The King is Dead. Long Live the Queen

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In Green land, the King is Dead. Long Live the Queen. But does she speak the same language?

Like you, I am watching with great interest the transition of power from Senator Bob Brown to Senator Christine Milne as Leader of the Australian Greens. In particular, I hear Senator Milne’s apparent wish both to concentrate more on the economy and to embrace farmers as fellow travellers with the Greens.

She has also chosen to distinguish between what she terms the “progressive” elements of the Australian business community from the “rapacious miners” and, presumably, she would include the rapacious loggers.

She has made what she terms “the bush” her first target for consultation and/or conversion.

To say that that this initial Milne strategy has not been universally welcomed is an understatement. The National Farmers’ Federation already has raised the question of whether Senator Milne is to be trusted in her pitch to rural Australia, citing the Greens’ promotion of the carbon tax and differences over the Murray Darling Basin plan. Meanwhile, the Australian Industry Group has criticised her “hardnosed ideological” stance on some business issues.

Senator Milne has a different approach to Senator Brown to politics. Because he had a certain presence, he had the semblance of a conciliator; she is more inclined to hector. People find it more difficult to warm to her.

If Senator Milne is seeking to re-engage the Tasmanian rural community, we welcome that. The door to the TFGA is open. We believe in consultation, but it is a two-way street. She’ll be judged on her delivery.

Farmers have been Tasmania’s long-term conservationists. They cared for and nurtured their environment long before the formation of the United Tasmania Group in 1972 (the precursor of the Australian Greens). The beautiful patchwork landscape on the north-west coast in which Senator Milne grew up is still there, still beautiful – thanks to farmers.

Their stewardship has been self-funded. Farmers get little government assistance for caring for their land and nor do they expect it. What they do seek is to have the shackles of regulation minimised so they can maximise their productivity to meet world food and fibre demand. Which brings me to the issue of the private forest estate.

More than 26 per cent of Tasmania’s forest cover, 885,000 ha is privately-owned native forest; more than four per cent of total forest cover is in plantation forests on private land. Farm foresters shoulder all the obligations of conservation, protection of streamside reserves, water quality, shelter, habitat as well as sustainable timber production and reafforestation.

Under the intergovernmental forest agreement (if it gets parliamentary approval) the acid will be on private forests to meet the shortfall in production from what had been delivered by Tasmania’s commercial public forests. What guarantees will the new Leader of the Greens give to Tasmania’s 1600 farm-foresters that they will not be the next target for shutdown?

Nikki Savva, writing in The Australian this week, commented:

“Philosophically Milne and Brown are indistinguishable, yet in presentational terms one is from Pluto and the other from Mars. Thanks to his avuncular manner, Brown could declare war and make it sound like an invitation to a tea party. Milne is flinty. Sparks fly when she speaks. She come across as more threatening than Brown …”

Many would agree with that assessment. Therefore, Brown and Milne may speak the same language, but the delivery is like chalk and cheese, Pluto and Mars, and we pray that the new leader forgets about Brown’s “Earthians”.