Underbelly: Paul Harriss; A Step Too Far?

After an enormous effort my submission in three parts to the Legislative Council Committee
was completed and submitted yesterday.

Thank you for your phone call acknowledging receipt.

I have now had a short time to scan the Government’s submissions and attachments that were
submitted to your Chamber in the last 48 hours.

I am totally and utterly appalled by such behaviour which from a government is
unconscionable.

The demand for a “quickie” in decision making trashes “process” which enables vested
interests to hide their agenda by using devious pollies to facilitate their cause over the
Christmas-January holiday period.

To-day is the last day that the public has an opportunity to comment on the Proposed
Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill 2012 and the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.

In the very recently submitted material by the government there are 158 pages of
Amendments. Schedule A for example has 295 land parcel lots that have to be assessed very
carefully. This cannot be done in a few hours, or even a few weeks. Other attachments add to
the considerable number of pages of new material to be analysed and critiqued. My time is
voluntary and not paid for, and those who help and advise me also have other professional
occupations.

There is still vital missing information that would help the Legislative Council Committee.
For example in Schedule A, Column 6 has been left blank. Is this where the public would
have learned what exact forest type belonged to which land lot parcel? The public have been
given no insight into forest type in no less than 295 land parcels. There is an accepted process
for this. In the Regional Forest Agreement of 1997, there were 50 forest communities listed.
The TASVEG project had identified far more communities subsequent to that Agreement (at
least up to 77). One or other of these government recognised documents has to be used and
added to Schedule A for each of the 295 land parcel lots. So that the public can see which
land lot parcels contain which forested listed types? Given the other columns in Schedule A it
then would be possible to discern exactly what future is projected for each. It is quite possible
that larger lot sizes contain a mixture of forested listed types (i.e. one lot size is 26,000 + ha).
Schedule A has 8 columns with no title heading to any of the columns. Why not?

For example Column 5 almost always lists “Native forest harvesting”. Does this mean that
this activity is prohibited or allowable? The difference between Yes and No is palpable.
Where is the Integrity Commissioner when you need him? His ability to investigate such
matters has been constrained by your own House and its legislation, drawn up by those now
sitting on this Committee. There is no information for the 52 forest coupes listed on Schedule
B in the Amendments. Only the initiated will know where these are located, what their size is,
what type of forest grows on them, when they are intended to be logged. This is not
acceptable.

Not to have this information makes a mockery of the entire process.

The data is available from Forestry Tasmania’s data base they will not make it available to the
public, further unconscionable behaviour by this rogue Government Agency who must be
called to account. The maps which are to be attached to the Bill should it proceed to
legislation are digital maps. As one zooms to find out exactly which land parcel lot is being
considered, definition becomes more and more fuzzy. This is not acceptable.

The public and your own Legislative Councillors need maps at a resolution that is quite clear,
concise and readable. What is the scale? Forestry Tasmania would have this data at
resolutions that are clear and not fuzzy. Not to have available clear legible maps and plans at
a scale that is suitable for assessment continues this mockery of process.

Clear, legible plans and maps need to be placed by Forestry Tasmania publicly on the
Legislative Council website. These maps are the heart of the matter.

The audacity with which the Government has waited until the very last moment to release this
additional material is breathtaking, it is more than that. What it does is that it diminishes
“process” and the orderly, considered, rigorous, progression of that process.

A process that contains integrity, transparency, and open-ness and full disclosure must be
mandatory.

Another Forestry scam is about to be perpetrated on the Taxpayer as tremendous pressure is
put on those tasked to make this decision by those interested in propping up a dying industry
by any means possible.

I am writing to seek further time, but cannot put a date on when that should be. It should not
be a date that is relatively quick; again that demeans process. The signatories to this
Agreement and its subsequent Bill have been afforded nearly three years to deliver what is
before us now. Surely the public are entitled to months, not days to appraise ALL the material
that has been put into the public domain.

Sir,

I have read the now published lists of those granted an audience before your Committee and
note that despite my request I am Not Listed.

I hereby request that I may appear before your Committee with regard to my detailed
submission now appearing on your web page.

I wish that the hearing be held in public.

I wish to ask questions over your declared relationship with Ta Ann resulting in your position
as Chair being compromised, a matter raised in my campaign at the last Legislative Council
Election.

I wish to address your Committee in Launceston.

I will make myself available on any date at any time.

Further to my email below to which I have received no reply, please take this as an official
complaint.

I wish to investigate the parameters required to establish a Royal Commission regarding the
conduct of the Chair of the Legislative Council Select Committee into the Tasmanian Forest
Agreement, Paul Harriss has definable connections to Ta Ann, a company who, if this
legislation is approved, will be in receipt of a large financial benefit.

It is my opinion he should never have instigated the Select Committee, appointed himself
Chair when in full knowledge of his connections to a possible major beneficiary, hence the
reason for my request to address the Committee.

My attached correspondence with the Chair, Paul Harriss of the Legislative Council Select Committee regarding the IGA and its Secretary is reflective of a perceivable bias as to whom the Legislative Councillors (LCs) will call before them. This correspondence, if only out of civility from our political masters, is at the very least worthy of reply over receipt.

I have made a detailed submission in three parts now up on the Committee website.

This provides a considered knowledge and understanding of the subject from a non-political and independent position .
I have requested (Attached) the right to address the Committee, I have received no reply.

Opinions given in public and under Parliamentary Privilege can be dangerous to those LCs who may have a lot to hide.

I suggest that this is acknowledged by Harriss the Chair of the Committee who has been three times to Sarawak.

Has he or has he not been compromised?

This can be asked in a public hearing before the Committee.

I have made it clear that that was in part my intent.

My information is that your submission was acknowledged in writing and also verbally by telephone conversation between yourself and the Committee Secretary, Mr Stuart Wright. I also understand that during that telephone conversation, Mr Wright did indicate to you that it was for the Committee, after deliberation, to determine who they would wish to call to provide additional verbal evidence beyond a received submission. This has always been the practice. I stress again that the matter of who a Select Committee wishes to invite to appear is a matter for the Committee only.

That is, decisions of the Committee are decisions of the majority of Members after deliberation and it is that majority who determine how the Committee will pursue its inquiry and conduct its business. A committee must at all times have regard to Standing Orders, Parliamentary Law, custom and practice.

As President I have no influence over who a Committee may wish to call to provide it with evidence beyond a received written submission.

Further, the practice governing Select Committees does not provide a forum for witnesses to ask questions of individual Members. It is for the Members of the Committee to ask questions of witnesses based solely and directly on the Committee’s Terms of Reference as agreed by the Legislative Council. A Committee has no authority to act outside these Terms.