Turn your back

Jason Lovell

I for one would be very tempted to dress in black and line the streets of the logger’s march, with my back turned. Silently. In fact, I suspect a few thousand Launcestonians dressed in black, silently standing with their backs turned as the loggers marched past, would be incredibly persuasive.

I AM disgusted that the CFMEU are going to hold yet another paid protest in the streets of Launceston, as part of some sort of attempt to ‘prove’ that public support for Gunn’s proposed pulp mill actually exists. Why these people can’t ‘prove’ their support without being paid escapes me, but I’m sure some other bright spark out there can work out the reasons for paying people to attend pro-pulp mill demonstrations.

While the issue of paying a rent-a-crowd to turn up on demand is a serious one, the thing that really worries me about this latest paid protest is its location.

Just one month ago 11,000 people used the same city to rally against this mill, without being paid a cent, and I would think that a great majority of those people live in and around the Tamar Valley and Launceston.

What are those people going to do when a bunch of loggers, most of whom live elsewhere, are paid to march through Launceston while telling Launcestonians that they must accept a filthy polluting factory that will negatively affect their health, not to mention the value of their homes and businesses?

I for one would be very tempted to dress in black and line the streets of the logger’s march, with my back turned. Silently.
In fact, I suspect a few thousand Launcestonians dressed in black, silently standing with their backs turned as the loggers marched past, would be incredibly persuasive.

Unfortunately, its quite likely that the loggers would attempt to assault any local who dared stand up for their city, as the loggers did the last time they marched in Launceston, when teenagers and little old ladies were attacked for daring to think differently.

Whatever happens with this next paid protest by the forest industry, one thing is for sure — Tasmania is now getting very close to physical confrontation and violence over this pulp mill proposal; like many other people, I can feel the anger emanating from Launceston and its getting redder and hotter by the day, as each revelation about the abandonment of due process unfolds.

Tasmania used to have a mechanism for avoiding these types of clashes — a thorough planning process that left no stone unturned and no voice unheard. This process came to Tasmania after the violence and division caused by Robin Gray’s absolute focus on the Franklin Dam proposal in the 1980s, followed by the even more divisive Wesley Vale issue.

Unfortunately, like so many other inconveniences for this pulp mill proposal, that process, the RPDC process, has been stymied, misled, leant on and eventually bypassed by the Lennon Government.
And there is no other mechanism for avoiding the confrontation that now looms large.

I don’t really believe in peace or violence as the answer to anything much, but I can see and hear that violence is looming over this one, and every single person involved is going to feel fully justified in their behaviour, whichever side of the mill they’re on.

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