A cynical backflip Senator.

The Greens preach peace and practice evil deeds driven by anger and revenge.

Begone from our shores, your organisation is a parasitic and self serving for the overpaid and under qualified (your good self excluded).

Palendrome,

It is the truly deadweight troll that hides behind such a pathetic name to sling mud and snipe from the trenches.

Be a man Sir.

Publish your insults under your proper name or remain silent.

Me thinks the Greens are feeling guilty…..

Is the Senator quite certain this is an ‘official’ Green policy? I read recently that some Tasmanian Greens strongly condemn any burning-off?
Maybe the Senator hasn’t read the script.

Fuel reduction is part of the solution, but when it is broadscale and through vital ecology its impact is as bad as wildfire.

Hazard reduction is habitat elimination.  It is not a panacea.  It serves as a cheap alternative to professional fire fighting. If you burn everything, then when there is a wildfire there is nothing left to burn, so problem solved?

Recall that many wilfires once they get out of control (ignored for the first few hours) spot by ember attack which with strong winds can carry embers many kilometres ahead of a fire front - making any amount of hazard reduction useless.

Been there done that - NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, WA.

The bushfire management problem solving needs to be done within an ecological context and a risk management context, not a cost saving context that is dismissive of ecological values.

#1 I can’t see a backflip here. I have never heard the Greens arguing against sensible fuel-reduction burns; only against Forestry Tasmania burns of excessive timber waste resulting from its rapacious clear-felling tactics.

Nor have I heard of the Greens arguing against an environmentally sensible timber industry based on a strategy of selective logging and value-adding. That would be an industry that could result in employment for many people in allied industries and be profitable in its own right.

And the millions of public dollars our dunderheaded government pours into the bottomless FT pit could be spent on setting up an efficient statewide fire-fighting service, employing the long-honed bush skills of those who have lost their jobs as a result of the demise of the environmentally destructive and loss-making forestry industry that we have suffered these past four decades. — Bob Hawkins

Is Tasmanian Times light on for a contribs… having to resort to political media releases?

Where is the pithy coverage from the Tasmanian Forest Agreement Select Committee? Lots of ‘grist’ in that mill.

Ah well maybe people are just plain weary from the predictable gatekeeping from Tasmania’s goalers and swindling from the mischief-makers.

Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, the name says it all, hypocritical wanker and typical of an ideological clone. These programmed fools seem to think everyone will forget what they really say and not the empty lies and deception they use to try and hoodwink the public. Problem is, they do this every time, no matter what the facts, everyone lines up and forgives their idiocy and primitive mentality. Then the merry go round begins to turn again and they pick the same revolving door mentality in the empty hope this time, the liars they grovel to at the ballot box will be honest. In the history of the human ideological disease, never has truth been used in earnest. Ideologists have no comprehension of truth, reality, or sanity. Their entire history is dramatic, fatalistic lies and deceit,nothing else. So how can you expect the impossible from those incapable of ethical logical or truthful discourse.

The only way to have a decent safe forestry industry and protect homes, farms and business from wild fires, is to take a different but logical approach to the situation and solve a number of problems in one go. To do this you have to introduce a different form of forestry, which is orientated to producing top quality value added timber products. This requires multi species native forests with sections near habitation consisting of fire retardant timber such as backwood and other top quality trees, add selective logging, fire breaks, fuel reduction and you end up with reasonably safe forests. Building with fire proof products instead of matchsticks, will also reduce the costs of rebuilding and increase survival rates. By farmers building in ground stock sheds, it would give them the opportunity to save a lot of their stock, again increasing loses and survival rates. Many European farms have sheds to protect their stock from the intense cold and snow, so why not have in ground sheds for stock in summer fire seasons.

It seems to me there are very few people in this state and for that matter on this planet who think with their brains and not their programming. As long as it continues along that suicidal path, things will only get worse. Replacing destroyed wooden power poles with more wooden power poles, rebuilding dwellings and buildings with highly inflammable materials, surely must show the sane logical humans, if there are any left, that this approach is not only fatalistic, but also economically unviable for the future.

This looks at lot like ‘official policy’ to me Trevor, 13-14 in particular seem to exactly what the Senator was saying.

To make it worse the site is a few years old - so much for a recent backflip?

http://greens.org.au/policies/environment/environmental-principles

The Greens didn’t start the fire

The pricks just didnt let the poor people of Dunalley burn-off.

Brainwashed Tasmanians into climate chage propoganda

But the truth is temperature has been burning since the world’s been turning

The Greens didn’t start the fire

No they didn’t light it

Just let all the growth build-up, whilst they were too busy sippe latte at Salamanca and clamouring about homosexual marriage

The Greens didnt start the fire

#8 seems to forget the stock are grass fed whereas in Europe the stock are housed and fed concentrate or conserved fodder indoors.

All of the Green critics seem to forget that it was a fire on a day rated catastrophic. Sheep were killed and injured in paddocks.

#6 Unless I am mistaken, the Greens are fully in support of the TFA.  In fact they are the key driver.  They fully supported the attempt to ram the framework legislation through parliament before the end of last year, and their leader, Nick McKim, was part of the cabinet committee which worked on the 158 amendments presented to the Legislative Council earlier this week.

Under the TFA there is no attempt to reform management practices in the areas not protected from logging, including in water catchments.  It was clear from what the ENGO representatives said to the Legislative Council on Wednesday that they do not oppose current practices of clear-felling or of sterilisation burns in clear-felled areas, and will not oppose such practices under the terms of the agreement.

It is also my understanding that they will not oppose current monocultural plantation management practices.

The Greens are totally in support of the TFA.  Irrespective of what they might say in their policy documents, or what they say to the media, it is their actions which tell the story.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who can contradict the view that the TFA allows for continuation of business as usual except in protected areas.

In addition I would be very interested to know of any representation on any of the variously named versions of the roundtable since May 2010 which actually articulated a policy against clear-felling in favour of selective logging.  Unless hard evidence can be provided to the contrary, I am prepared to stick to the position that those who advocated such policies were deliberately excluded from having any say in the process over the last three years.

Let me add that I would be interested to hear of any evidence that supports a triple bottom-line approach in terms of forestry management outside the protected areas. And do not obfuscate things by throwing in the federal social-economic study about impacts on rural communities of the TFA.  That has nothing to do with management practices or certification processes.

I agree with what AK says at #8 across the board, although it’s a pity anonymity is considered useful.  In the end, unless a deliberate policy focus is placed on high quality, Tasmanians - whoever they are, and whatever they think, and whatever positions they hold - will be powerless to stop control of forestry by external forces of one kind or another.

One of the advantages of watching the Greens in alliance with the ALP in government in Tasmania has been to see more clearly how their so-called social policy agenda is without a firm basis in belief and commitment.  This has been demonstrated clearly across the key social policy areas of health and education, and is now demonstrated in the area of sustainable policy development in forestry, where they have abandoned any commitment to a holistic, systemic approach.

Where does compromise end? Is it an end in itself to be lauded even when fundamental principles have been compromised by supporting their most essential contradictions?

Conrtolled burnoffs are only one tool, they work if an area of undergrowth is burnt around houses and towns but only if a fire comes through not long after the burn.
If a fire off in the distance races up a hill and gets into the crown of the trees, given the right conditions such as the Ash Wednesday fires, Black Saturday or any other massive crown fire no amount of hazard reduction will help.
Unless of course there is a kilometre wide tree free zone around the town.
Once the oil in the eucalypt trees starts to vapourise it does not need any fuel on the ground to feed the fire.
So far I have never heard of any ideas such as portable high pressure sprinkler systems that could be deployed on town perimeters to stop ember attack.
It is time we researched new ways of fighting fires, not just the same old ways of waiting until it is too late then trying to clear fire breaks.

People contributing here know the difference between a fuel reduction burn supported by Peter Whish Wilson in this article and a forestry regeneration burn (long opposed by the Tasmanian Greens). Most of the public don’t however. Peter Gutwein and Richard Colbeck are aware of this and will gain any advantage they can over the Greens.

#7, Hello David:

Read your frustration.

“Is Tasmanian Times light on for a contribs… having to resort to political media releases?”

From time to time frustration about content is natural.  But read:
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/pages/about-us

I have no special connection with TT, but being in NSW, I value TT like no other online independent newspaper.

Realise this forum you have does not exist on the mainland, but I welcome you to prove me wrong.

I can’t find an equivalent in Australia, so you guys have it special in Tasmanian discussing Tasmanian issues without appreciating it.

Want ‘pith’ as you say?
Well read the comments, which you may not have appreciated are not deleted/restricted/subject to paid subscription like Murdock and Fairfax following The Irish Times lost spiral.

Feel free to submit your own unfettered “grist” and who knows…it may well be published on TT, but try same in The Mercury, Advocate, Examiner.

The Greens didn’t start the fire
They just didn’t have a majority while Carpetbaggers United LibLaboral sat on their hands and let forest industries play fast and loose with truth, trees, lives…
But the truth is obfuscation’s been the culmination of the drive of One Nation
The Greens didn’t start the fire
No they didn’t light it
Just let climate change light it while Tony Abbot was busy denying that we pollute, that we warm, that we manipulate, that we exist.
The Greens didn’t start the fire
Nup

People aren’t getting the message that wood smoke is toxic and now it is proposed that more deliberate burning takes place.

I feel sorry for those that have had to breathe this years smoke because we know that smoke shortens lives after many years of suffering in lots of cases, ie, the young, the elderly, and those with respiratory, cardio pulmonary, and cardio vascular diseases, to name a few.

There are other methods that don’t produce smoke that should be employed to reduce fire hazards in communities.
There is no need to let the growth build up.
http://cleanairtas.com/alternat.htm
Today I again read that black soot is the biggest threat to climate change. Go figure.

I think we need to hear from our DHS and EPA as to how toxic smoke is. The information is on both their web sites.

People are walking on water if they think they can deliberately burn an area without producing pernicious smoke.

The Greens wont accept responsbility that they put their warped policies in front of human lives.

I know, why don’t we call a royal commission and get to the hard truth

Ah no, the Greens are the last people to be trusted playing with fire, they will get their fingers burnt to the bone.
Too late, too late for new Green tactics , Peg Putt ruined burning practices years ago whinging to Parliament when she was an MP by effectively putting a stop to most fuel reduction unless it was for ecological/ habitat manipulation burning often used by PWS.
With the Greens on the loose, time to ban them from carrying matchs when acting suspiciously around logging coupes on State Forest is more like it
Even smoke inhalation sufferer Clive #17 will make sure that McKim gets a serve from DHHS and the EPA, wont you Clive!

People will be best protected by better regulatory control regarding the lighting of fires in the first instance.

About 50% of all fires are deliberately lit. There is no doubt that the Tasmanian Fire Service (TFS) could tighten up their system of regulation with a far greater number of Permit days and more total fire ban days.

Fuel reduction burning contains significant risk. Lighting a fire in a native forest area is dangerous over much of the year. It is appropriate that it be treated with great caution.

It is surely the TFS and not Parks and Wildlife Service, as Senator Peter Whish-Wilson has claimed, who has responsibility for this issue, as it relates to private land.

In looking on the TFS website I can see it is increasing its local area plans for bushfire prone areas. That initiative is to be supported. I am sure we would all wish for more such plans. Local plans are probably more important for saving lives than a statewide plan in a situation where resources are limited.

Living in a bushfire prone area I would be loath to light a fuel reduction burn. The reduction of fuel around buildings can occur without lighting a fire of course.

The recently introduced state bushfire prone areas code:
http://www.planning.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/210436/Planning_Directive_No._5_Bushfire-Prone_Areas_Code_-_19_September_2012.pdf
is worth a read as are the various other related documents on the TPC website.

I consider it wise for every landowner in a bushfire prone area to have a written and agreed plan for what to do in the event of a wildfire. I have found the TFS to be helpful in assisting in this regard.

The last fire escape around here, some years ago now, was lit by an FPO of Gunns Limited and the TFS was called. The FPO escaped any obvious disciplinary action as far as I could tell.

When I look around in my local area I see the vast majority of eucalypt plantations are minus any proper and maintained firebreaks. Such close spaced vegetation is a serious risk.

This is a complex and difficult issue. I would urge the Greens and the other political parties to think carefully over this issue, before whipping off media statements that may simply inflame the situation.

Thanks for all your comments. I’d like to say firstly that any action taken by the Greens in relation to future fuel reduction burns will be very considered (and reasoned), and based on a variety of views, science and experience. An example is working with stakeholders such as outlined in the NRM fuel reduction research project. I understand it is a very complex area. Many on this site seem to have a detailed opinion so I’m presuming some expertise. I would encourage you all to help us in our work to detail a submission to the Premiers (Lara Gidding) upcoming Independent Bush Fire Inquiry.

The Greens have a long standing policy aim supporting, where appropriate, selective fuel reduction burns. In case you need to find it, the environmental policy that refers to fuel reduction burns is here: http://greens.org.au/policies/environment/environmental-principles and will be the starting premise of our submission.

We have not taken our public stance this week for votes or ideology, but rather to represent the many people frustrated (and shaken) by their personal experience in relation to the recent and current fires. If your opinion differs to those recently impacted by the fires, it is important for our Party to hear this, so it is good to have a conversation.

I’m learning on this subject as I go, but after I witnessed (and travelled with locals to visit) the fire damaged areas, I can’t imagine anything could be more high risk to an ecosystem than the type of firestorm they experienced. It was devastating to see the beach at Half Moon Bay covered with dead animals who had escaped the flames but were then asphyxiated (as people would have been had they not been evacuated with minutes to spare), and very old trees that had withstood fire for hundreds of years but were totally uprooted and destroyed. I also witnessed how a recent selective fuel reduction burn further south had stopped the same fire storm, and I attended the meeting where the TFS and Parks and Wildlife said this was the only thing that saved the Freycinet National Park/Peninsula. The locals in this area have been calling for other selective fuel reduction strategies around community areas to be implemented in the past 5 years and are now very angry that liability issues and lack of resources have prevented this.

Of course it is important to protect the environment, but also to go and meet with these people, listen to their point of view. I’ve been lucky enough to get to know this community well during the past number of years as it’s where my family likes to holiday and I can relate to their frustrations.

I would encourage many of you to do just this. The more conversations we as a community have about this the better. Anyone who wants to provide input to our submission on this subject is welcome to contact my office.

I look forward to progressing this issue.

I don’t think it is prodcutive to start blaming anyone, directly or ideologically.

Our wise aim ought to be to respect values and from that problem solve better preventing and response to avert yet another repetition.

The difference this time is to think and learn from the Australian context and experience, not from seen down the road.

Here are a few concepts to engage with Peter Whish-Wilson.

Landscape aridification - Entropy - Climate Change - Anthopogenic Effect - Human Population projections - Biodiversity impacts - Threatening processes to ecological resilience - a lower energy future.

Pete, you are correct community engagement (in a politics-free environment) offers the only optimism (I can’t use the word ‘hope’) for a rather gloomy future.

#11 There was no mention in my post of housing and feeding stock in earth covered refuges, it is a method if used in this country would provide sanctuary for stock, pets, machinery, people and feed in emergencies like this, will will get even more frequent and more deadly in the very near future. Naturally a farmer may not be able to provide shelter for all his stock, but breeding stock and the young can be saved.

However sane reality is far beyond clones, they prefer to live in the Disney land thinking of denial of reality and fervent support for destructive ideological delusion.

#12, “I agree with what AK says at #8 across the board, although it’s a pity anonymity is considered useful.”

Peter, anonymity is required when the ruling elite are so depraved and fearful of their lose of power.  they will resort to any means to destroy opposition, especially when it comes from those who aren’t heavily programmed a they are. I left school at 14, have no supposed qualifications, yet have working and management experience and knowledge of just about every industry and business there is. What qualifications I have in life come from personal experience, not delusional programming in a school room or ideologically controlled office. You’ve heard of skeletons in the closet, Ive got a couple of cemeteries full, which from those mistakes has given me even more understanding of real life and formulate policies and outcomes which will work and empower the people to take responsibility for their lives and foot print on this planet, compared to those of the school room set, whose only aim is to be right in defiance of the reality. This would give the morons something to attack using the power of their vested media interests. After all we have no free press in this state or for that matter this country, it’s all controlled by the ideological elite who rely upon their hold over every political party, to increase their depraved wealth and suppression of fact.

#21.
“We have not taken our public stance this week for votes or ideology, but rather to represent the many people frustrated (and shaken) by their personal experience in relation to the recent and current fires. If your opinion differs to those recently impacted by the fires, it is important for our Party to hear this, so it is good to have a conversation.”

What a load of denialist crap, you seem to be placing yourself in the position of those you have no understanding of, typical of ideologists as deceit and lies are their only weapons, fact and reality don’t exist in their prehistoric primitive mindset. Then your denounce those who don’t accept your bullshit and put forward logical rational and workable ideas, by trying to make out they have no idea of the situation or how those effected feel.

Let me put you right fool, I live in the area and whilst not directly effected, have many friends and acquaintances who have been drastically effected. During the time we and more than 5000 people were all trapped at Nubeena on the Tasman, there was lots of talk about this and how to cope and prepare if we survived. For your information fool, it was only a wind change that saved Nubeena and all there from being wiped out as there was no escape at the time,no power, food, fuel and no help.

Not one person has any support for any political party or politician, Those like Wish-wilson who flew in here at public expense dribbled bullshit platitudes then flew out at the peoples expense, since have been the subject of derisive comments which in reality are fact and not the ideological fiction trying to be presented here.

Finally who would want to submit anything of sane logical relevance to you and your useless ilk, all that would happen is it would be binned, because it doesn’t fit your fatalistic fantasy filled ideological agenda. Just as historically happens to every rational approach and idea, that doesn’t fit within the political ideological agenda of idiocy.

The Prince of Darkness #21 speaks out on supporting burning policy. That is sure to singe a few Green eyebrows.
Come on Pete, burning will raise the ire of DHHS and the EPA . The EPA will impose strict sanctions on the NRM private property fuel reduction project.
Look out Pete, after this weekend’s hippy festival at Lonnavale- A Decade of Forest Disturbance is being celebrated. I hope it rains and extinguishs their communal fires.
There is nothing new about cooperative burning, forestry have been doing it for decades in conjunction with agreeable neighbours.
Fire Service are called in to watch on farm structures when necessary and team up with FT lighting parties.
Good foward planning, cooperation, neighbour notification, right weather outlooks and most important a responsible follow up, mop up hot spots, patrol warm afternoons, monitor weather forecasts. A responsible officer to ensure the fire is declared as black out.
It has been shown in rural regions where forestry is active, the cooperative approach is of benefit to local councils, brigades, community and property owners.
Of cause we do have the Green objectors, dont we Claire, gee I cannot believe that you have not infiltrated this site yet.
We are waiting, duck for cover folks!

I was recently looking at some bush I’m familiar with that had had a “fuel reduction” burn a couple of years ago. It’s in a remote area and, under winds you’d expect to prevail in extreme conditions, is at least 25km from the nearest town and farms.

The “cool” fire had duly removed leaf litter and light fuels initially but I noticed that there was now no discernible difference in the volume of this fuel type prior to the fire and presently (about 2 years later). This observation is supported by studies that show that fine fuel loads recover in a very short time frame.

What I did notice that was likely to significantly alter fire behaviour was the increase in “ladder” and “elevated” fuels. The intermediate size plants of the understory had mostly been killed off and were now cured and ready to burn like billyo and lift fires into the crown.

So what did this FRB achieve? It opened and dried the forest by allowing greater air movement and sun onto the ground. It greatly increased the volume of intermediate size fuel while having negligible long term effect on small and large sized fuels. As it occurred at around 800m elevation it probably killed off any fire sensitive species in the understory and probably encouraged fire adapted/responsive species to flourish.

Until we have a solid body of science and evidence to inform our fire regimes I think efforts and resources should be concentrated around making suburbs, towns and settlements safer. Also, although it scares me to see rednecks given a green light for this type of activity, people need to take more responsibility for making their own immediate environment fire safe.

Melbourne is surrounded by a 200km (plus) arc of ‘rural urban interface’ much of which is some of the most dangerously fire prone forest you can imagine. The genie is out of the bottle as the population continues to push into the forested fringes. Without intensive management and modification of this environment there will be many more Black Saturdays. I don’t like it but that’s how it is if people with no idea want “a home amongst the gum trees”. The next question is, how much are we prepared to pay to allow these people to live safely in their fantasy world? How much are we prepared to change the very nature of the land to accommodate their fantasies?

The ‘blanket’ fuel reduction targets are just half-cocked, knee jerk BS cooked up to appease morons.

More hysteria on this thread than the front row of a Justin Beiber concert.

Wipe the foam from your mouths haters.

#25 Thanks for your explanation about why you write anonymously.  I have no reason to doubt what you say and I understand what you say, and I know other people who use anonymity for the same kinds of reasons. 

What you say is true that those of us who challenge the political orthodoxies are subject to excommunication and burial in unconsecrated ground like so-called witches of any era in history.

Dissent is not tolerated within the Australian political party system to such an absurd degree that in Tasmania the lower house of parliament is merely a rank chamber of assent to a small clique of cabinet, a rubber stamp for two or three or four people.

I nevertheless would ask you to reconsider your decision to write without identifying yourself, because you immediately have less credibility by being anonymous.  This is not something I would bother asking of those who are trolls for parties and other organisations who want to cloak their identity, because I simply ignore their posts as soon as I see they wish to hide their identity.

But there are just a few other people I know and respect who are in your position, as you have stated it.  All best.