The Fox in the Henhouse … ?

First published June 5

The other night whilst sipping on a couple of green fairy absinthe down at her favourite watering hole the Hag happened to hear a couple of senior Liberals discussing the fox.

It seems one of our most senior Liberals is a tad upset after writing to the British Ecological Society, London, UK and not getting a reply for some four months.

Hag overheard that this most senior Liberal had written and questioned the content of a paper the BES accepted and endorsed.

Finally, very recently, he did receive a reply which simply stated “we are waiting for a reply from the Tasmanian DPIPWE as they are conducting an investigation of their own based on the latest Tasmania Police report”.

Apparently DPIPWE was handed a completely unredacted copy of the report.

Now, Hag thought: “Hells Bells that would be putting the fox in charge of the hen house wouldn’t it?”

Hag was somewhat shocked as it was mentioned that the MLC that organised the Police investigation never had been given the courtesy of a unredacted copy!

Well anyway the Senior Liberal wrote to the DPIPWE Minister and didn’t get a reply in what he considered a reasonable time frame so he telephoned and received a very short and sharp
“no comment”.

Finally after some persistence the senior Liberal received a letter from the DPIPWE Ministers Chief of Staff saying there will be no comment while the Integrity Commission is conducting their own fox investigation.

Hag thought that was all very strange, what had that to do with the British Ecological Society … ?

*The Hag is Tasmanian Times’ scurrilous gossip monger

• Ian Rist in Comments: Now let me get this perfectly clear, a Federal Senator elected by us is refused information that vitally concerned the spending and wastage of taxpayers’ money? If this is correct and my sources tell me it is then this is a flagrant abuse of the system. Why are the DPIPWE obstructing and delaying information that I understand the British Ecological Society have requested? …

• Ian Rist: First police FOI letter from Dean to Johnston was 17th July 2001, then Llewellyn Hansard of 27th September 2001, then ‘The Mercury’ Llewellyn article was June 5th 2002 and then the Llewellyn Hansard of 15th June 2006 …

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