During Times Of Universal Deceit, Telling The Truth Becomes A Revolutionary Act

Bob McMahon Restore Democracy Rally Launceston August 23 2008

I’m sure Gay, Gray and Lennon thought they were so clever down there in Lindsay St, stitching up the Pulp Mill Assessment Act – the fast track assessment – after trashing the RPDC, but now it has all gone horribly wrong. Gunns is in trouble and are looking for a foreign venture partner and a truckload of cash. Bartlett and his government have been dropped right in it. And so have we. Because of the way Gunns has managed its affairs and the way the State Government has pandered to Gunns’ resource ‘requirements’, Tasmanians are now exposed to foreign ownership of vast swathes of this island and vast swathes of our forest resources. Well done. Great result. Tasmania will be a colony once again – or a Third World country.

LET US dedicate this rally to the memory of 3 people. Stuart Leith, a founding member of TAP, died at the helm of his boat sailing downs the Tamar to our first River Rally. Chris Strong, former headmaster of the Launceston Church Grammar School, environmental and social justice campaigner, and gentleman, died tragically a short time ago. Dr Peter Hewitt, surgeon, teacher and humanitarian died trusting that his legacy would be to leave the children of Tasmania without a pulp mill. It is up to all of us to make sure Dr. Hewitt’s legacy is realized and carry on to victory for all three men. Finally let us wish happy birthday to our indomitable fighter, Ruth Rowe who is 93 today. She cannot be with us but wants us to concentrate not on those who are old but on the young.

WELCOME to Launceston on this historic day. You have come in your thousands from all over Tasmania to gather here in Launceston’s City Park to instruct and pass judgement on the gathering of politicians sitting over in the Albert Hall. Many would argue that the Albert Hall is the wrong place and parliament should be sitting further down the road at the Gunns head office in Lindsay Street, because down there is where much of this government’s treacherous pulp mill business has been done over the years.

What does Premier Bartlett have to do to rectify this situation and keep Tasmania and its resources in Tasmanian hands? He has to detach himself, his Government and the public purse, from Gunns, from the logging industry and marginalize the old guard in the Labor Party. He must distance himself from Lennon’s legacy. He must listen to the people. That’s why we invited the Premier to come to this rally to listen and also to explain his Government’s intention behind Section 11 of the PMAA. He declined the invitation because of prior commitments.

From this park we will march through the streets of our city, so that the politicians, and all the people, can see that democracy is on the march in Tasmania, that justice and truth are on the march. Our reclaimed democracy is hot and those who nearly succeeded in destroying it are about to feel its heat. We will not tolerate being sold out, lied to, threatened and abused. We will not tolerate being excluded and dispossessed.

200 years ago the Tasmanian Aborigines were dispossessed of this land, which they had inhabited for 35,000 years. They are still being dispossessed. But they are not alone. We are all in this together now. We are all being dispossessed.

Over the departure of deputy premier, premier, police commissioner and who knows who else in the months to come, falls the corrupting shadow of the pulp mill and the orchestrated campaign of theft and deceit designed to deliver to one industry the resources of this island, and to deprive the generations to come of any control over their own future. That is what we are up against. The pulp mill is the galvanizing symbol of that wicked plan.

Now its time for the whole truth to come out. George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm, said: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act,”

Welcome to the Revolution.