Environment
Lennon v Schofield
Paul Lennon Premier of Tasmania, Mercury, 29 Sept 07
Tasmanians lead Australia and the world in our protection of the environment with more than 40 per cent of our land protected. Where is Mr Schofield heralding that and holding it up as an example to the rest of Australia or the world? Our forest practises are world leading and sustainable.
Leo Schofield Mercury Columnist 22 Sept 07
Some wags are calling the state Gunnsmania. Perhaps a better name might by Crony Island. In addition to debauching democracy, Lennon is also debauching language. Observe closely.
Paul Lennon Premier of Tasmania, Mercury, 29 Sept 07
LEO Schofield’s weekly musings in the Mercury are developing into rants. Increasingly they border on the obsessive. His column (September 22) is no exception.
Yet again he is locked into his one-dimensional view that Tasmania is all about the forest industry. For that I feel sorry for him because he is missing so much of the vibrancy of Tasmanian life.
His jaundiced view of Tasmania belies the facts. My mantra has been that I want a Tasmania that is economically aggressive, culturally confident, socially progressive and environmentally responsible.
That is what we are delivering.
Tasmanians lead Australia and the world in our protection of the environment with more than 40 per cent of our land protected. Where is Mr Schofield heralding that and holding it up as an example to the rest of Australia or the world? Our forest practises are world leading and sustainable.
Tasmanians lead Australia in a range of social legislation including recognition of same-sex relationships, Aboriginal land hand-backs, compensation for the Aboriginal stolen generations, compensation for children abused in state care and the Safe at Home program tackling the scourge of domestic violence. They are aspects of life where Tasmanians can be proud. Mr Schofield should join us in celebrating these achievements.
Our 10 Days on the Island festival, the $30 million for redevelopment of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and our support for the TSO are part of our cultural fabric. Mr Schofield ignores our cultural commitment in favour of his mistaken obsession that we are a state of redneck philistines. How wrong he is.
This year alone arts funding has been increased by more than 20 per cent. Through Arts Tasmania, we support high-profile organisations such as Terrapin and TasDance, provide grants to small museums and galleries, employ a roving curator and deliver grants to help those working in the arts.
We’re listening to the community through our Island Inspired discussion paper on the arts and we’re planning legislative reform to further protect our indigenous and historic heritage. Our film and screen industry is blossoming under Screen Tasmania with the production of animated programs and films that are being screened in Australia and overseas.
Mr Schofield might not like Government backing for AFL football, motor sport, cricket, hockey, netball, soccer and tennis but they are part of a proud and balanced community. We are able to do all of these things against the backdrop of the strongest ever Tasmanian economy, rather than the basket case it was less than a decade ago.
I want our legacy to be a vibrant economy, a culturally rich people and a cared for and sustainable environment that is the envy of the world, not some mendicant state that is the political plaything of a privileged elite.
Mr Schofield’s one-dimensional Tasmania exists only in his mind and he is the poorer for it.
Paul Lennon
Premier of Tasmania
Leo Schofield Mercury Sept 22
WHEN I was actively searching for a house to buy in Tasmania, a friend living in Hobart sent me a newspaper cutting. It was from the front page of the Mercury and showed Paul Lennon behind the controls of a huge piece of forestry machinery beaming at the camera like a a kid with a new Tonka toy.
Ostensibely a news photograph, it was a metaphor for the Premier’s cosy relationship with the timber industry.
Few politicians would have put themselves in such a compromising position, appearing to endorse the industry but Lennon, of course had already cast himself as its chief protagonist – in particular the timber giant Gunns – and clearly saw nothing untoward in acting as a spruiker.
Subsequently he continued on this unwise course. A more sophisticated politician might have kept Gunns at arm’s length but Lennon gave every evidence of being in bed with the firm, hiring one of their companies to restore his house, bullyng his colleagues and staff into unequivocal support for any Gunns initiative, parroting the dubious claims devised by the company’s PR flaks. At least we all knew where he stood.
The newspaper cutting my friend sent was accompanied by a cryptic note: “Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?” I knew what he meant: Do you want to live in a state where this kind of unseemly behaviour is the norm?
Things have got even more rotten of course. In the unholy rush to please corporate masters and rubber stamp a project that is at best dubious and at worst fiscally, environmentally and socially irresponsible, due process has been thrown to the wind, review panels dismissed, experts slimed, opponents rubbished.
“Fast tracked” sounds good as a phrase. It implies decisiveness, clarity of purpose, strength – but in the case of the mill it was an attempt to ram down the craw of the public a project which more than three-quarters of them oppose. The wholesale debauching of the democratic process reached its nadir this week with the appointment of Evan Rolley to the No. 1 job in the Premier’s Department.
Some wags are calling the state Gunnsmania. Perhaps a better name might by Crony Island.
In addition to debauching democracy, Lennon is also debauching language. Observe closely.
The celebrities who added their names to Geoff Cousins’ protest are described by Lennon as fly-by-nighters, whereas Rolley is “a proud Tasmanian”, implyng that critics of the mill are aliens who cannot possibly feel pride in the island state.
Well, Rolley is not the only person proud to be associated with this state. I am, too. I talk this state up at every possible opportunity, urge people to visit, to invest here – as I have done. I speak at forums, provide voice-overs for tourism promotions at no cost, use my pen to proselytise. I am proud of this place, proud of my decision to put down roots here long-term.
What I’m not proud of is our leader, who brings nothing but shame on the state, dividing it instead of healing divisions. Lord knows, Tasmania is dichotomous enough as it is – north versus south, greenies versus rednecks, islanders versus mainlanders, private school versus public, sublime natural beauty in contrast with man-made devastation.
The state needs healing, unification, common purpose and vision beyond boosting a single, unsustainable project and touting it, dishonestly, as progressive.
Earlier: The Philistine (3)
The Philistine