You have lost my vote

Gerard Castles

I’m sorry but Labor has lost my vote. And just so you remember – here’s a an aerial shot of an area in the upper Forentine that Howard said would be protected and subsequently withdrawn. Under your Labor policy this is now destined for the chainsaw. Are you prepared to live with that?

(Earlier: Where the last thylacine was captured )

Dear Peter.

I’m deeply disappointed in the forest policy the ALP released on Monday and the subsequent support by Kevin Rudd of the Pulp Mill proposal and it means I cannot vote Labor in the upcoming election.

I understand the political game that is played in the lead up to an election but I cannot support the forestry policy put forward by the Labor Party. It’s the last straw. I have clung to the hope that Federal Labour may somehow save Tasmanians from themselves but it clearly has no stomach for the task. Leadership will have to come from elsewhere.

AS I’m sure you know the forestry industry here is corrupt.

Gunns have the State Government completely under control and have corrupted the State’s planning processes to ram through their Pulp Mill proposal. UNder the proposed guidelines it is not “world class”
and will result in people losing lives dues to pollution, unknown impacts on the local economy, transport problems, the pumping of unknown amounts of chemicals into the water and air and the continuing rape of Tasmanian forests.

You know all this. The whole sorry story was contained in Richard Flanagan’s article which I sent to you earlier this year. An article in Tuesday’s Age painted the picture well saying that the whole issue was not about jobs but propping up an uneconomic industry and local labor pre selection power battles which unrepresentative unions seem to dominate.

Where is Labor on all this? It seems to me there are three camps – spruikers like Lennon, Dick Adams, Sid Sidebottom, the CFMEU and Gunns, open critics like the brave and honourable Terry Martin who stood up and criticised the whole Pulp mill process and members too afraid to stand up to the power of the Gunns/union/Lennon triumvirate. Which group are you in Peter?

When I sent you Flanagan’s article you said then you were coming to Tasmania later in the year to better understand the issues. I can only assume that was your fly-by-night visit last weekend. To not publicly and vehemently criticise the now federal ALP endorsed Gunns and Tasmanian ALP forestry policy is to collude and now you have added your name to the list of good people who have said nothing and so have let the evil being perpetrated by this industry to prosper.

All I can hope is that you, Duncan and others force the implementation of the black letter of the law on current forest agreements. If you manage to win Government you as environment Minister will presumably have some power to force the industry to adhere to the standards that have been set. If you can’t then you have to have the courage to expose the reality of what is happening can only hope so for the sake of Tasmania’s future generations and your own integrity.

I’m sorry but Labor has lost my vote. And just so you remember – here’s a an aerial shot of an area in the upper Forentine that Howard said would be protected and subsequently withdrawn. Under your Labor policy this is now destined for the chainsaw. Are you prepared to live with that?