Tasmanian defamation changes & Wilderness Area changes
CM: Here in Tasmania we have a government intent on looking after the interests of corporations with their defamation law proposing to give companies the right to sue people in the community for defamation – that has to stop. Tim Wilson is out today saying that it is a bad move and when you get Tim Wilson out saying it is a bad move it just gives you a real indication of just how far Tasmania has been brought into disrepute by this government trying to prop up the logging industry by now saying people cannot criticise it. If it cannot stand on its merits then it cannot stand. Just trying to jail people, accuse people of defamation, for coming out talking about the ills of the forest industry shows how desperate the government has become.
Q: There’s concern that the backlash from conservationists about the State Government’s management plans for wilderness areas could be turning away potential investors and tourism operators. Is the responsibility for both sides of the debate to make sure we have Tasmania’s best interests at heart?
CM: The people who do not have Tasmania’s best interests at heart are the government and people who want to delete wilderness from the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area management plan.
The frustrating thing here is, those of us who for decades have campaigned for wilderness protection, for World Heritage, doubling the size of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in 1989, have come under criticism constantly from the very same people who now want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. For all those years while we got new national parks, while we achieved world Heritage status, they harped on and on about saying they did not want the areas protected. Now there is an acknowledgement that tourism is being driven by the reputation we have globally for our wilderness. That is why people want to come here. And yet the very people who never understood that in the first place are the people who now want to undermine that global reputation.
I put the question: what is the problem? We have never had more people coming here to enjoy our wilderness than we have now. We have just seen the figures, there is recognition of our wilderness as a major driver. Now the people who are putting it in jeopardy are the State Government. They are putting it in jeopardy, and some of the developers who are in there with them, because it is in contravention of the World Heritage Convention and its operational guidelines. The guidelines say very clearly, you cannot degrade an area more than it was at the time it was listed. You cannot do that, and that is precisely what they want to do. They think they can operate as if World Heritage does not mean anything, well it does. Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage area is now recognised as a place of outstanding universal value that is overseen by a global committee: the World Heritage Committee. So the world will have a say in this, not the selfish and undermining position of the State Government. Remember, these are the people who last year wanted to excise 74,000 hectares in order to log it. Well they could not do that, now they now want to open it up and put roads into it and the like. These are people who have only ever seen Tasmania as a dig it up, cut it down, ship it away and if you cannot do that, put a road into it or a resort on to it. That is all they have ever been able to think about and it is why it is not down to them that Tasmania has a global reputation as a clean, green, wilderness in the southern hemisphere. That is the romance, that is the image, that is what brings people to Tasmania and that is something that they need to understand
Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne
