Bob Brown [ABC Radio, 7 May 2013]: ‘If the Japanese buyers ask me about taking forest products out of Tasmania, I’ll be telling them that you can’t do that without you destroying the habitat of rare and endangered species.

And I think many supporters of the Wilderness Society will be horrified at the prospect of it going to Japan to support the sale of Ta Ann’s produce.”

Leon Compton Interview with Bob Brown – 7 May 2013:

Leon Compton: We’ll start this morning by trying to understand a little more as to why the spiritual leader of the Greens, the former leader of the State and federal Party in the Greens, is so against the Forest Peace Deal.

Leon Compton: Why are you so critical of the deal that’s been done?

Bob Brown: Well amongst other things it has put off the promise in the Tasmanian Forest Agreement of [i]immediate[/i] reserves; that’s the word used there – immediate – to after October next year [2014]. And the Upper House did that looking at the polls, believing that they’ll be Liberal government at State and federal level by then, and the Liberal spokesman, Mr Gutwein has said that now reserves will be created under them. What has happened here is that the loggers get their money but the reserves go wanting.

Leon Compton: Forestry Tasmania have said that the world has moved on; they will never again log out of those areas that have been slated for protection. Companies like Ta Ann who need the timber have said that they will never again accept timber out of areas that have been slated for protection. I mean this is the reality of the deal that has been struck. Why can’t that give you confidence?

Bob Brown: Well it’s not the reality of the deal that was struck The reality of the deal that was struck is that these areas would go into ‘reserves’ … and that word means national parks. And as I just said Leon, that’s not going to happen under the current trajectory, but the loggers will get their two or three hundred million dollars; that includes money or regional Tasmania. And as the State government said a couple of days ago in the newspaper this is revitalising the logging industry – meaning by that the logging of native forests in Tasmania.

Leon Compton: Those that were inside the deal say it was satisfactory enough to achieve the outcome that they went into – to negotiate. Significant outcomes – if the deal is stuck to – 500,000 ha of native forest for protection. You need to take some risks in order to secure those gains don’t you?

Bob Brown: Ahh… no, you don’t. You have a secure agreement and when the agreement is signed you stick to it. But that agreement was torn apart in the Legislative Council, which presented the Signatories with the option of proceeding or, ahh… going back to the Legislative Council and saying undo that. And I believe if the Signatories – that’s the logging industry and the environmentalists – had done that the Legislative Council would have been forced to relent.

So what happened was the logging industry had a Good cop-Bad Cop operation – they had the Signatories working with the environmentalists to give the promise of reserves, but another group of people lobbying very strongly in the Upper House against any reserves and any protection whatever. And in that way, the [the logging industry] dishonoured the agreement and the Tasmanian Forest Agreement does longer exist. What exists is program for reformulation using hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money for the logging industry – no other industry is getting that – but at the same time the promised reserves are, in the main, not going to eventuate. The exception there being the 124,000 ha of World Heritage area which comes because the Commonwealth has nominated that area for World Heritage and there is nothing the Upper House could do about that. It did try, by an amendment from Mr Hall – tried to prevent 35,000 ha at Cradle Mountain and along the Great Western Tiers – from being given national park status but that won’t affect the World Heritage nomination and protection that is required from the Commonwealth, if that nomination proceeds.

Leon Compton: Bob Brown, this is an opportunity for Tasmania, potentially, to move forward. To see people structured out of native forest harvesting; for the protection of native forests and for the State to move on.

The uncharitable view is that there are some dinosaurs in the State on both sides of the argument, who can’t imagine a world where they continue to fight about the things they’ve fought about for 30 years, and they don’t want to see the State move forward. Are you one of them?

Bob Brown: Ahh… well that’s a pretty nasty question for you to put up, Leon.

Leon Compton: It is a pretty nasty question, but I think it’s a fair question because a lot of… [interrupted]… of people see the opportunities in this, and not the risks.

Bob Brown: Well, let me ask you a question, do you think that the Forest Agreement should have been dishonoured?

Leon Compton: (pause) I think that what happened in the Legislature, happened in the Legislature and the options that you have are to support this deal or to argue that it should have fallen over and we go back to what effectively? – ‘Square one’ – with as you say, a State election in March [2014]. The reality of the situation is that those are the two options and that you want to choose going back to the forest wars. The choices were: a deal or no deal. And you seem to be choosing, no deal.

Bob Brown: Well, you take the [Neville] Chamberlain point of view, which is peace in our time, and the populace of London were very welcoming of that because they naturally that didn’t want to see division progressing… but that’s not how it turned out. And the process here, is the promise of this agreement, Leon, has been defrauded by the Legislative Council and the logging industry…. The reserves, the national parks reserves are not coming through. They won’t be there for the North East highlands; they won’t be there for the Tarkine; they won’t be there for the swift parrot habitat on Bruny Island which is facing imminent logging under this agreement. Do you expect that the local groups – who have fought so long; who have backed this agreement; who had from this agreement the promise of national park protection of their forests should simply now wave the log trucks and the chainsaws into their reserved areas… what should have been reserved, if there’s a Liberal government elected in the next year. And you know, the Liberals have been the negative agents; they have been the ones… as you called them, ‘the dinosaurs’; the people who wanted to stop this agreement going ahead all the way down the line. But I haven’t heard you put that criticism about them, to them.

Leon Compton: I’ll take that on board and we’ll have a listen to that question next time we talk to the Liberals on it. Finally what do you think should happen from here? Assessing the real politic of where Tasmania is up to; what do you think should happen from here?

Bob Brown: Well, I think if the reserves are stopped, the money flow should stop as well. I’m keen on that money going to regional Tasmania. I would like to see the forest presentation centre in the Valley of the Giants – in the Styx Valley – which will become a World Heritage Area. I would like to see that circuit road there, sealed, so that all Tasmanians, and indeed visitors to this State, can see some of the most magnificent tall flowering forests on Earth. The Tarkine should be protected similarly and given World Heritage status. I was over there recently and the tourism potential there is magnificent, Leon.

We’ve got a tourism industry with 15,000 jobs; we saw those figures recently and it’s growing, and a logging industry with 1000 jobs and shrinking, I know where I’d be putting the money and I think Tasmania’s got just fantastic opportunities. I heard about the Central Highlands people wanting that road sealed through past the Great Lake – I’ve been an advocate of that since I was in State Parliament. There are great opportunities here, but the money… taxpayers’ money can’t simply be… continue to be poured into the logging industry which can’t compete on the world markets. It should be going to the ‘Sunrise industries’ – tourism, hospitality, innovative agriculture and aquaculture and so on. That’s not where it’s going, in the main, and it’s time we got out of the ‘dinosaur age’ into this new age because Tasmania’s glory days are in front of it.
David Obendorf transcript of ABC interview