Sue Neales Mercury
His natural ideology is much more in tune with that of other techno-savvy educated well-travelled generation Xers than with the old-style redneck element of Tasmania’s population that still fails to see why kids should stay at school past year 8 (let alone year 10) when they could be working. Small wonder that Mr Bartlett — in a perfect world — would like to govern a Tasmania that is renowned worldwide as a clean, green and clever island, famed for its beauty, wilderness, tourism and niche hi-tech and high-value industries. Not one that is reliant on an old-school chop-it-down-as-fast-as-you-can mentality; where an extreme distrust of change, new ideas and new approaches still dominates popular debate. The continuing clash — or at best friction — between these visions of the state should worry all Tasmanians. Then there is the importance of Tasmania’s image and reputation to think of. Why spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ dollars portraying our little island as a haven of tranquillity when YouTube and TV news programs around the world are filled with horrific images of sledgehammers viciously attacking greenies’ cars in the deep forests? Equally, why carefully craft your own image as a compassionate-but-dynamic, modern and forward-thinking young Premier, and then muddy it by trampling, apparently without much thought, into the murky world of hard-core logging rhetoric and attitudes? In fact, the past fortnight has been a horror period for Bartlett and his Mr Sheen image. Not only has he had to walk into the dangerous (for a politician) forestry debate, but he had had to deal at the same time with questions being asked — unfairly as it turned out — about his squeaky-clean reputation. Read more here
