That the buyer of the wood did not make a gesture about heritage and agree to let the owners out of the contract demonstrates their view of resource use, take it to the max if you can.
As for the government, supposedly acting for the community, you get the feeling that regardless of the merits of making this unique relic a sustainable attraction, a Cradle Mountain, a Franklin River its fate was sealed by the those who wanted to save it, the Daintree treatment.
Bloodymindedness overruling common sense, logical argument, academic research and even clear evidence as the state prostitutes itself to ensure that the economy remains enthralled with the colonial agenda of natural resource extraction, abjuring moves to elaborate transformation for as long as possible.
Extract from comments on: Recherche Bay: the watershed clash
The latest: Logging go-ahead for Recherche Bay
phill Parsons
January 30, 2005 at 02:32
The part time state
The Bureau of Statistic compares the December 1989 workforce size with December 2004.
Queensland has been the boom state. Since 1989 it has added 367,000 full-time jobs, almost half the nation’s growth. Comparatively by 35 per cent there, to 6 per cent in Victoria and 10 per cent in NSW.
Western Australia has added 140,000 full-time jobs, up 24 per cent, while the ACT, home of a supposedly shrinking government, has gained 21,000, up 18 per cent.
Adelaide has 3900 fewer full-time jobs than at its peak in 1990, while Tasmania has 9400 fewer full-time workers.
Adelaide and Tasmania have shared the bad times with regional Victoria where full time jobs have also fallen, by 6,500 despite the proximity of Melbourne with its potential to drive growth in the surrounding regions.
Nationally, full-time jobs have grown by 853,000, or 14 per cent, since 1989, whereas part-time jobs have grown by 1.15 million or 69 per cent.
And to deal with the furphy that’s what the workers want, a part time paradise, 721,000 part timers wanted more work and 70% of those actively seeking work wanted full time.
Tasmania is again a leader in a national statistic, one that some would consider a negative indicator. Building a chicken feed economy.
In my last I wrote about building an economy that elaborately transforms.
The government may wish to argue that a pulpmill is an elaborate transformation.
An elaborate transformation would be a publishing industry putting the works of home grown and other authors onto the world market, preferably on locally made paper.
Sadly that is as much stimulated by the retention of heritage as its destruction, stories of the past and present crafted into a lesson those in power appear incapable of understanding.
phill Parsons