Tough times for the Tasmanian Greens

Last week was tough … the new Premier Hodgman struck hard and relegated the three Green MPs to the status of sole-trader parliamentarians by refusing to provide pro-rata funding to the Greens as a political party in opposition.

A glimmer of reality came when Kim Booth Green MP for Bass was installed the notional leader of the Tasmanian Greens for the next 4 years.

The difficulties the Greens and their splintered constituency face in the years ahead are highlighted in these quotes:

ABC 7.30 Tasmania – 11 April 2014

Kim Booth: If you become embedded – effectively – in the enemy camp [Labor] it becomes difficult to articulate the vision … it was difficult for him [Nick McKim] because he was a minister in a Labor Government.

Jenny Weber, Huon Valley Environment Centre: I am very concerned that the forestry industries intention was always to weaken the environment movement. We were vilified even by the people who we were once allies with [TWS and ET Inc]. Our motives were misrepresented; the motives of our organisations were said to be only hell-bent on conflict.

Sadly, we as a movement, now have a long way to go to re-boot and to raise awareness for people around the country who believe that Tasmania’s forests have been protected.

There is certainly a very strange relationship between the people who stayed true to their fundamental values and people who were prepared to make too many concessions with the forestry industry and we felt like we had the mice in there with the wolves. And absolutely, the wolves won in the end.

Christine Milne: It was over … gone, dead; dusted! That is actually the concern now – the quarter of a billion dollars – has put the industry back on its feet. … When you have been around this industry for a long time you have to have a fair-degree of scepticism, and I have.

Kim Booth: My view was that these [forest] reserves would not be gazetted in the end, because there was a risk of a Liberal Government coming and tearing it up. … but the nightmare scenario is actually for the industry now because their market will collapse.

Jenny Weber: It is time for the environment groups to realise that the forest agreement is no longer, and they [ENGOs] need to abandon support for the industry.

Phil Pullinger, ET Inc. signatory to the TFA: They [TFA signatories] remain committed to the agreement and we’re taking that on face value. We are not going to walk away from the agreement.

Kim Booth: As far as the conservation groups go, I mean at the end of the day the trees are still standing, and all it means for them [conservation groups] is they’re going to have to get into gear again and start defending Tasmanian areas that will be logged.

State-wide Mornings – 12 March 2014 [Interview with Leon Compton]

Evan Rolley, CEO of Ta Ann Tasmania and (former CEO of Forestry Tasmania): We [Ta Ann] have a market compact with the three environmental groups [TWS, ET Inc. and ACF] who represented the majority of the environmental interests. They have been to Tokyo and have supported our products twice now in the markets, in the last 12 months. Our compact with them is outside the formal agreement itself – the TFA – but that compact commits that we will only process wood from the agreed supply areas and in return they will support us in the markets. And we have no intention – as a business – in changing from that position.

State-wide Mornings – 10 April 2014 [Interview with Leon Compton]

Peg Putt: The Forest deal is basically defunct. All, on the environmental side of it, is essentially being swept away. Really by now it’s gone. We are in a new era and we need to deal with it. I don’t know why the signatories are still holding out hope at this point. I think they are hugging a dead thing … and it’s almost beginning to smell. … The environmental gains [now] don’t occur. Industry has had a lot of their gains already … the delivery on the environment was on the never-never. Yeah, it’s gone and with it assurance to the market that everything had settled down and resolved in Tasmania.

State-wide Mornings – 8 April 2014 [Interview with Leon Compton]

Kim Booth: The Green vote did drop, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve gotta big job to explain to the electorate the policies for the future …

I can only stand on my record and if it’s ‘deep green’ to want to protect the environment for our children’s future; if it’s ‘deep green’ to try and stop poisons getting into the water supply; if it’s ‘deep green’ jobs created out of forestry rather than public subsidies for an industry can’t survive. Then I guess I’m ‘deep green’. You know, if it’s ‘deep green’ to want cheaper electricity prices for your family, then I’m ‘deep green’. … Politics in Tasmania is very Hobart-centric …

Kim Booth on Native Forest logging: There is no current market for this wood; that is the abject reality. The log-trucks that are currently travelling from southern forests up to the wood chippers at Bell Bay are driving on public money … public money putting diesel in their tanks. This industry in native forest logging is a nett loser to the State. There’s been over a billion dollars of subsidies gone into it over the last 20-odd years. … There’s is no point sending in the log-trucks or the bull-dozers into these beautiful native forests to pull out more logs, because the market doesn’t want it.

To be continued….