“A boys club with their own secret codes.” … is getting down to the wire now …

The Examiners ‘heaven forbid’, apparently ‘considered’ opinion.

http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1173265/forest-deal-support-unclear-as-positions-wax-and-wane/?cs=95

‘Depending on which side of the fence you sit it will be some very brave or very obstinate MLCs who knock back the bill.’

‘More likely, is a move to amend it – a rare chance to put their lasting stamp on forestry.’

And why are they trying to get those who haven’t jumped aboard to do so? …

‘Cos perhaps ‘heaven forbid’ Lennon forever the deceiver has said so and is pushing for it.

The Examiner says, ‘Even if this Bill passes both houses of Parliament it will not mean that new reserves are created. The legislation only creates a process under which such reserves can be added – and each one still has to be approved by the House of Assembly and Legislative Council.’

As the Examiner said … ‘SOMETIMES, it pays to look behind you to see what’s coming.’

How conniving to try and convince those in the forest industry who haven’t joined the hallelujah chorus line to do so - because they could well get the double win of the money and the reserves may also be stifled.

It would appear the ‘club’ is upto it’s eyeballs in the same old mire.

Hello everyone,
Peter Brenner has produced what I consider an excellent article as a basis for a better Tasmania.
Thanks to Lindsay Tuffin’s tasmaniantimes.com anyone on line can read it , think about it,  share it, talk about it with people one values and than even respond in writing.
Make your comments known so that they count, the article is out there in the public for anyone to use.

At this point in time there is no need for me to make many further statements.
Peter Brenner has presented to us all what may become the basis for a intelligent, ethical, responsible way forward in case the NO vote by Tasmania’s Upper House is what we will live with by the end of the week.

May the debate in the Tasmanian Legislative Council provide the opportunity to shine much needed light into the dark places of the past and offer the opportunity for real change.
Let’s watch, listen and respond as individuals in this island community .
Thank you again Peter, well presented.
Best regards
Frank

Thank you Peter Brenner, I hope that through this article you are able to obtain the support of the many fence sitters and those who were on the cusp of siding with this rather shady Tasmanian Forestry Reform bill that has arisen from the IGA plot by the pro-forestry protagonists.
Your clear rationale here proves that this is the most sensible way to go.
I have claimed in a number of my comments: when is the right time to trust the untrustables, the answer is never!
Never loiter too close to any Forestry Tasmania suggestion of we are now changed and have become a new reborn bona fide GBE.
For goodness sake the same sting-bugs and scorpions as were with Forestry Tasmania before this whole charade of events, will be there after these events, only with more taxpayers money in the coffers that will certainly not be channelled or delivered into something to be put to good use.

The very moment Terry Edwards says we accept, then you know it is strictly in the interests of Forestry Tasmania and Tasmania Incorporated. (Otherwise known as the raiders of the State revenue Ark.)
We must all learn to shun the grifters in our midst?

Very clear-sighted and sensible, Peter. Perhaps it is too sensible for Tasmania, where stupid, short-sighted decision making seems to be the norm.

I could never agree with the notion that the Upper House should vote “yes” to the TFA simply because it is “better than nothing”. How pathetic is that, when there is a sensible third option…..a plan C?

I find much of Peter’s article to be unrealistically hopeful,  since we have a terrible track record in the past, I don’t think our government is capable - thats why it took the peace negotiators to work it out among themselves. 

It was like the parents wouldn’t run the family (govern with a view to the big picture) and so the kids had to sort out things themselves. And they have done a pretty good job.

One sentence of Peter’s though was a good one

Forests are like living bodies from which we can take the “fleece”, but let the carrier organism live on.

In Tasmania, we have choppend pieces of the sheep until it is bleeding to death.  We have gutted it, eaten its legs, and still expect it to grow a good coat of wool every year forever. 
So guess what?  It isn’t in too good a shape!

This ENGO/FIAT ‘baby’ is destined to grow up to be a selfish, confused individual because its conceivers wanted that child all to themselves.

They lost the plot!

Yet another child conceived in a beautiful Tasmania forest.

A mature Truth & Reconcilation discussion, that Tasmania was entitled to, was never allowed to happen.

The Tasmanian Public & Environmental Halth Network ceased our membership with Environment Tasmania Inc. precisely because ET was playing a secret, duplicitous game that mirrored our toxic local politics.

Stubborn forces in the ENGOs deceived TPEHN and others; they put forward their agenda to a forestry industry already so tragically weakened, cowered and intimidated by it’s own ancestry.

A smaller group of individuals within TWS/ET/ACF conceived their Plan ‘A’ and then assumed their grass-roots members would back them.

Some did and some didn’t.

Once the ENGOs and FIAT felt they controlled their ‘family’, the parents left on a love-fest.

Nature and Nuture were in bed together having another try at an immaculate conception. The ENGOs and FIAT had their starry eyes on the birth of ‘their’ next and newest baby.

The ENGOs stopped engaging with the mob they claimed ancestry to. So here were are…with a split environment conservation movement, a divided Tasmanian clan and another child about to be born.

Unfortunately, even before it is born, its parents are calling it - not ‘Peace’ but ‘Deal’.

who is liable fore fire prevention maintenance

who is responsible for the fire fighting & the costs

or do they intend to to rely on volunteers who have no effective workers comp or insurance

who benefits from these funds looted from the tassie treasury & the tassie tax base.

& then there will be a lawyers picnic with the courts tied up & other court matters delayed further in the clogged court system

Unfortunately, unlike Europe which has had centuries of cherishing the forests and the soils, Australia was largely populated by treasure hunters, lured by the easy money of the gold rush, to be found in digging up the scruffy, worthless countryside known as the bush.
Their descendants live on, and the same get rich quick mentality dominates.

Such sense and sensibility has been presented in this article.

The path forward is here mapped out for the future of this state.

If only the politicans and their associated sychophants would grasp this reality with both hands and do the right thing by the people for a change instead of thinking about their own hip pockets and inbred arrogance.

Q; Why is the logging industry (and the ENGOs) so desperate that there should be no anti-forestry protests?

Q: Is it because they are sensitive types who deplore bitterness and discord? Or is it a gambit to for FSC certification?

There may be a free TCA membership for the correct answers.

John Hayward

#6 David, it looks more like a build up for a prolonged guerilla warfare campaign in the forests with less hope of peace now than ever before.
We now have a number of independant groups that cannot reason with each other causing a breakaway from the mainstream issues which will be very difficult to ever resolve.

Rolleys outburst at TCA members was a major blow, all trust has gone.
Rolleys greed to get at the $50M freebie for the hand back of regrowth allocation that does not even exist is scandalous, especially as Ta Ann has been mothered all the way and at the same time been allowed by FT to rip out the future regrowth forests leaving very little to achieve sawlog size.
The current FT heirachy are responsile for this and it is probably the saddest part of current forest mangement being allowed to go wrong given there has been never any independent arbitration.
The root cause is FT which needs a stand alone investigation by the LegCo and legal assistance from the Crown to eventually draw out extensive mismanagement issues by current FT Director Bob Gordon and former FT Director Evan Rolley now as Ta Ann CEO here in Tasmania before any fair and reasonable decisions can be made about the current condition of Tasmania State Forest.

Lennon and Rolley as mates are both anxious for the IGA to be approved ASAP to both smooth the path for financial compensation and to COVER UP THE MISMANAGEMENT of the FUTURE of the REGROWTH FORESTS.
:I will make it clear that my concerns do not relate to any of the FT Field /Office workforce, Fire Management personell or Harvesting contractors engaged by FT.
:I also make it clear that I do not oppose the objectives of Timber Communities Australia members which have no hope of being met now that the TFR is in such a state of disrepute.

A very good article Peter but I think that most of your legislative proposals are already covered, talk to anyone that has gone through a Forest Practice Plan in order to clear vegetation on private land. The Forest Practices Authority are almost a law unto themselves and you would not believe the hoops and hurdles you have to go through to be compliant.
I especially like your analogy of the enviromental groups to a spoilt 3 year old denied his lollies.You do not negotiate with a 3 year old, they are not mature enough and so to with most enviromentalists; they do not bring a broad view of the world only their own very narrow vision of a Utopian world bereft of economics and social license ( community ).
We were all anti establishment during our Uni years but there’s nothing like family responsibilties and a mortgage to bring you down to the earth.
I can forgive Amanda Treesit because of her youth but Bob ,Peg and Christine I cannot. Perhaps they have never grown up or is it the power fix they are addicted to?

*Anima mundi*, the soul of the earth, calls out to us from the imaginal realm that connects us as human beings to the mystery that original humans regarded as divine.  *Anima mundi *rejects the materialist vision that reduces us entirely to the quantifiable.  When EO Wilson and Stephen Kellert speak of biophilia, an inherent bond between humans and other life systems, they speak to this ancient perception that by our nature we love the earth—and therefore that we suffer with her as we degrade and
destroy her.
Living mature trees have complex life systems and inter-connections with other life systems- many of which we do not yet know about.
Tasmania - be careful what you wish for!

Thanks for this article, Peter Brenner.  I’m someone who can’t decide.  I want the protection of our remaining native forests and I fear that the legislation, if passed, will deliver environmentalists less than was promised, as has already been the case.  I fear we will again be cheated, as we were during the so-called moratorium.  Yet you advocate dot points which will guarantee nothing at all.  And reading your article, it seems as if all our native forests would be available to your sensible system of logging.  In Switzerland, yes, maybe.  Maybe they don’t have have the same array of forest-destructive forces as we have in Tasmania.  We have Timber Communities Australia, who use to be called the Forest Protection Society.  That was pornography with a capital ‘p’!  They have signed on to the TFA just so they can stay in the tent and get the agreement changed.  We have Artec who stepped into Gunns shoes, ‘upping the anti’ by successfully applying for EPA permits to increase the scale of their operations down at Bell Bay.  We (Code Green, now sort of morphed into Groundswell) opposed that.  We have George Harris who presented for years as a simple artisan, select timber man, then was revealed as an ALP operator during the Lennon years.  Now we see he’s the TCA Huon man. 

I read your article, giving it the respect that any contribution to Tas Times deserves.  We are all in the mix.  Trying to figure things out.  But you did not give us an analysis of the legislation.  Does it not offer wood production zones?  Specialty timber zones?  And so on?  What will there be the day after the LC, if they reject the Bill, for us Tasmanians?  We will have a Yesterday.  I’m not arguing in favour of the Upper House passing the Bill.  I’m not arguing against.  If I thought that we’d ultimately get the hectares that would be held back conditional on durability criteria, I’d have to say yes.  And I would continue to argue that we have to have a forest practices code which leaves out the ‘as far as practical’ dispensations.  We have to have a better FP Code.  FT needs a rocket.  And so forth.  And I’d advocate for us to do it smarter.  Of course I would.  But what have Timber Workers for Forests given us?  What have you put on the table?  What can you promise?  I’m not knocking you.  But I’d say to you, and anyone else:  tell us what you can deliver.  Look around you, at our state.  Look what’s happened.  Look at the north-east.  You don’t have to be told about the plantations.  Give us something to run with. 

I think that we have to grab what we can, because the other side don’t really care about the forests.  They will do just as they have done for years – wreck our environment.  Look at the Liberals, salivating.  And the Labor Party, a parody of the movement for the advancement of workers’ rights.  The Greens?  I have no argument against them.  Certainly not.  The Wildos?  What’s the problem?  They have been openly committed to the protection of our native forests and have done much to achieve that.  In the same way, I don’t begrudge the TFGA, and the TCA lobbying, arguing etc to achieve their goals.  And all the criticism the ENGOs have got.  For what?  For talking to each other, for trying to find a solution?  And all the time the incoming from those who wouldn’t be happy in a harem.  I don’t know what the best outcome is.  I would promote the ENGO’s claims, but I wouldn’t be happy with Ta Ann sourcing wood from our native forests.  I’d agree with reform of the plantation estate, and both the Greens and the Wildos have done for years, while their trenchant critics have refused to acknowledge that fact.  I’m referring to the cabal that’s entrenched in TT whose lexicon is replete with every form of negative known to English.  That cabal may be entrenched, but alas, not in the trenches.  The ones that have fought, that have ‘manned up’ in the forest scrum, haven’t bothered with the TT histrionics.  They are doers, not armchair critics.  I’m not calling you such a thing Peter, your contribution here is well written and positive.  I just find it unsatisfactory. 

PS I note the orchestrated comments that follow the publication of your article and, indeed, that article which follows it

I draw everybody’s attention to this TT article

http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/to-the-elected-members-of-the-tasmanian-legislative-council/

and urge you to download and READ the attached brief. It spells out in detail what many of us have put in less words. It’s a great wrap of what this TFA is all about. 35 pages! Install yourself with a drink. It’s very readable despite it’s length.

TEA_Brief_to_Legislative_Councillors_re_Bill_30_7-12-2012….pdf

#14 Very informative and illuminating.  The evils of free speech eh?  How do you stop it?  It’s got way out of hand.  Most unsatisfactory.

All those people who say things you don’t like about the Greens and the ENGOs must be labelled.  It is an imperative.  They are being ‘orchestrated’ by someone or something who/which aren’t ‘doers’ but ‘armchair critics’.

And where better to make a start in finding them than in perusing the authorship of the 13 comments preceding yours on this thread, as you so aptly say.  So name them.  Tell us who they are.  Let’s not generalise about these pernicious ‘reds under the beds’ types who should be ‘doing’ on the basis of your terms, and your terms alone.

Here’s a clue which should get you going.  A small group of people decided to communicate with each other about what they considered needed to be addressed by the Legislative Council and make a public statement.  One of them, Peter Brenner, wrote this piece which you find unsatisfactory, while he and others put their signature to another document which was a deliberate attempt to express their collective viewpoint, openly, transparently and without artifice:

http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/there-must-be-a-better-way/show_comments

Those who signed this document have nothing to hide.  They communicated with each other and agreed.  At the same time Peter Brenner wrote his own article, as he is entirely entitled to do.  There is no artifice here, or some kind of orchestration.  This is as open and transparent as it is possible to be.

You mightn’t like it.  You clearly don’t.  Your attempt to denigrate the views of a small group of concerned citizens by labelling them under a generalised banner you think might stick, purely on the basis that those views don’t conform with your support of particular ENGO and Green party-political positions, is abhorrent.

Let me say this to you.  There was no particular reason for Frank Strie or me or Peter Brenner or the others to go to the trouble of expressing our opinions openly in the way that we have done except from a disinterested, non-partisan perspective of what we believed should take place in the interests of Tasmania and Tasmanians now and in the future.

What is of particular concern in your comments is your willingness to label those you disagree with – outside the mainstream political party parameters – in the way that you have.  My question about that would be to what extent you represent, in what you say, the voice of the mainstream ENGOs and the Greens.

There is something absolutely hideous about labelling people as ‘doers’ on one side and ‘writers’ on the other.  It smacks of Pol Pot.  There is an article in the Age on Dec 11 by Michael Leunig, the cartoonist, titled ‘Just a cartoonist with a moral duty to speak’.  Is he a doer?  Can you provide me with a categorical distinction between a ‘doer’ and a ‘non-doer’ please? 

If you can’t, I suggest you rethink a few things, starting with the matter of what orchestra you are in.

Those who think the reduction of TaAnn’s hardwood quota from FT means the forests & critters are safe need to think again. It wont.

The TFA merely transfers the shortfall in TaAnn’s reduced public wood supply on to private forests where important biodiversity values could be damaged under logging which could be government by a grossly inadequate forest practices code.

TaAnn have said they will attempt to make up their 160,000 cubic meter hardwood sawlog shortfall from private growers (dont do it Jan Cameron!!). So TaAnn will be potentially compensated $50M for the public hardwood sawlog quota by the state of tasmania while the company merely sources this same lost quota from Tasmania’s privately owned forests.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/12/06/367762_todays-news.html

Face meet palm…

# 8 Mike,

Mike, you do realise that countries like the UK have lost about 90% of their forested area over the last 5000 years ;)

re 17, it would be interesting to know if Ta Ann have factored in paying a more realistic price for private timber than the publically subsidised price of the taxpayers offering.

Ta Ann set to take its hardwood supply payout and leave Tassie??

Options in the sunshine state with planning permits & approvals all go??

#19 I think the government will have factored that issue into Ta Ann’s payout. $50m should cover any cost increases. Call me a cynic…

(14 – Garry) Perhaps I orchestrated the Examiner to write their article in the Sunday paper too, so it all could be timed to coincide !?… come on, opinion great, but spare the conspiracy type ‘orchestrated’ comment dribble. No-one orchestrated me.

The irony is … if the articles had been written by the Greens you would very likely have supported … and that’s scary … no-one pulls my chain! There are some things in life I agree with, others I don’t. In regards to the two articles you are talking about, I agree with them. They have reiterated well my sentiments.

Indeed of late, having talked to a number of forest industry related people, I don’t think there is a ‘war’. I think now, it has just been well ‘orchestrated’. Because most I talk to are in general agreement. That being - wanting to see the right thing done enironmentally, financally and socially but significantly it’s the FT hierarchy, the past and current crop of politicians and the likes of the Wildos etc who have ruined the potential of the industry and maintained this ‘war’ for so long. Funny how you can be kind and gentle to the likes of the euc (introduced e nitens) plantation growers rather than those who have to live with the consequences … says much about whose tune you apparently dance to.

But I’m pretty pleased you deem fit to try and orchestrate some untruths as it means youse have a challenge on your hands, and in getting the balance right, that is always good …

Absolutely Peter - You have echoed what many of us have tried to put into words. EU countries have practiced this sort of forestry for many decades. Creating a Tasmanian timber industry (as opposed to a fibre industry) where jobs are created, wood is valued and above all, forests are cherished, has to be the ultimate goal. The waste from such timber enterprises can be used to generate power, to run factories and the waste from that to regenerate soil carbon. Hemp, as a rotational crop for farmers, will provide all the fibre needed, plus bio-fuels to run machinery and transport. Food from hemp will create a healthy community, while reducing methane emmissions. The hemp industry also has the potential to generate many more jobs, as well as replacing soil carbon, creating buildings that are energy efficient and that sequester even more carbon and doing so without chemicals or excessive water use. It’s a no-brainer and yet I have worn my typing fingers to the bone, trying to get that message out there. With so many people in this thread, agreeing with your article and the comments and articles I have read elsewhere, it would appear that either the wrong people are governing this Island state or the motives for doing so are questionable.

Re # 23 David,

I just thought you should know that once hemp starts flowering the fibres lignify and become very poor fibres (difficult to separate) for use. So if you have a crop planted to produce bio fuels it won’t be any good for fibre. Another problem with hemp grown for fibre production is it cannot be harvest all year round and it is not easily stored. Not a good combination for industrial fibre production/use.

Peter Brenner also seems to ignore fact about wet eucalypt ecology. Wet eucalypt forests require disturbance for regeneration. European methods that work over there can have detrimental affects here.

#23. Hello David Leigh your comment is worthy of greater recognition, for it has encompassed the thoughts and values of many in our Tasmania.
‘where jobs are created, wood is valued above all, forests are cherished, has to be the ultimate goal.’
You may rest your weary fingers for a brief spell and take the time instead to elevate your well expressed opinions to a wider spread of the Tasmania people, if not the whole of the Australian people.
There is nothing going on in Tasmania’s Old Growth Forests that require this State to retain either Forestry Tasmania and or their lacking sub-standard management practices with defective steward-ship aspirations, as they have never had any association to their false-claimed World’s Best Practices. (Which in fact have proven to be little different to that which has denuded the prized forested jungles in Sarawak.)
Hope to read more of your comments David.

While Peter Brenner has expressed some worthwhile sentiments, the article’s dot point list of proposed legislative requirements to ‘fix’ forestry problems is (as is typical of TT) based on substantially flawed presumptions about current forestry practices.

Just to illustrate my point, I will consider each dot point:

• Very long term forest planning, covering state and private forests

This already happens in public forests. Good luck introducing it in private forests where the number of different owners and their (often changable) intentions, makes it impossible to even accurately establish the size of the timber resource, let alone create a long term harvesting schedule.

• No clear felling

In fire-adapted wet forests, clear-felling or an attentuated version, such as the aggregated variable retention system, already used by FT, is essential to secure regeneration. Australin eucalypts are not akin to EU deciduous or coniferous forests.

• No chemicals

No chemicals are used in native forests anyway.

• Restoration management in existing monoculture plantations

If this means replanting with mixed spp, it won’t work as expected as not all spp respond to plantation silviculture, and some will dominate at the expense of others. Big question is who pays?

• Mandatory biodiversity

As if there isn’t mandatory biodiversity requirements already! There is, and much of it is enshrined in the break-up of public land tenures into parks and reserves, and timber production zones; as well as the management prescriptions which require additional reservations in timber production zones.

• Protection of water catchments

As if this isn’t factored in already - as per above dot point

• Erosion control

As if this isn’t factored in already via a Code of Practice which focusses on protection of soil and water values.

• Ensuring continued, non-chemicals based fertility of forest soils

No fertising is done in native forests anyway.

• Policing of implementation

As if this doesn’t happen already - see comment #12

• Support community forest ownership

This is a new one - but likely to be very problematic given experience in Victoria’s Wombat Forest. A recipe for ‘green’ domination given that they are always the loudest voice, meaning essentially the end of timber production.
• Ongoing public education programme

Good, but has been done before without any particular success

• Promotion of the use of wood

Good, but has been done before without any particular success

• Assistance in the development of wood working and construction technology

Good

• Subsidise thoughtful transition into a balanced forestry regime

As if the current situation is already balanced! Lets see, just a quarter of public native forest is in timber production zones, with three quarters effectively conserving biodiversity. That’s a pretty good balance by anyone’s standards.

• Subsidise only the non-commercial functions of forests

For all the misinformation of what is labelled as a ‘subsidy’, I suspect that this is pretty much what already happens.

In addition, the article’s comparison to EU countries is simply irrelevant given that most have never experienced the ‘war’ perpetrated against forestry activities that has occurred here. Also, EU forests are for the most part not fire-adapted and so can be managed quite differently to Australia’s eucalypts.

I’ll throw my hat in.
First of all, I agree with most here. Well done Peter. Extremely sane and level headed.

For those who ask what Peter’s dot points actually offer, my reading was that far from totally throwing out the TFIGA recommendations
(the crux of which being more reserves of critical HCV forests and a smaller but more sustainable forest industry), he was perhaps suggesting that
all recommendations should not be completely thrown out, but that the LegCo should not just sign off on the bill with out consideration of an opportunity to go further
and enshrine proper forest stewardship into legislation. Just because it is hinted at in enthusiastic, pretty wording does not mean it is written in stone.
If this is not what you were advocating Peter, forgive me for presuming but, suffice it to say it is what I advocate.

I have for some time been undecided on whether to recommend passing of the bill or not. In the pit of my stomache I have felt also that “near enough is good enough”
or “its the best we have” or “no alternative” is not good enough, and once again those sly FT dogs via their cronies have once again hoodwinked the ENGO’s in their dash for cash.
This article has finally (albeit too late probably) swayed my mind towards not advocating that it be passed. For the two plus years deliberating it has only been in the last few months that any sort of agreement looked possible. Hence why not take a little longer and get it really right. For all we know, industry dragging its feet and constantly stalling was all part of the plan so when they finally did come up with a ‘deal’ we would all just roll over and thankfully say ‘Finally’. Too much still remains unclarified and all the gapping holes need to be plugged.

Well, clearly, Peter (#16), I am not in the same orchestra as your’s.  You suggested that I rethink “a few things, starting with the matter of what orchestra you are in.” I have done that, over these last weeks, while hesitating about whether I should respond to your comment - and Claire’s #22 as well – or to leave your’s stand on its own grumpy merits.  Oops!  There I go again, doing the very thing you’ve chastised me for!  Labelling!  A grumpy, negative orchestra, replete with brass and percussion yet with seats vacant in the woodwind section.

I guess what finally induced me to ‘put pen to paper’, was recalling your prickly response to Neil Smith [#14 response in TT’s ‘This is why FT needs reform’], in which you had advocated censoring him thus: 

“One of the serious weaknesses of the moderation processes of TT is that it fails utterly to eliminate ad hominen [sic] attacks as exemplified by your [Neil’s] comment that “Certain people who are irrevocably soured by bitterness over past events…”, which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue(s)”.

You there continued on to conclude that Neil’s comment “should have been excluded” and went on to wrongly assert that Neil would label as “soured” anyone who would “express alternatives, however meritorious, or beg to differ from the font of disciplined party wisdom”.  That was a distortion of Neil’s comment in that thread.

Moreover, in your #16 above, you began by chiding my #14 in the following way…

“Very informative and illuminating.  The evils of free speech eh?  How do you stop it?  It’s got way out of hand.  Most unsatisfactory.”

...as if I’d somehow argued against free speech.  It’s not me, but rather, it’s you Peter, who has called for the censor.  And to suggest that some comments and articles are orchestrated to produce a desired end, is not an attack on free speech.  It is a defence of the readers’ right to know who is behind what appears on TT.  Despite your protestations, you were involved in some behind-the-scenes work.  There’s nothing wrong in that, so why get so touchy about it?  By the 4th Dec, you clearly had begun a process [in the TT thread:  “Give sustainability a chance: Tasmanian Forests Agreement in perspective”] which resulted in your open letter published on TT [“There Must be a Better Way”].  You had circulated a letter privately which criticised Fred Gale’s ‘vote for it, while holding one’s nose’ piece in The Conversation.  You challenged me to name those associated with the orchestration, so I would suggest Claire, Peter Brenner, Frank Strie and yourself as well as a few others, for example, those others whose names appeared as signatories to the open letter.  You would know better than me, who those people were to whom you’d written privately. 

And by the way, here’s one for the history books:  Your “There is something absolutely hideous about labelling people as ‘doers’ on one side and ‘writers’ on the other.  It smacks of Pol Pot.”.  No Peter.  You’ve got that wrong.  What I did write (referring to the many in the remote forest camps, in the tree sits, in lock-ons at Ta Ann etc and in the back of the paddywagons) was:  “They are doers, not armchair critics”.  You’ve chosen to misquote/replace my ‘armchair critics’ with your own invention ... ‘writers’.  A Henning parapraxis, I’d suggest.

You ask me to categorically distinguish between a doer and a non-doer.  That seems pretty straight forward.  How about this:

The term ‘doer’ includes a subset of people whose positive acts outweigh their negative public statements.  The term ‘non-doer’ includes the subset of people whose negative public statements outweigh their positive acts.

Of course, it’s not categorical, but it’s a start, don’t you think?  And finally, I don’t think I’d be much good in any orchestra, replete with pre-ordained scripts and didactic themes.  I like creativity, freedom, campfires and street buskers.