John Hawkins

The ability of the editor of the Examiner to censor contributions without question or consultation weakens that newspapers authority as a guardian of free speech. I submit the two versions of my letter, one as published, July 30 2008, the other as written.

What I wrote

Monday, 28 July 2008
Ms F Reynolds
The Letters Editor
Launceston Examiner
[email protected]

Dear Fiona,

How unusual to read the column by Michael Lynch, in your newspaper, “Should Heritage values override development.” 25 July 2008, he normally keeps his head well below the parapet.

Uniquely in this State, Forestry is Exempt all Heritage Legislation despite the report of Godden and McKay, commissioned by the Tasmanian Heritage Council, stating that this exclusion should be removed, Only in Tasmania is there no legislation covering the concept of protecting the landscape and no enabling legislation has ever been placed before Parliament over Cultural Landscapes. Scott Gadd, the bureaucrat in charge of the Heritage Department was placed there by Paul Lennon to ensure that this position remained set in stone.

If the landscape of Tasmania could be protected under Heritage Legislation then the iconic Western Tiers could be preserved from a future trashing by the logging industry, Tasmanian Heritage Authorities would then have something to crow about. I can get nowhere with Gadd, Lynch, or in her day Wriedt, for the Heritage Council is now so stacked that its independence has been totally and absolutely compromised. The loss of Peter James, the previous Chairman and Graeme Corney, Churchill Fellow and Heritage expert, by resignation has weakened the Heritage Department so that it has lost the will and the intellectual rigour to remove or counter these extraordinary exemptions.

If the Heritage Council can order me to change the colour of my front door here at ‘Bentley’ why can they not be placed in a position to protect the Arcadian landscape we are all so lucky to have inherited. The answer is, the all pervasive logging industry, which will not allow these exemptions to be removed and so Tasmania’s endemic corruption of process, has yet again prevailed.

John Hawkins
‘Bentley’
Mole Creek Road
Chudleigh 7304

What was published

Download: Examiner_censored_letter.pdf