phill Parsons

It’s not just the electors of Bass, who if the survey of voter intentions holds true on polling night could put a Green close to representing the interests of Bass at national level, given that Liberal and Labor will not swap preference in Bass at this election, but across the nation people not only have to consider which party is best suited to provide for the needs of their back pocket, or to provide health and education but also which one will actually listen to local communities as a matter of course and can address the environment that nurtures us all, especially in the area of climate restabilization.

When I was growing up in Manly there were speed boat rides offered at the Wharf and one was named Me Too to capture the crowd on busy days. The approach of the Howard government to wedge Labor in each election has led to Rudd to adopt an approach now labelled as “me tooism” by members of the Fourth Estate.

Thus far Rudd has stuck close to the governments policy on the economy even with Work Choices, signalling some limited differences on environmental policy by agreeing to sign up to Kyoto1 and on infrastructure policy by flagging a proactive government approach to broadband.

Differences over the management of health have emerged with a free enterprise model of local boards being compared to the mega bureaucracy of a coordinated national management sounding similar to the one that people identify as the cause of the problem now.

And what is the result of this 2 party preferred alignment on the residents of the Tamar as they awaken to the first day of a pulpmill at the mouth of their river passing all the government hurdles and the opposition either moving into the courts, where the government eventually wins, as they make the laws and onto the field of corporate morality where the financiers of the project are to be challenged on their environmental principles [the ANZ and the Equator Principles being the example given they are the current bankers for Gunns].

Meanwhile lying in the background, looking the worse for wear is the RPDC process that was supposed to look at the social, economic and environmental impact of the mill and would under former Justice Wright be two months from its report after all concerned had an opportunity to address the issue in an open process before the behind the door deal had been consummated in an Act of Parliament.

One wonders at this point if, after all the hearings the wishes of the residents of the Tamar and the North East of Tasmanian and the broader environmental consideration would have amounted to a hill of beans now it is clear that Lennon wants a mill at almost any cost, believing it is his salvation.

Where now for the mills opponents.

Some may wish to retire in the view that government cannot be beaten. Cousins, a thorn of conscience in the side of the free enterprise model of development, has proffered the Franklin Dam campaign as an analogy and with Gray on the Gunns Board perhaps some parallels align.

The mill has its opponents in Tasmania. The Lowe Government’s referendum measured the hydro schemes opponents at 33% and we have surveys where over 50% in the Bass electorate are opposed.

The mill is now a national issue with the fate of Tasmania’s forests, and indeed all forests associated with woodchip exports, once again part of a national election campaign. This makes the Lennon Howard Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement goal of ending conflict over forest in this state, the one that excludes that part of the community concerned with forest conservation, a non event.

A significant and growing proportion of the community demand a say in the mega-projects that determine the future, theirs and that of the planet.

The Anvil coal mine when it was proposed for the Upper Hunter valley invaded a region where people were moving to and businesses had established because it was not thought to be affected by the coal mining of the Sydney coal basin, a resource stretching under the coast from Newcastle to Wollongong and inland the Lithgow and almost to Mudgee.

No doubt those establishing in the Tamar had similar thoughts about industry, corralled at Long Reach and accepted as part of the landscape, as was the mining near to the Upper Hunter. The destruction of forests, whilst not universally popular, was accepted as part of the Tasmanian landscape, the campaigns to save them stretching back over 34 years had certainly become a part of the social and thus political landscape.

After all, the tourists still came, although some vowed never to return, and the environment of Launceston, whilst hazardous to air breathing animals, did not spread throughout the valley, and so could be avoided by judicious location.

And so now comes the plebiscite on who should govern the country and within that certain subtexts are embedded. Each electorate has its own issue and the marginals of Tasmanian have won national coverage with theirs.

In health the difference between the Liberal model and the Labor one are to be judged practically in the electorate of Bass with a spillover from the Tamar pulpmill where, according to a Wildernesses Society elector poll, 14% will change their vote on the mill.

In Bass it becomes more important for the candidate where the same poll had 27% changing their vote if the pulpmill was approved.

The government is claiming it had to follow the scientific advice and act in the national interest by applying the world’s best practice requirements and ending the farce of no trigger for a shutdown that was the Lennon Labor position on environmental management.

The opposition speeds by the Tamar, believing me too is more important, ansd anyway if the 2 old parties agree who do the mug voters turn to, the whacky party.

Brown claims Environment Minister Turnbull could have reviewed more of the proposed mills impacts, such as the social and on the forests that will supply the wood, under the EPBC Act, and we know Gay was stamping his foot about delays and conditions and has accepted each and everyone imposed.

And now Gay will have to accept the court challenges and incredulously, if the mill is built and still cannot meet the conditions imposed by Turnbull, will have risked all, unless of course he believes, as many would, that once built it will be unstoppable until it is worn out or priced out of the market.

And what of the voters who oppose the mill and are caught with tweedledeedum supporting the mill just as tweedledeedum support coal mining.

Well they have a choice and so do voters across this wide Brown land, where a project or a policy could be foisted upon you without your opinion being sought, government and industry knowing better what you need and what the fates should deliver to you.

There is one apparent exception to this. Whilst Howard remains PM he will ask you before a nuclear power plant is built nearby.

The sort of obedience expected of a populace that toppled the crowned heads and instituted elections for representatives and later led to the widening of the franchise to include the poor some 150 or so years ago and women some 100 years ago has morphed with the free education that came with the development of an industrial society.

In Australia there is a national character of debate and worldwide there is a defence of interest at a community level, the processes of parliament and industrial lobbying behind closed doors impinged by the public review process of environment courts and planning and development commissions that has become the accepted way of hearing community opinion.

Unhappy are the self interested, the Tasman Peninsular and fishing a timely example, where conservation of the resources that makes a catch in Tasmania opposed by a group who feel they were unheard and are afraid of the consequences.

Those with a vested monetary interest are more willing to accept process; they can write the costs of hearings off as a business expense, gazumping any unfunded opponent.

In Bass the environment has spilled out of the forests into the air and sea, it also has the potential to negatively impact on an established economy without compensation. It has the social impacts of division and potential that those impacts will run further. It even has an impact on the globes climate where every impact needs to be positive and this one appears to be negative.

Its not just the electors of Bass, who if the survey of voter intentions holds true on polling night could put a Green close to representing the interests of Bass at national level, given that Liberal and Labor will not swap preferences at this election, but across the nation people not only have to consider which party is best suited to provide for the needs of their back pocket, or to provide health and education but also which one will actually listen to local communities as a matter of course and can address the issues confronting the environment that nurtures us all, especially in the area of climate restabilization.

And its not just in the lower house. In the Senate the Greens could fill the role of the nations conscience, at least until tweedledeedum align in that trip into the future on the me too of pragmatism over the former principles of rock stars and once proud parties.

Coming with this is a guarantee that “me tooism”, if successful, will become a feature of national politics as it is a feature of Tasmanian politics, where the Liberals sound like an opposition but never oppose, sure that the big boys [ and very occasionally the girls] of industry know best. Its not just the electors of Bass, who if the survey of voter intentions holds true on polling night could put a Green close to representing the interests of Bass at national level, given that Liberal and Labor will not swap preference in Bass at this election, but across the nation people not only have to consider which party is best suited to provide for the needs of their back pocket, or to provide health and education but also which one will actually listen to local communities as a matter of course and can address the environment that nurtures us all, especially in the area of climate restabilization.