Another week begins and we have yet another plea for help (‘Farmers call for IGA Help’ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-29/farmers-call-for-igacut/4161960?section=tas) or rather a voice from the sidelines as we all watch the ultimate, truly global competition and it’s not the Olympics – it’s the economy.
This race lasts longer and losing hurts more.
Most observers are saying that Tasmania is running on three cylinders and it looks like another one is starting to miss. In response to this, we are seeing an increase in industry representatives and vocal advocates suggesting we need to reduce the size and role of Government in order to stimulate private investment. In what I consider an almost childlike mentality, these same groups will hold their hands higher than anyone and plead for help from public funds to support dying or dead private investment.
By way of example: The Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association (TFGA) is one of these organisations, as is the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI), that devote much time and energy to arguing for and lobbying for a reduction in what they call “red and green tape”. In doing so they also argue for a reduction in Government interference in the marketplace and, in the instance of the TFGA in particular, a reduction in interference and or regulation in private land use decisions.
These groups are not alone. Many individuals and organisations are increasingly vocal about the need for Tasmania to “step up” and “be investment ready” in order to compete in the global economy. In order to achieve this, the same mantra of removing the same coloured tape is bandied around as the solution to our problems.
In just one example of the contradiction on display, I have chosen the TFGA’s recent call for public money (or at least a whimper about how there needs to be more) to support private landowners who, over the past 10 years, have somehow managed to get through the apparent web of regulations, green and red tape and cover large areas of their land in a species of tree that is now (and arguably was at the time) worthless. In a twist of fate, as these, the fastest growing of the eucalypts, reach higher into the sky and send their roots deeper into the soil, the cost of removing them grows ever more.
What coloured tape do we call public funding to bail out individuals who made short-sighted and ill- informed decisions about the management of their own land?
In saying this, I have done the unthinkable by actually suggesting that farmers, who signed the papers, watched their land mounded up and planted, were actually responsible for their own actions.
Some commentators will cite that, at the time, many landowners were up against the wall, following a long period of drought and poor prices for their produce. This may be the case, but it does not hide the fact that the current call for public money to ‘help’ these landowners who made short-sighted decisions should not be supported.
Private plantations epitomise the mentality of those who see any investment as a good investment and the consequence of leaving important, large-scale decisions to those with short-term interests.
Private plantations were seen as a saviour for many rural landowners. Industry representatives, the TFGA included, have always publicly supported private landowner’s individual rights to do as they wish with their land (within the boundaries of the law, otherwise known as red tape).
I ask the TFGA and all of those who comment on the seemingly over-regulated and over-governed State – What is it to be?
If the regulations and their associated bureaucracy are removed or reduced beyond the current levels that have allowed landowners to create landscape scale disasters such as that which private plantations represent, should that same bureaucracy then be called upon for some cash as a reward for bad decisions?
Or, should landowners take full responsibility for their land-use decisions? Is being “investment ready” really just a more appealing way of saying that we have reduced the role of Government to begging for investors and the setting aside of public funds to bail out them and those who sign their contracts, if and when they fail?
Perhaps the TFGA are arguing for public funding as a result of the realisation that they themselves supported the private companies that opened the farm gate and are now in the hands of administrators.
I call that losing.
*Robert Whiteley is not the writer’s real name …
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