We urge the Legislative Council to reject it

It seems we don’t learn from past experience in this state. The main thing that got up everybody’s nose with the Gunn’s pulp mill episode was that due process was not followed. And here we go again.

The original premise was that an agreement about the future of our state forests would be developed between representatives of some timber industry and environmental groups. The much-vaunted Statement of Principles was supposed to deliver a durable agreement that would end the ‘forest wars’ for once and for all. And the rest of us, outside the room, were supposed to go along with whatever these unelected and unaccountable groups delivered.

From the outset, we said we could not understand this process. The Regional Forest Agreement was meant to deliver durability – with outcomes including timber supply enshrined in legislation. The Statement of Principles was flawed from the outset, as some of the key clauses could never be delivered. The people in the room could not bind groups outside the room in the event of an agreed outcome. These are publicly owned assets and the owners of the assets should have some say in what happens to them. Most importantly, we believe our government should show leadership in this issue, rather than stepping back and letting this bizarre ‘debate’ wander on for two years.

And now we are told we have a deal – and everything we said would happen has come to pass.

The TFGA is not negative, nor are we ‘blockers’. We strive to be positive and part of the solution, rather than negative and part of the problem. We look to the future, not the past. Our farmers have been committing their own money, time and effort to delivering conservation outcomes for generations. And we wear our ‘proud Tasmanian’ badges with pride.

So we’ve been wrestling with the question of how to make a positive out of this whole episode, despite it being an abrogation of due process – and this is what we think.

The fact that this is the only deal on the table is not a good enough reason to be bullied into accepting it.

The IGA participants took two years behind closed doors to come up with this ‘deal’. Surely our MLCs should have some time to consider the outcomes carefully before casting their votes? There has been no engagement with the broader community to test the reactions to this deal. Surely we should all have an opportunity to test what has been put on the table? Let’s have a scientific and economic evaluation of the proposed outcomes; and let’s give some serious and informed consideration as to how it might be improved.

No effort at all has been put into investigating other options. Imagine what we may have been able to come up with if even a small proportion of the money spent on getting to this point had been committed to exploring the shape of a revived and sustainable forestry industry?

Just because somebody has promised a bucket of money if a deal is done before Christmas isn’t a reason to accept a dud outcome.

Decisions of this magnitude need to be assessed on the basis of triple bottom line outcomes – economic, social and environmental. We’re told this ‘deal’ delivers environmental outcomes, despite the fact that more and more research shows that lock-up-and-leave approaches actually result in decreased biodiversity outcomes.

This ‘deal’ is like a stool with only one leg – and even that leg is not sound. It simply won’t stand up.

We urge the members of the Legislative Council to reject it.