The blame game

Jason Lovell

In the last few weeks it has become increasingly clear that the forest industry is trying its hardest to blame the Tasmanian Greens for the fiasco surrounding the RPDC resignations of Julian Green and Dr Warwick Raverty.
One seemingly highly-placed forest industry supporter (in my opinion), who posts to the Tasmaniantimes.com website as Tomas Rignoli, has even gone so far as to claim that the Greens “campaigned to undermine” Dr Raverty and that their efforts contributed to “successfully rooting the RPDC process”.

And other forest industry supporters are now joining Tomas’ chorus, singing from the same old “blame the Greens” songbook on talkback radio, in the letters page and even through the mouths of ALP politicians.

While many forestry issues are contestable and can be easily muddied by assertions from leading community members, this case is clean-cut.

• Dr Raverty and Julian Green both laid the blame for their resignations squarely at the feet of the Tasmanian Government’s own Pulp Mill Task Force.

• They said they had tried to stop the activities of the PMTF from sullying the RPDC process, and had received an undertaking from Premier Paul Lennon that this would occur.

• They revealed that the PMTF’s activities did not stop, leading to a direct request from the head of the RPDC to the head of the PMTF, to cease its interference immediately. It is alleged that PMTF head Bob Gordon’s reply was “get lost, the Premier is my mate”. ( Mate, Paul’s my mate, get lost )

• Dr Raverty revealed that he received legal advice from the Tasmanian Solicitor-General, via Julian Green, to the effect that the activities of the PMTF had resulted in a perceived bias against him and that he would have to stand down from the process, or face the sack from the RPDC.

The Tasmanian Greens’ only actions during this entire saga were to call for Dr Raverty to resign because they believed there was a possibility of bias in his case, a perception that the Tasmanian Solicitor-General agreed with.

For the forest industry and its supporters, such as Tomas Rignoli, to now say that the Greens “undermined” and “root[ed] the process” is breathtaking, but unsurprising. Blaming the Greens is their only avenue of escape and it’s been very successful in the past, so they will do their damndest to take the state down this path again.

Unfortunately, It’s the equivalent of pointing out a wart on someone else’s nose, only to cop the blame for the wart itself.