Subjects: Tasmanian Forest Peace Agreement, marriage equality, Margaret Thatcher, Save the Tarkine
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the Tasmanian Legislative Council has demonstrated once again that it is a wrecker when it comes to the protection of Tasmania’s forests. Their attitude to the conservation of Tasmania’s precious places has been on show right since the Lake Pedder days, they did this through the Franklin campaign, they did it with the Wesley Vale campaign and they are now in the process of gutting completely the Tasmanian Intergovernmental Forestry Agreement.
It’s very clear that the amendments that were supported in the Legislative Council are contrary to the provisions of what was agreed by the signatories, that is both environmentalists and people from the forest industry. To imagine, as Greg Hall seems to think he can, that they complained to the World Heritage Committee that they try and get the Western Tiers out of the World Heritage nomination. But to then say that these forests can’t be reserved unless the Forest Stewardship Council gives certification to Tasmanian logging activities, is just holding the FSC process to ransom. You World blackmail the FSC process in a way that the Legislative Council imagines they can. But to push back the overwhelming majority, 279,000 hectares of areas to be reserved in the first tranche, to push them back in a timeframe that means they’re hoping for a Liberal government to be elected federally or in Tasmania or both so that these reserves never take effect, is pure political motivation and doing the work of the Liberal Party.
What has to happen now is that if the bill passes and I suspect the strategy of the Legislative Council is to completely gut the bill and then pass it so that they can pretend that they passed it in some kind of reasonable state and push it back to the House of Assembly. Well let’s make it very clear – the Legislative Council have destroyed the integrity of the peace deal, there is no other way of looking at it. If they then pass the mess they’ve made then it is incumbent upon the House of Assembly to reject those amendments and send the bills straight back up to the Legislative Council. I was surprised to see the Leader of the Government in the Upper House supporting a couple of the amendments, especially since they are quite contrary to the provisions of the Forest Agreement, and there was a clear undertaking from both the Labor Party and the Greens in the House of Assembly to support the forest deal as it was negotiated. That remains the Greens’ position and what the Legislative Council has done is basically completely undermine that and try and leg rope Tasmania to the past, a past where it has been evident to everyone that the native forest logging industry is on its knees.
Let’s recap: the reason this process started in the first place was the logging industry coming to the conservation movement and saying the industry is on its knees, we can’t continue, we are going broke, will you help us to get an outcome? And that started a process that has gone on for several years, and for the Legislative Council to behave like this at the end just shows that they are wreckers and they are not interested in the new, dynamic future that Tasmania has, but instead can only see what they have known all their lives, and frankly what they’ve known for the last 20 years is that the native forest logging industry is not sustainable.
JOURNALIST: Do you reckon it’s the main goal of the Legislative Council to hope that they’ll just put things off enough so that we’ll see Liberal governments come and this will never happen?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well Tony Abbott has made it clear Eric Abetz is right there with Richard Colbeck, all the Tasmanian Senators, all there saying they don’t support the peace deal. They want to see the logging of Tasmania’s native forests continue and the question for the Abbott team is to say just how much subsidy they’re prepared to pour into keeping subsidising Tasmania’s native forest logging because that’s what it will take. But it’s clear to the Legislative Council that the Liberal Party at both a federal and a state level are opposed to the peace deal. On that basis one can only assume that when you’ve got card-carrying members of the Liberal Party moving amendments to push back the reserve agenda that it’s a clear political agenda from the Liberal Party and their counterparts in the Legislative Council to blow up the deal. They have managed to secure millions from the Federal Government already, they got more than 22 million at the last federal election, they’ve had 45 million since in an exit package and not one hectare of forest is protected. So they’ve got their money up front for the logging industry to prop up Forestry Tasmania. Nothing is protected and now they are pushing it out to make sure it never is. What sort of behaviour is that from the Legislative Council?
JOURNALIST: Should the environmental signatories walk away from the deal today?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the environmental signatories will no doubt be looking at what the Legislative Council did overnight and considering their position as will indeed the forest signatories. It would be very useful if both of them, the forest industry signatories and the ENGOs came out today and called on the House of Assembly to reject the Upper House amendments and send the bill straight back. That would be the most sensible outcome in the political agenda because that would really put the onus clearly where it belongs on the Legislative Council.
JOURNALIST: How does that achieve anything though, because we’ve seen from the amendments that they have passed upstairs that they don’t want the deal so won’t that just prolong the delays?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well if they pass it in its current state it is a deal that is totally inconsistent with what was agreed in the Forest Peace Agreement. Some of the provisions that they have passed demonstrate that they are not interested in a sustainable future for the logging industry. I mean to suggest that, as Adriana Taylor has done, and that they have passed, that they will get further specialty timbers from areas that are reserved; to suggest as Tony Mulder has done and they have agreed that you can push back 279,000 hectares for consideration in reserves way beyond a political cycle; for Greg Hall and them all to agree that they are going to take areas out of the Great Western Tiers that have already been put forward by the Federal Government for World Heritage listing – what can you assume from that? Other than they want this to fail? So whether or not they pass it or they vote it down, they want failure. But let’s make it very clear that they can’t get away with this. It’s going to go back to the Lower House and the Lower House will have to decide whether to accept the amendments or not. I’m calling on the Lower House to just say: no they are not going to accept those amendments as they are.
JOURNALIST: The vote wasn’t close yesterday. Labor did not have to support the amendments; do you think that this is part of a strategy by Labor ahead of an election to try to divorce itself from the Greens and to get the environmentalists to walk away from a deal that has been so unpopular?
CHRISTINE MILNE: It’s very clear that the Legislative Council wants to pretend that it did something by passing a so-called peace deal when they have completely gutted it and wrecked it. The onus really is now on the State Government in the Lower House because if the State Government is serious about upholding the provisions of the forest peace deal then it will reject the amendments of the Legislative Council. It’s as simple as that. We will see from the response of the Tasmanian Labor Government as to whether or not they’re serious about peace in the forests or whether they are engaged in the same political games that the Liberal party is involved in. Let’s see what Lara Giddings does.
JOURNALIST: So the Greens in the Lower House will reject it?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the Greens in the Lower House have exactly the same position as the Greens nationwide and that is we want to protect high conservation value forests. We’ve been out there doing that for decades and we will continue to do it because frankly our reputation globally is about Tasmania clean green and clever, Tasmania’s wilderness is what we’re known for, the World Heritage Committee has called on Tasmania to nominate its high conservation value forests for World Heritage listing and that is the Greens’ position. We support the World Heritage nomination, we support the peace deal as it was negotiated, but the wrecking that has gone on by the Legislative Council is completely unacceptable.
JOURNALIST: If the Greens don’t support the changes in the Lower House then doesn’t that mean that the bill is dead, Labor is not going to bring on something in the Lower House that gets voted down.
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well it’s up to the Labor Party. The onus is right now squarely on Lara Giddings and on the Prime Minister. In fact what we have is a scenario we will see today whether the Labor Party in Tasmania and the Federal Government are serious about getting a peace deal. If they are they will back the deal, back what was agreed by the ENGOs and by the logging industry and say to the Legislative Council what you have done is just unacceptable, it is wrecking, it is gutting what was agreed ,we are putting that bill straight back to you.
JOURNALIST: Are you concerned about the fact that we now stand to lose about $100 million in federal funding?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I’ve always been concerned that the Legislative Council would cost Tasmania millions of dollars, up to 100 million in regional development funding. The Greens have a vision to see Tasmania transform and new industries developed, new jobs in the regions. The forest industry has been shedding jobs for years, losing jobs and relying on the taxpayer to bail them out. What we need now is federal money to help Tasmania transform. The Greens have already delivered when it came to the clean energy package, more than 70 million a year is flowing into the Hydro, millions is flowing into restoring biodiversity in Tasmania, billions potentially once we get forests protected under the Carbon Farming Initiative and if we could get 100 million for regional development that really starts to set Tasmania up for a different future. But the Legislative Council seems intent on saying they don’t care actually whether Tasmania gets regional development funding. All they want to secure is the money that’s been paid for exit packages to certain people in the logging industry while Forestry Tasmania gives out new contracts for people to get back into the industry. The Legislative Council are wreckers and they are destroying the integrity of the peace deal that has been determined.
JOURNALIST: I think it’s fair to say that Tasmanians are probably getting fed up with this whole discussion, where do we draw the line, when do we stop having this debate and going backwards and forwards between the two Houses?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Tasmanians are fed up with how long this process has gone on for and I think everybody in the process would have liked to have seen a resolution more quickly. However we did get to a resolution between the environmentalists and the logging industry and that was what was put to the Parliament. I think Tasmanians have every right to ask of their Legislative Council why are you behaving in such a wrecking manner? Why are you gutting a peace deal that took so long to negotiate? Why are you jeopardising $100 million coming to Tasmania for new jobs? They are really accountable for what they’re doing and that’s why we need it brought to a conclusion. That’s why we need the Lower House to say to the Legislative Council: we won’t accept your amendments, the bill is coming straight back up, now pass it.
JOURNALIST: What are the chances of this legislation actually becoming law? I suppose that in a sense that the environmentalists both (inaudible) signatories for support?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Let’s see what actually happens in the next 24 hours, but the ball is firmly in the court of the Tasmanian Labor Party. What will happen now is whether Lara Giddings and Bryan Green stand up and support the forest industry signatories and the environmental signatories and the integrity of the peace deal. If they don’t then they will be backing Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party in tearing it down. It’s as simple as that so we are now going to see once and for all whether Labor can be trusted to stand by what has been agreed.
JOURNALIST: Just on another issue, the New Zealand Parliament tonight will pass same-sex marriage laws making that country the 13th country in the world to pass marriage equality laws, is it time for Australia to follow suit?
CHRISTINE MILNE: The Greens have been campaigning for marriage equality for a very long time. Way back in the 1990s it was my bill that achieved gay law reform in Tasmania, and at the time I argued that that would be transformative for this state and it was. Now we are on the cusp of achieving marriage equality and in Tasmania again almost there but the Legislative Council fell at the last hurdle. We need to have marriage equality in Australia, we need to get rid of this last discriminatory practice of saying that people who love one another aren’t able to access marriage in the same way as other couples. We’ve got to get rid of that. I think it’s disappointing that New Zealand is going to beat Australia to it because what has been evident around the world is where states or nations embrace marriage equality there is real excitement in the streets and it becomes a real drawcard. Had Tasmania gone down the path of being the first Australian state to go with marriage equality we would have seen a real tourism boom associated with it. Disappointing that it didn’t happen and disappointing that if New Zealand which already is our rival in the tourism stakes in wilderness tourism and adventure tourism, if they go down the path of marriage equality I can see that they will see the tourism boom that we will have missed out on.
JOURNALIST: Margaret Thatcher’s funeral is tonight – what are your thoughts of her?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well Margaret Thatcher was a very strong Prime Minister. I didn’t agree with many of her policies and I think over time they will be judged and she will be judged very harshly for what she did in the United Kingdom. She was a divisive figure but her strength was across a range of areas and one area which I acknowledge and admire her for is that as a scientist she recognised that global warming was real and urgent, and right back then she said that the future will be compromised by global warming unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions and for that she was made a Global 500 United Nations Laureate in 1990. So I acknowledge her science, I acknowledge her leadership on global warming, but she was an extremely divisive figure and she certainly did nothing for the rights of women.
JOURNALIST: Bob Brown has been appointed as head of the Save the Tarkine campaign – what do you think is now going to happen to this campaign?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the Greens have been campaigning for the Tarkine to be made National Heritage. It’s very clear that the Australian Heritage Council said that 433,000 hectares of the Tarkine should be listed for its fabulous values both natural and cultural and I think it’s great that Bob Brown has taken on the leadership role if you like with the Save the Tarkine campaign and I look forward to working with Save the Tarkine and taking it national. We’ve declared it one of the places too precious to lose, the Heritage Council recognises it’s too precious to lose, and once again it has been Federal Labor with Tony Burke, the backroom boys in the New South Wales Labor Party, Paul Howes et al. who have completely compromised that and now we have the spectacle of Bryan Green and Lara Giddings going up to a rally in Tullah. It is reminiscent of the old days of the OTD – Organisation for Tasmanian Development which rallied in Ulverstone against the Franklin Dam. It is a back to the future move from them and the future of Tasmania depends on looking after that wilderness.
Senator Christine Milne, Greens Leader
