community groups like TAP and has now stated in their press release that “Gunns and conservation groups have therefore started discussions needed to find a path forward that best serves the environment, community and all Tasmanian business interests.” placing themselves as deciding for communities and businesses.
I am concerned that TWS are the ones who have ‘broken ranks’, it is they who are welcoming Sodra, they who are supporting forestry and they are doing these things without community consulation or independent assessment of their plans.
They are starting to act like the new kapos.
I believe that they could be making a grievous error and I reserve the right to raise that to peoples’ attention.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 12/11/09 at 10:49 AMBrenda Rosser wrote:
“Well, who says that ‘we’ haven’t tried to resolve differences in private??”
Brenda I didn’t write “resolve differences in private”.
I wrote “discuss your differences in private”.
Mike Bolan wrote:
“United around what exactly?”
Mike, Brenda, we all know that those opposed to this mill, any other non-compliant mill proposal and the sub-optimal structure and practices of the Tasmanian forestry industry are not going to agree on everything. A point I sought to make is that, confronted as you are by a formidable coalition of adversaries, you should not be using a megaphone (TT) to debate your tactical and strategic disagreements.
Brenda, you ask “By the way, how does a democracy work ‘in private’?”
Please bear in mind that this is an environmental campaign, not democracy in action. Those who want to build the mill aren’t practising “democracy”. The PMAA and other actions took the conflict OUT of anything remotely like the democratic sphere. Gunns isn’t a democracy, neither is the CFMEU, Dept. Premier & Cabinet etc. Without doubt those parties to the dispute have many disagreements internally and with each other. However:
* they do not resolve their disputes “democratically”
* where they can’t resolve a dispute, they don’t let it distract them from their core objective
* they don’t publicly debate their disputes in TT.Brenda and Mike, if the campaign is to maintain its effectiveness, you really have no choice but to debate your differences with appropriate discretion and at the end of the debate, accept some compromises.
Australian democracy is not a winner take all system. That’s why it survives. A resolution of this dispute will not give you everything you want. Nor will it give John Gay everything he wants.
There are a lot of people gathered round this particular birthday cake, and no one is going to get a slice precisely the size they want and with all their favourite coloured Smarties on it.
The sooner we all accept that the better.
Posted by Peter Fagan on 12/11/09 at 01:20 PMPoint (or points) taken Mike. Thanks. It’s a crooked bloody world, no doubt about it, so we need people like yourself to needle, prod and expose. I’m not knocking you at all - why would I? I just don’t want us all to go into attack mode against any group that can help the cause. I think you have valid questions and comments.
Posted by Maddie on 12/11/09 at 01:33 PM#67 Peter.
I urge you to consider that we may have already have thought of, gone through or otherwise considered all of the approaches and ideas that you have put forward and more, and for strategic and tactical reasons we may have chosen the course that we have taken for good reason.
First, from the perspective of property owners and residents, this is not an environmental campaign at all, its detrimental effects are mainly socio-economic and those impacts were never assessed, except by the community itself.
We are very clear on the magnitude of those impacts because we spent 2 years assessing them and the total costs exceed any benefits offered by the mill. The impacts include log trucks, ecological damage from taking 7 m/tones lumber per year, rate income decreases (plantations don’t pay much) that force rate rises for others, health threats from biocides in water supplies, property value losses and so on.
The reason this information has been hidden is that no-one would consider this proposal if the full impacts were understood.
All of this is compounded by the fact that forestry is getting government support to convert valued food producing land to trees at our expense, they are getting subsidized access to our forests and they also take huge volumes of water free from catchments to grow plantation trees. They are also benefitting from land transfers from individual families to corporate and others, again at public expense. For many rural dwellers this fight is a matter of family and financial survival.
By accepting a pulp mill of any type fed by plantations (or whatever) TWS is effectively saying that the socio-economic impacts do not matter (to them).
Given the exposure of many community members to health risks, property value and business losses and lifestyle disruptions, I believe that those affected should have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they wish to accept or reject TWS position.
That isn’t going to happen behind closed doors.
If the community does anything other than roundly reject TWS acceptance of a pulp mill, then they too will be signalling that the socio-economic concerns are no longer important.
In my opinion, that would be an egregious strategic and tactical blunder that would be potentially fatal.
TWS actions therefore have brought this to a head and placed communities in an invidious position, forcing them to make an unnecessary choice. It could all have been handled if TWS had respected the ideas of community consultation and due process. They chose not to do that.
Months ago I attempted several times to raise my concerns about TWS strategies with them. No response. I’ve only received evasions, brush offs and diversions. In my experience, evasiveness usually implies guilt.
We have seen and spoken to many of the people that you say ‘read every word’. Not only hadn’t they read the material, they didn’t care about the impacts on communities and had no comprehension of the weaknesses of process or the threats to their constituents. In fact many of them don’t appear to read at all.
You might like to know that I am one of the few consultants in Australia to have studied with Harvard Professor Chris Argyris, who is a world renowned expert at recognizing and dealing with hidden agendas. His observations and conclusions are very relevant to the current circumstances.
I am a member of no organization. I am entirely independent and consequently do not advocate any organizational position. This is a deliberate strategy to help me to avoid bias and undue influence and keep an open mind.
The reason that Gunns and forestry etc don’t publicly debate their issues on TT is that they can afford phone calls, newsletters, computer systems and attend conferences and meetings by using our money.
We cannot. We must use whatever is to hand because we cannot travel around to meetings, indeed we hold sausage sizzles and raffles to make pin money, and so we must share our information using TT.
These are some of the realities that we are dealing with.
I’m sure your advice would be more valuable if you recognized them.
Posted by Mike Bolan on 12/11/09 at 04:07 PMRe #67
“Those who want to build the mill aren’t practising “democracy”.”Peter, 100 trillion flies might eat shit, but that doesn’t mean I should. Just because someone else has done something in the wrong manner, especially when proper guidelines were there to be legally adhered to, doesn’t mean we can or should also take that path.
As far as I’m concerned, the open discussion taking place here doesn’t hurt our cause at all, it just shows how corrupt the pro-mill proponents are.
“Australian democracy is not a winner take all system.”
How does this apply to Gunns? It certainly seems to be a winner takes all democracy there.
On the other hand, the rejection of Traveston Dam certainly seems to be a real democracy winner takes all situation in that neck of the woods.
“There are a lot of people gathered round this particular birthday cake, and no one is going to get a slice precisely the size they want and with all their favourite coloured Smarties on it…The sooner we all accept that the better.”
You cut the cake Peter and I’ll choose which piece I get, that’s democracy. I/we DON’T have to accept anything I/we disagree with, that’s also democracy.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 12/11/09 at 04:21 PMThis thread is so full of victims it makes me want to cry.
People paralysed and stuck on an argument over a contentious sentence or two in an NGO’s pamphlet which has not and will likely not ever translate into anything tangible - ever.
Mike many of the complaints you raised about TWS non-inclusive decision making processes also be applied to TAP. I should know I have been an insider.
So why single out TWS mate? You have set TAP and TWS up as binary opposites. TWS bad - TAP good!If the commentators on this thread applied the same time, effort and forensic focus on the the big targets and the big issues….?
Posted by pilko on 12/11/09 at 06:31 PMFrom all the posts, It’s #71 (Pilko’s) that has the most appeal to me.
In such a drawn out battle, it’s not unexpected that paranoia and hysteria has shown it’s ugly face.
It’s not that questions have been raised over differing policies, it’s the backstabbing and low life deliveries that have been used which I find most saddening.I’m also surprised that some have so much time and energy to devote squarely to these ongoing arguments which leaves me questioning the proponents motives in the first place, You don’t need to be named, as I’m sure you know who you are.
I’m not going to tell any of you what do to, or even suggest it, but only hope you regain the strength through unity shown in the past.
For the most of it, I was proud to fight along side you.
I wish you the very best, Tasmania.
‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ Sun Tzu
Posted by Shayne McGrath on 13/11/09 at 12:21 PMIt appears on the surface that Federal Lib/Lab and Tasmanian Lib/Lab are absolutely committed to having his Tasmanian Pulp Mill regardless of what any of us think and there is no time commitment as to when it gets up ! and why ? because they continue to allow forestry and Gunn’s to contuinue acquiring and clearing land “ILLEGALLY” in preparation for when it is built, now what I want to know is do they intend to bring in the army ?and or give the police special powers of arrest and detainment ? because such is the outrage! that, that is exactly what they will have to do.
Also just what are we , or can we, do to stop the ongoing illegal actions ? because they are just thumbing their noses and saying this is the way it is going to be ! so fuck you ! and they supposedly work for us, do they not ?
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 13/11/09 at 02:22 PMA lot of talk going on here, I wonder to myself when anarchy is going to begin. In the back of my mind I have this whisper that anarchy is a crime, but my major domo asks “who said?”
Posted by JohnWade on 13/11/09 at 03:45 PMI totally agree Pilko and Shayne (#71 & 72). I find the pain and emotion on display here incredibly disturbing, and potentially destructive. Rather than this forensic examination of a line or two in a piece of TWS literature, perhaps we could all now consider bringing our attention back to the subject that really requires our united support and cooperation. And that is focussing on stopping this accursed pulp mill ever being built.
Posted by Anne Layton-Bennett on 13/11/09 at 04:45 PMWake up Mike. It should be obvious that all the aggravation directed at you is by people who don’t care where a pulp mill goes as long as it isn’t near their place.
Nice people eh?
I know some of these people and believe me, that’s the scoop.
Haven’t you noticed that no-one has denied what you’ve said, they’ve just attacked you for saying it?
Posted by Shayne on 13/11/09 at 07:20 PM(71)
Of course this thread is full of victims ! we have just been told that the movements leader “Bob Brown ” has been in secret meetings with the arch enemy !Now this is the scenario, We “WILL NOT” have a mill under any conditions !
Gay is equally adamant that there “WILL BE” a mill !
Conclusion, someone is wavering ! and it sure as hell isn’t “John Bloody Gay” because the only way there can be discussion is for him to say , O.K. NO MILL ! end of.
Nothing difficult about that assumption !
d.d.
Posted by d.d. on 14/11/09 at 04:49 AMIts pretty obvious that the question is not does Tasmania need a pulp mill but where should the pulp mill be located.
Ill tell you where. It should be located at Long Reach.
Thats the industrial zone and the location approved by a duly democratic government. And weve already spent lots of money preparing that site.
We dont need environmental groups telling us how to manage our forests and we don’t need them to tell us what type of mill is best for Tasmania.
Dont you moaners get it? The reason your property is down is because of the UNCERTAINTY.
As soon as the mill is underway, jobs and the local economy will improve so you whingers in the Tamar can sell up and move out.
Posted by Forestry worker on 14/11/09 at 10:16 AMShayne: #76
Au contraire.
You wrote to Mike Bolan:
“Haven’t you noticed that no-one has denied what you’ve said, they’ve just attacked you for saying it?”I reject what Mike Bolan has said, and have done so elsewhere. I disagree with him. A number of others have also done so, elsewhere, and here on this thread.
I disagree with you, as well, Shane. Your argument:
‘those who get aggravated with Mike Bolan are anti-mill NIMBYs’is pretty poor. The choice of the Longreach site for the proposed pulp mill is just one of a number of major problems that many of us have with this mill proposal…
...matter of fact, calling us ‘NIMBYs’, who disagree with Mike Bolan, doesn’t constitute an argument, it’s usually called a smear, or name-calling and the like. As well as that, it misrepresents Mike’s own well developed position against the mill.
I myself generally feel in agreement with whatever Mike says on the subject of this pulp mill proposal, as I would assume everyone does, who reads Tas Times and who isn’t dyed-in-the-wool ‘pro-mill’.
The disagreement is not about Mike versus unspecified NIMBYs, it’s largely about the things Mike has written concerning the TWS. I don’t know why you played the NIMBY card - in the past it has always worked as an easy way of demeaning those Tamar residents who for a variety of reasons rightly object to this proposed mill.
Posted by Garry Stannus on 14/11/09 at 10:31 AMI came to a different conclusion Don.
Look at the discussions here on TT. Different and opposing viewpoints, plenty of discussion and no conclusive agreement amongst us.
My understanding is that it was the same with Bob Brown, no ground was given and no agreement reached.
Posted by Tony Saddington on 14/11/09 at 11:30 AMWhy dont you just pick up the phone and call Senator Browns office and ask whether he has been tempted by the devil Don?
You may even find that the good shepherd has been faithful to his flock Don.
Of course that would then mean you have to stop your painful insecure bleating.Posted by pilko on 14/11/09 at 11:47 AM(77) You are entitled to your opinion D.D, however we believe you are wrongly suggesting and surmising without taking into account first hand facts. Bob Brown has done nothing more than anyone in his position should do and that is using an opportunity to talk with John Gay and try and represent many Tasmanian community concerns (unlike many in the Lib/Labs). We know that, because we have personally talked to Bob Brown about it. Creating dialogue to finding a positive way forward is imperative to the long-term interests of Tasmania and Tasmanians. Look to the plethora of years of facts, not just a single headline. And if you would take the time to actually really read and understand you would see that it is infact John Gay who is conceding to the realisation that maintaining the spin on using native forests is NOT in Gunns best interest. So think again about who is infact wavering. Christ no wonder so many can be so easily conned and the state has ended up in the position it currently is. Oh but that’s right you also think the Tarkine loop road is about allowing old people to drive around in circles, (if not totally bypassing the far N/W), rather than it being a logging road. Which of course FT in their spin driven logging desire, reiterated your opinion on that front. We implore you to be wisdom, not spin driven.
Posted by Charles and Claire Gilmour on 14/11/09 at 01:06 PMRe #76
I believe those who own land in the Tamar Valley like living there and that’s exactly why they’re against this disgusting pulp mill.Posted by Russell Langfield on 14/11/09 at 06:46 PMWell guy’s ! I got broad shoulders and you can give me all the crap you wan’t but it don’t change the facts , as I can remember many cooing about about how wonderful that we had Garret in the Job,
Well ! didn’t that fall in bloody heap ?I don’t trust anyone anywhere ! any time ! however I do have a lot faith in “Christine” arguably the smartest card in this pack of gutless politicians.
As for Bob , I don’t accuse him of anything but perhaps, growing tired and dissalusioned ! and why wouldn’t he ?
It may well be five or more years before this mill gets up and in my opinion it will ! (whilst they continue breaking the law with their land clearing)and by then Bob will be way past his use by date, and let’s face it he’s not looking exactly chipper these days, like me he’s just too F——-g old and perhaps it’s time to leave it to the youngsters after all ,isn’t that why we do it ? to leave a better place for them ? but do you know what ! most of them just don’t give a knob of goat shit ! and to be honest i feel that i would like too spend my twilight years , partaking in some of the things that i have worked for all my life to achieve !
So don’t try telling me what to think and say ! it’s far too late for that, and in the final analysis my problem is that unlike most this place i happen to say exactly what i think without fear or favor, perhaps many more should try it.
avaniceday
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 15/11/09 at 10:24 AM(12
I see nothing wrong with Brenda’s proposition, and in fact join her, in calling for “Bob” to share with us his deliberations with John Gay, after all we collectively, are the people putting our time and efforts on the line to stop this thing and we deserve to be kept in the loop.I have no idea of Brenda’s feelings towards PEDDER (mine are well known as they were in regards to the Franklin ! as water supply is looming to be one of our greatest problems) however because of “Bobs” continuing wish to drain the thing I feel he is becoming a little confused in his dotage and I am unsure that I trust his judgement, I’m not sure that I ever did on many subjects, however I always admired his tenacity,which I feel is waning, and that is my prerogative.
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 15/11/09 at 10:51 AM@ Garry #79
for the record - that comment #76 wasn’t written by me. I wouldn’t be surprised if this sort of behaviour isn’t being used to deliberately divide the community, and the basis for a lot of undue fear and anxiety.
Tassie times is great - but I’ld be careful when taking it as gospel, sometimes a phone call directly to the person you would like to speak to would be a more effective way of raising and clarifying issues?
Oh yeah. And play nice.
Posted by Shayne McGrath on 16/11/09 at 10:14 AMShayne ! as for the comment 76 not being posted by you ,I was under the assumption that the editor and or site controller would indeed be aware just who did use your name and being so ,should be immediately exposed for what they are .
Anyone have a problem with that ?
Linz ????????
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 16/11/09 at 05:59 PM(82)
Up until now I have put up with snide little remarks as to my motives and once again i will say I am unashamedly tourist driven for this state, and it has nothing to do with with forestry spin or anything the Government throws at me, and you two ! like your hero Bob Brown would drain the Pedder which in itself is now an excellent tourist attraction , unlike the white pebble beach that may have been seen by less than a dozen people, and or those who had the strength and fortitude to trek in , or have the money to hire a private plane ! it is now a place for anyone and everyone which is how it SHOULD BE,and hopefully I will see it joined with the road to nowhere and extended down through Port Davey to meet up with the one that ends at Cockle Creek allowing tourists to circumnavigate the state without backtracking, THAT ! and the MT.WELLINGTON cable car will have cruise ships lined up for miles to get into what is the deepest natural harbour in the world, and the sooner everyone wakes up and realise that is the only thing that will stop a pulp mill being built the better.d.d.
Posted by d.d. on 16/11/09 at 06:35 PMShayne McGrath (#86),
sounds like you’re not happy with me.
Why not?
Garry.Posted by Garry Stannus on 16/11/09 at 09:18 PMPeter Fagan wrote: “There are a lot of people gathered round this particular birthday cake, and no one is going to get a slice precisely the size they want and with all their favourite coloured Smarties on it.”
It’s clear from this comment by Mr Fagan that he hasn’t read my previous posts on the Tassie Times about the incessant breaches of human rights by the plantation industry here in this state.
The word ‘wants’ trivialises the nature of the criminal acts that go on an on and on around and within our communities.
We’re choked out of our homes by huge plumes of smoke from industrial burnoffs. When we try to escape our vision is blinded on the roads.
The huge monoculture of trees that spreads across the North West hinterland of Tasmania is a frightening fire risk. Climate change has made this area much hotter and drier. The wet forests of the Tarkine are now prone to repetitive bushfires like they never were before. The Waratah-Wynyard Council, the Tasmanian Fire Service, Forestry Tasmania and the TFGA are ignoring the Tasmanian Fire Act and failing to form a committee for to deal with fire threats through vegtetation management.
etc, etc
This is a long sorry saga; now online for over 10 years. Read it, Peter. Stop trivialising this assault.
Posted by Brenda Rosser on 16/11/09 at 10:56 PM@ #89 Garry
Mate, I have no reason to be unhappy with you.
The comment - Oh yeah. And play nice. - was a generalisation and non-directional.
Apologies for the confusion.
This miscommunication only goes to further my point, trying to take context from on screen print can be deceptive and misleading - and that’s not even accounting for the obvious sabotage like comment #76 which at first glance would appear to be an attempt to stitch me up.
I hope I get the chance before heading back to NZ in January for another event or visit up north, and be around for a catch up in person.
@ #87 d.d.
I’m sure whoever did it, has done before, and would use a fake email address that wouldn’t shed any light on who it actually was. It’s been done here before in humour and in more malicious forms.
Sadly, a weakness of the ‘honesty’ system here.
Posted by Shayne McGrath on 17/11/09 at 07:19 AMI’m a bit puzzled by #88. Seems Don Davey is happy to support a road through the World Heritage Area in the far SW even though such a road would do at least some environmental damage and would certainly be phenomenally expensive to construct to any standard in which more than a handful of people would use it. So if he’s willing to accept that sort of white elephant (which would never be accepted internationally because of WHA status anyway) why is he so much against the pulp mill?
For the record, my view on Pedder is that its damming was an environmental disaster (the destruction of a truly unique ecosystem, with almost certain loss of several species as a result, far more serious than virtually everything the mainstream of the Tasmanian green movement objects to now). However its reversal would also be a mistake; ecologically speaking, you can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again and it is not worth wasting money trying for the sake of the feelings of the old-school sentimentalists. Indeed, if anything a “successful” restoration will send out a message of false comfort about how easy it is to fix up environmental mistakes. Lake Pedder restored might look the same, but ecologically it would not be.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 17/11/09 at 12:07 PM(92)
Quote: ” I’m a bit puzzled by #88. Seems Don Davey is happy to support a road through the World Heritage Area in the far SW even though such a road would do at least some environmental damage and would certainly be phenomenally expensive to construct to any standard in which more than a handful of people would use it. So if he’s willing to accept that sort of white elephant (which would never be accepted internationally because of WHA status anyway) why is he so much against the pulp mill? ”
by bonham.Bonham has stated many time’s that he skips my post’s, and in this case he obviously partly did ! as his statement above has no relevance to my post and the reasons for it, so my comment to that is if one can’t be bothered to read it in it’s entirety and therefore understand it, then why bother commenting at all, methinks he’s up to his old tricks and there I was thinking he may be reformed.
Silly me, tsk,tsk.
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 17/11/09 at 01:54 PMA ‘Green’ deal to approve of a pulpmill in the Tamar Valley will be the local equivalent of the Democrats GST deal.
The community will remain opposed to the mill but its anger will be refocussed immediately on the ‘Greens’ and every time something goes wrong with the pulpmill they will not balme Gunns.
Whilst Burnie offered to take a mill at Hampshire that is not 100% supported by locals there.
I think Brown will find there is no solution and he is only being used by Gay to make the mill appear acceptable to a JVP.
Posted by phill PARSONS on 17/11/09 at 04:57 PMDon’s assumption in post 93 is incorrect. The fact is that he has clearly stated that he supports linking the road to Lake Pedder to the Tarkine “Road to Nowhere” and to Cockle Creek “allowing tourists to circumnavigate the state without backtracking”. That is the part of his post I was commenting on.
I did indeed read Don’s post in full (tedious as such an experience was, given the complete lack of paragraphing, the frequently bogus punctuation and the added bonus of a 101 word “sentence”.) Just because I did not refer directly to Don’s claimed reasons for supporting his proposed road does not mean I did not read those comments. Rather, he has presented part of the case for such a road (weak as it is) and I presented part of the case against. What I did was point out some of the potential impacts of such a proposal, and on that basis raise the obvious query: if Don Davey supports proposals for environmentally destructive money-wasting roads through the World Heritage Area, then why is he so against the pulp mill?
Having incorrectly accused me of not reading his post fully just because he has failed (perhaps wilfully) to comprehend mine, and having completely avoided my question, Don goes on to make an unsubstantiated personal attack about me supposedly being up to some “old tricks” he has invented. Perhaps Don would prefer a flamewar to a debate about the issue of the consistency (or otherwise) of his view on the pulp mill with his views on other environmental issues. I ask Don Davey to avoid such personal attacks and abide by the TT Code of Conduct.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 17/11/09 at 07:00 PM(#91)
Thanks Shayne. I appreciate your reply.
-GarryPosted by Garry Stannus on 17/11/09 at 08:55 PMWhy do you write (#94) of a Green deal for a mill in the Tamar, phill?
The article does not suggest this, in fact it says:
“Senator Brown insisted the Tamar Valley, with its burgeoning food and wine industries and existing air-pollution problem, was not an acceptable site for a pulp mill.”
Posted by Garry Stannus on 17/11/09 at 09:39 PMAs predicted , Bonham once again has broken the restraints and is up to his old tricks in trying to bait me ! as he will with others in the near future, his question makes no sense whatsoever as it asks why i favour a road circumnavigating the state which would promote tourism, and yet not favour the pulp mill ? Now ! if any one can see the logic in that , then it’s beyond me.
I just refuse (as always) to personally respond to his stupid troublemaking remarks, and it gets right up his substantial nose ! and I suggest he refrain from personal attacks and abide by the T.T.code of conduct !d.d.
Posted by d.d. on 18/11/09 at 02:39 AMFirst Gary I write of the outcome if one is made, what a Green deal will do for the Greens among the local community.
Even if there is no deal a meeting that is reported by a third party has all sorts of eanings attachable.
It remains bad tactically to not make the meeting public. At no time should a secret meeting in such circumstances be agreed to.
The use of the fact of the meeting by Gunns went out of Browns control and the Greens continue to scrabble to regain it.
From time to time basic politics [or indeed any lesson not taken] is reffreed to as 101. This may be a 204 but still it is fairly basic in retaining the trust of the community and not being manipulated.
Look at the posts about TWS and the Mill.
With the stakes here you cannot behave like a naif, protection only comes from full and immediate disclosure.
Posted by phill PARSONS on 18/11/09 at 06:15 AM92& 95; Kevin, it’s interesting that you have fallen into the trap of classifying anti-pulpmill sentiments as being entirely environmentally driven.
For people living in the Tamar Valley there are many issues apart from environmental. I appreciate that this is a Nimby viewpoint but I’ve noticed that people who are disparaging about Nimbies are those who don’t have some industrial monstrosity planned for their back yard!
It’s quite reasonable for someone to support environmentally destructive white elephants that they approve of, whilst objecting to a proposal that they feel will ruin their business, lifestyle and property values. Many might simply object to the Government assisting a corporation to ride roughshod over the general populace.
Having said that I must say that a road through the WHA would have to be one of the silliest ideas I’ve heard in a long while. You don’t have to spend much time walking in those areas to realise that there’s groups of people who travel from the other side of the globe specifically to walk in the SW.Posted by Steve on 18/11/09 at 07:28 AMMany of the views taken by readers and posters to this Forum on this subject of supposed secret deals, may well be incorrect.
Now as you all know, it takes 2 to tango, 1 party is ‘anti,’ to all that the other party to these discussions are ‘pro’.Many are the posters whom see sinister goings-on and of secret or covert dealings.
Back to the analogy of ‘2 to tango for a moment’.
The party initiating these talks would inevitably be the scourge of the State, John Gay.
Such is his sly and slippery manner that it would be he that initiated these talks to seek for a bargaining tool or some sort of offset so to further his vile and stinking pulp-mill options.Now that the knowledge that these meetings have taken place has been brought to the notice of all people, in come the attackers.
Unfortunately it would be John Gay who would seek to gain some great mileage from these events, with the implications that secret dealings might indeed be going on thus the conservation movement MUST be open to, or are, themselves seeking compromises.So many posts on this matter, so many critical comments, so many inward pointed jibes and attacks.
This sort of reaction would have John Gay skipping leaping and heel clicking all around his lair in Launceston.All brought about by people’s fear of the unknown content, of said private meetings.
This dis-unity would keep the chairman of Gunns Ltd giggling and sniggering for a week or more.Herein layed the trap that has so far only snapped at the conservation groups.
Worth a thought folks?
Posted by William Boeder on 18/11/09 at 09:54 AMOh, for God’s sake! When will some of you get it through your heads?
All of this would easily have been avoided if people were open and up front at the very time it happened.
Just shut the f up and learn from it.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 18/11/09 at 11:29 AMSteve (#100), I am not in that trap at all. I am simply asking Don what his reasons for objecting to the pulp mill are, given that he is happy to support proposals that are both environmentally and economically harmful (which are the main arguments against the mill, though there are others). If he can advance a coherent reason along the lines of the ones you have suggested that’s fine.
Don (#98), I am actually trying to debate an issue concerning the possible inconsistency of your comments and your response has consisted mainly of groundless accusations, personal attacks, poor post-formatting (obviously you are capable of using paragraphs when you want to, but in one case you didn’t make the effort) and silly inane parroting of my exposure of your behaviour. It is not a personal attack for me to point out these deficiencies in your posts on this specific thread. Please stick to the Code of Conduct and please refrain from attempting to lecture me on it until you have actually understood (i) the Code itself (ii) my comments that you are replying to. If you continue the personal attacks I will place you on “virtual ignore” for the remainder of this thread.
The sole difference you do now raise (that your road would support tourism) is a dubious one - as Steve points out the area has existing tourism value that depends heavily on its “wilderness” status and would be harmed greatly by such a road. But in any case even if tourism was more helped than hindered by such a road, it is not as if the pulp mill has no possible benefits either. So again I suspect inconsistency on your part - either that, or an unrealistic view of your road proposal.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 18/11/09 at 12:09 PMQuote !
“If you continue the personal attacks I will place you on “virtual ignore” for the remainder of this thread.”
“bonham”As if i give a knob of goat shit ! How sweet it is ! but i suspect it won’t last long !
heh,heh,
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 18/11/09 at 01:44 PMIn regards to my statements concerning a road circumnavigating the state, (better still, by rail ! ) bonham somehow can’t see why i would invisage such and not a pulp mill ! which in itself shows his inability to defuse fact from reality.
A road or rail through the south west would not hurt the ecology, for instance ! find the largest map available and place a piece of cotton across it which would be the road, now some will say “but what of the garbage that people throw out” ! and that happens wherever there is a road, but it hardly has effect on the environment ! and certainly no where near that of a stinking pulp mill.
I have written at length before on this subject for those who are interested enough to check the archives.
The fact’s are that tourism may not be the answer to everything but we need to “embrace it “fully” in order to stop much more invasive and destructive operations , like this stinking pulp mill which will devastate Tasmania, as in a few short years when they are finished with their vandalism they pull up stakes and move elsewhere to do it all over again.
Multinational corporations have no conscience ! and the generation of huge and fast profits for shareholders is of prime importance over anything else.
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 18/11/09 at 02:13 PMQuote : (obviously you are capable of using paragraphs when you want to, but in one case you didn’t make the effort) and silly inane parroting of my exposure of your behaviour.)
bonham.If i feel in the mood to be more careful of my writing i do so ! then again, if i wish to get up someone’s probiscus then , i couldn’t give frogshit and do whatever comes to mind !
Bonham just does not seem to get the fact that i simply do not wish to correspond with him ! end of.
d.d.
Posted by d.d. on 18/11/09 at 03:48 PMDon, I don’t see why “embracing tourism fully” (even to the point of wasting money on extremely expensive proposals) would stop developments like the pulp mill. People will always want to build industrial developments in this state whatever the state of the tourism industry.
As for your claim that the road would not hurt the ecology, that is debatable. Firstly there is the matter of the substantial area of bush that would need to be cleared to build a road of such length. Doing so without any direct impact on any threatened species might be possible, but the surveys alone to establish that there would be no such impacts would be extremely expensive. Just look at the amount of documentation that has gone into trying to get clearances for the proposed Tarkine tourist road, which includes only about six kilometres of new clearances (a tiny amount compared to your proposal).
Secondly, major new roads can act as vectors for the spread of exotic organisms that may compete with or eat native species. Often this occurs through the very activity you dismiss as benign - the discarding of rubbish.
Thirdly, roads increase the ease with which arsonists can access remote areas and start damaging fires on particularly bad days.
Frankly, if your road was built I would probably find it to be a fantastic research resource, just as I and other scientists have found the Road To Nowhere extremely useful. But we are almost the only ones who benefit. The Road to Nowhere gets very little use. It would be used a lot more if it and all connecting roads were sealed, but probably nowhere near enough to make up for the cost.
If you don’t want to correspond with me then just stop replying. Nobody is forcing you to. Replying to me while claiming you don’t want to correspond is obviously pointless.
I also note your direct admission in #106 that when you want to “get up someone’s probiscus [sic]” (i.e. when you want to troll) then you write carelessly. This confirms my suspicion that poor presentation on your part was at least partly deliberate.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 18/11/09 at 10:35 PMI don’t expect to see this comment on present behaviour of this site much to my chagrin.!
Linz ! dissapointingly, you have done it again ! just where is the democracy on this site! when each and every time bonham gets up to his old tricks ,you allow him the last jibe and then pull the plug on the thread ! as the last two posts i have sent did not appear, nor did “William Boeder’s” on another thread.
In the two or three years i have been here, you have done this on several occasions that i can recollect, and to which i have taken you to task upon, i already have it on good authority that an excellent poster , William Boeder , has decided to not post here further because of this molly coddling and i am fast coming to a similar conclusion , not because he personally bothers me ! but because it also seems that most posters are happy to put up with his behaviour and tend to wish to appease him.
Time to get off the fence mate ! and pull him into gear or allow the threads to take their course , as it is going, bonham will be personally responsible for the demise of T.T. and everything it is supposed to stand for.
It’s way past time that those who proffess to be anti mill, made this an issue ,as many others refuse to post here directly because of him.
Now to his absolute glee ! you can add William, and at this point in time myself , both of whom are at the cutting edge of the protest albiet on different levels.He is a threat to all of our good works,directly due to his constant vilification of others and MOST IMPORTANTLY, NEW CONVERTS AND POSTERS, whom we are badly in need of.
Censorship is a crime against free speech ! and you are practising it against the charter of the Tas Times , i joined three years ago.
bonham will now claim that he is also entitled to the same privelidge , but he is not ! as his behaviour is designed directly towards destabilising the anti pulp mill movement.
Ciao,
don daveyPosted by d.d. on 20/11/09 at 07:37 PMre #108
Congrats Lindsay Tuffin. Well done.This webpage can do without Mr Davey but not our dear Lindsay.
In the wonderful world of the TT conversation, Bonham and Davey are both bottom dwellers.
Hit em’ hard Lindz
Posted by Michael on 21/11/09 at 08:57 AMMichael (#109), if you wish to substantiate your attempt to lump me in with Don Davey with evidence or intelligent argument rather than unsubstantiated personal slurring I might be interested in discussing the matter.
For the time being you are engaging in unsubstantiated personal attacks, you are way outside the terms of the TT Code of Conduct, and this makes you the “bottom dweller” you falsely accuse me of being. This webpage can do without vacuous posts such as yours.
I have no idea whether anything by Davey has been snipped. If it was it would not be the first time, but it could also be he was mistaken.
Anyway as Don Davey has again engaged in unsubstantiated and incorrect personal attacks (including tinfoil-hat stuff about some destabilising agenda I’m supposed to have towards opponents of a project that I do not in fact support) I will not be responding further to Don Davey on this thread.
The reader may safely assume I consider anything else posted by Davey about me on this thread to be idiotic and spurious, and any reader thinking he has made a valid point against me is invited to (i) check between their earlobes to see if there is anything missing (ii) contact me by email for a response.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 21/11/09 at 03:02 PM(109)
Let me see! this “michael” character is new to me thereby i have no understanding of why he would lump me with “bonham” nor indeed attack me, and of course he has done same within the confines of the cowards castle as all unaustralian cowards tend to do this place.My address etc has always been accessable to all ! and so , should you wish to repeat your comments i will once more furnish you and any other individual who shares your GUTLESS behaviour, with it forthwith! so lets see the size of your balls
And should you feel obliged to stop my description of this individual “Linz” , please bear in mind that which he has referred to myself.
Don Davey
32 eardley st
Launceston
Tasmania
ph. 03 63431531.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Posted by d.d. on 21/11/09 at 04:58 PMOh boy Michael! (#109)
How dare you mention those two in the same post!
There must be something in the Code about that!“Hmm, Let me see…
Chapter One ...Never ignore an insult
Hmm, ...threaten them with the Code ... use bad language ... Hmmm ... rip off one’s shirt if one is wearing one ... take off glasses ...say something to prove you’re superior ... HMMMMM ...invite your opponent outside where youse can have a private box on ... private duels by email welcome ... better still come on round and kernock on the door ...Oops!!!!!! Forgot, Sorry everyone, I was reading from the wrong Code.
And what’s more Michael, don’t mention the war, learn some manners, and you are not allowed to comment:
1. until both Kevin and D.D., bless their hearts, both agree TOGETHER to let you, and
2. until you have been posting for at least two years, and
3. until you immediately apologise for the great embarrassment you have brought on the both of them - lumping them both in the same basket.My oh my, poor Lindsay must be turning in his grave. [Requiescat Lindseius in pace]
Posted by Garry Stannus on 21/11/09 at 08:03 PMThere is absolutely no reason why any one individual should have to explain their actions to anyone , their lives being their own !~ but certain circumstances go into creating the changes in my style of writing as constantly referred to by bonham and others.
In my mind it should have no bearing upon the intended content of my letters ,however because it is forced upon me, i tend the following.
My dyslexia has already been canvassed, however over the past five tears i have undergone 3 back surgeries which have me pretty stoned, much of the time through constant and huge amount’s of pain killers (7 in all, 3 times a day) allied with daily injections of morphine ! which is why on occasions my writing may not meet the strict criteria of many others.
Some here will say, (as does my daughter to whom i haven’t seen in 12 months,) though she live’s less that a mile from me , “yeah right ! so how is it you can ride your bike ?” and the answer is simple ! it is because one is in a “jockey position” whilst doing so, which opens the vertabrae , and with the feet up ! and back ! acting as shock absorbers and consequently I suffer little ! or no pain ! on those occasions.To put it in the words of my surgeon, “sorry Don ! we did the best we could but, the old back is “fucked” and there is no more that can be done !~ which is doubly annoying because it was his surgery that created the problem initially ! however that is another story ! and anyone considering such , please contact me for what and what not to do.
Now ! i come from a line of longevity with most of my forebears living well into their nineties, and some into a hundred ! so at the relatively young age of 70 i may well have 20 years of this torture which is bloody irritating to say the least, but enough of my self pity.
This is not in any way designed to elicit sympathy but purely to make individuals take on board that there are many reasons why each and every one of us has a personal story that may create changes in their mood swings ! and therefore act accordingly at one time or another, having said ! we can’t have everyone bearing their personal problems on the citizenry at large , but for christ sake ! why this constant one upmanship and petty critism of particular individuals ? when there are so many important issues to be tended to.
I write to this site purely because i abhore the idea of a “pulp mill” , also it has afforded me a certain interest in my twilight years in being involved in something worthwhile, which also has the added benificial effect in keeping one’s mind active, and helps one through difficult and sleepless episodes.
kevin bonham is fully aware that i do not wish to associate and or correspond with him in any way, and one would think that by now that message would have been clear, however he constantly attacks my post’s in a particularly condescending way in the knowledge that it will create a flame war (as he calls it) because i won’t and have never layed still for any such crap , anywhere ! anytime ! and my suggestion is he take his childish games elswhere and lay off those he considers inferior to himself.
Some may make sense of what i say and others will (usually under the cloak of anonymity) have a laugh , And you know ! i couldn’t give a goddamn ! as it is purely meant to have some individuals practise some humility and tolerance.
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 21/11/09 at 10:48 PM113; Don, the gist of your comment appears to be that you realise that some of your comments are not really representative of your true character due to heavy influence of pain, or serious pain killing drugs. Fair enough, identifying a problem is half way to solving it. But why then do you berate Lindsay (108) for not posting everything you send in? You can’t expect the poor old editor to allow his site to be dragged down simply because you are stoned on morphine and expect every word to be posted!
I have full sympathy for your situation but if you realise there is a problem, why not do draft comments in MSWord, or some such programme, then copy and paste over to TT once you are comfortable with what you are saying?Posted by Steve on 22/11/09 at 04:32 PM(114)
I believe i stated i would not respond to you Steve ! as i suspect i know who you may be, as for my post you have it all wrong, i make no apologies for any of my posts whatsoever, as you well know the post was sent to have some others understand the reasons for some of the lack of care taken in punctuation etc, and that many others may have similar problems and that comments like bonhams are not conducive to fair play, also there are many others whose schooling may have been marginal and whom would like to post but are to shy or embarrassed to do so, because of comments made regarding same by those whom consider themselves superiour.I say, simply allow them to post without piling shit upon them for their lack of same.
As for you Steve, i’m not too sure of your angst towards myself.d.d.
Posted by d.d. on 22/11/09 at 08:12 PM115; Don, I’m sorry you think I have some angst towards you. You are incorrect.
You will notice that when I reply to a comment of yours I generally reply to the content of your comment. I admit to sometimes straying a bit but I certainly don’t leap in abusing you. My intention is to debate the point you are making, generally because I don’t agree with you.
It’s possible that, in so replying, I am making myself conspicuous as I suspect most TT posters have simply given up trying to have an intelligent debate with you. There is an easy solution to this. I have now joined the ranks of those who just can’t be bothered. Have fun!Posted by Steve on 23/11/09 at 11:44 AMWell ! all i can say to that is, at long,
long, last, the message has sunk in !
sigh !
d.d.Posted by d.d. on 23/11/09 at 01:19 PM
