Stodgy, myopic, complacent

Only a few weeks ago Barns berated the Tasmanian Times (again), (World class forestry practice Comments), for allegedly “leading” its Sunday edition (drawing a long bow there) with a forestry story at the expense of the Risdon prison siege. The prisoners Barns claimed to be concerned for included a convicted arm robber whose crimes had included an allegation by a victim (on Tim Cox’s ABC program), a TAB worker, to have led to the amputation of one of her limbs!

During the ensuing stoush that transpired on TT, Barns, drunk with rage and full of his usual contempt for the TT, condemned a long-time contributor. Barns abruptly dismissed this highly respected local writer as “selfish” because he had chosen not to drive 50 miles at night to stand outside the prison and defend convicted criminals who were threatening to cut guards’ fingers off.

The contributor had offered an olive branch of sorts to Barns by quite politely and diplomatically apologising for not standing outside Risdon prison, but was only met with a poke in the eye from the self-righteous Barns.

I thought this was one of the most breathtaking examples of Barns arrogance that I’ve seen.

A measure of the contempt Barns has for Tasmanians who argue against the abuse of our island by the all-consuming Woodchip industry is that when given access to 130,000 or so readers, he chose to devote an entire article to attacking environmental content on an obscure internet website that he admits, ‘the majority of Tasmanians probably don’t know exists’.

Why didn’t Barns use his column to write about Chinese defectors being abandoned by Howard, changes to immigration laws, or perhaps raise the ongoing shame of Aboriginal illness across the remote north of the country. I’d be happy to discuss that one.

Pulp progaganda

Or he could have written about the fact the State Labor government spends millions on pulp propaganda, footy and the Elwick racecourse whilst we desperately need an inpatient facility in Tasmania for children and adolescents with Mental health problems. I’d love to talk more about that one.

Or what about Japan’s determination to pursue scientific whaling or maybe he could have tried to reach some younger readers, taken a more hip angle and discussed Bandaid 2 and Bob Geldof, Bono and the writing off of $US40billion of 3rd world debt.

130,000 readers.

Why is this lack of action any less selfish than Mr Lovell’s not standing outside prisons 50 miles from his house at night?

And were we not meant to notice how Greg Barns abuses the power and privilege afforded to him by his opinion column in the Mercury, a newspaper with a readership of 130,000 plus to direct Tasmanians away from the not for profit Tasmanian Times and towards a website of whom he is a director of the company that owns it?

Barns stated:

“However, if you’re a Tasmanian who wants to find a reliable internet source of information, views and ideas about your state and what’s happening in it, oldtt.pixelkey.biz will not help you”.

“In contrast to other Australian sites, such as Australian Policy Online and onlineopinion (I am a director of the company that owns onlineopinion), which are diverse and intellectually engaging, oldtt.pixelkey.biz seems stodgy and complacent”.

Unbelievable

That is quite unbelievable. And a clear conflict of interest.

I noticed that nobody had raised this very obvious feature of the Barns piece. Is that because we intuitively understand the contempt Barns actually has for the greener writers on this site and the tantrum he will likely throw if one questions his credibility. Christ, he is not backward in questioning everyone else’s.

1. Or has the incident of a few months back where, Barns threatened to run to his lawyers when he was challenged by a female contributor on an arts related matter intimidated his detractors? (Ms Isabella Emerson’s comment is wrong and defamatory. I am considering legal advice on its publication at present: What’s wrong with Hobart, Comments

Greg Barns has described Tasmanian Times contributors as NIMBYS (Not in my backyard).

Desperate not be aligned in anyway with these “nimby types” that he loves to ridicule, Mr Barns consistently turns a blind eye to the transgressions of the logging industry in Tasmania, preferring to pursue a negative campaign against the Greens. In doing so he is increasingly out of step with his own party “the lie detectors” (or is that his old party?-hell I don’t know, who can keep up with all his political parties).

Barns has demonstrated a rather peculiar, upside-down take on the logging controversy in Tasmania. This was no more evidenced than when he managed to describe the Greens as “rapacious” in an article he wrote for the Herald Sun leading up to last years federal election.

Wilderness

Leading up to last year’s federal election Barns and the Dems knew they couldn’t compete on the Tas forests issue so they told us not to talk about them so much.
Barns and the Dems suggested that by doing so, we were somehow responsible for the neglect of other areas of need in the community.

The fact is, Barns and the Dems lack real conviction and passion for the plight of Tasmania’s world class wilderness, so it is left to the Greens, the Wildos, and Joe Citizen. This is just one of the reasons why the Dems are getting a flogging at the ballot box.

The problem with Greg Barns is it is “never in his backyard”. Except when says so!

In this latest Barns spray he can’t find even one positive thing to say of the Times. That’s because he never set out to. The fact is Greg Barns’ opinion piece amounts to nothing more than a hatchet job on a relatively defenceless opponent. He tried the same on the TSO and it went down like cup of cold vomit.

This is not a ‘decent’ piece of writing Greg. It is predictable, old-hat, and if you know Barns’ work this is certainly not a ‘new issue’. To quote Barns himself “It is self-absorbed and boring”.

Barns stated: “Rarely is there any attempt made by the site to balance the anti-forestry tirades or to check their accuracy”.

Mischievous comment

This is a mischievous statement. Take a quick glance at Online Opinion, a website that should not be compared to the state-based, low budget, not-for-profit Tasmanian Times. Look at any article on OLO that braces a ‘moral hot potato’ and you could apply Barns (above) statement to both the article and the comments. All too often OLO comments sections are overrun by the virulent dogma spewed forth by a “cricket team” of hard-lined religious fundamentalists. Polite discussion regularly deteriorates into bitter slanging matches. Thank Christ they haven’t infected the Tasmanian Times yet.

Contributors on the TT do a great job of moderating/balancing each other. A great example was last year when Greg Barns, during a nasty and unrelenting campaign he pursued against Sen.Brown was caught out telling whoppers on this site about Senator Brown’s parliamentary activities (it’s in the archives), by none other than phil Parsons, the bloke who Barns gives a serve in the article. See Greg. Its works!

Actually, one could say the same of you Mr Barns. Rarely do you make any attempt within your body of work to balance you anti-antiforestry tirades!

Barns stated: “There’s a cricket team of individuals who dominate the site. Nearly all have a similar world view: that Tasmania is corrupt, dominated by conspiracies and that Bob Brown will save us all one day when he ascends to the green heaven”. This is called negative stereotyping. Nobody dominates the Tasmanian Times. What a stupid comment!

This is actually one of the few times I have seen Bob Brown’s name mentioned on the TT in ages. Nobody talks about him much except Barns. Personally, I think Barns is envious of this successful politician, humanitarian and internationally respected environmentalist!

RICK PILKINGTON
Launceston