NEIL SMITH

It was absolutely appropriate that many in the community shared the financial burden of what could have otherwise been crippling costs. Bob, thanks for asking, thanks for NOT keeping your predicament all to yourself. If Forestry Tasmania or whoever was really driving this demand really expected to force him out of the Senate, they should have realised that $240k wasn’t going to do it. Most of us may not be very rich, but there are a hell of a lot of us.

Many of us lived and breathed this case. That day, 19 December 2006, when Judge Shane Marshall handed down his decision was one of the best days of our lives. Finally someone with some authority had spoken a bit of sense about the realities of Tasmanian forestry. A court had ruled that, in one part of the State at least, “RFA forestry operations” DID have a significant impact on threatened species. And it wasn’t a huge imaginative stretch to infer that given the manner in which forestry is carried out in Tasmania there would be a similar impact in other places too. That finding has not been overturned.

Thanks again, Bob

THERE needs to be an act of reparation…

The recent thread on this site “Brown’s seat at risk; Rudd distressed; Its a stunt, says Ken” was meant to be about Bob Brown, his legal bill and his Senate seat. But like so many others the thread was largely hijacked, as often happens when someone wants to be deliberately confusing or just to push their own barrow, or, as was likely in this case, for reasons of egotism. Or after such a marathon (90+ comments) because it finally seems just to be good fun. I wasn’t entirely blameless myself.

So be it, I suppose. A small price to pay when set off against the importance of freedom of speech.

But in this instance there needs to be an act of reparation. Bob Brown has been referred to as “the conscience of the nation”. He is unique among politicians. Bob didn’t launch the Wielangta litigation for reasons of personal gain, not even for enhancement of his reputation, which was already in a class of its own. He did it on behalf of the integrity of the biosphere and on behalf of many thousands of human supporters who share his concerns.

It was absolutely appropriate that many in the community shared the financial burden of what could have otherwise been crippling costs. Bob, thanks for asking, thanks for NOT keeping your predicament all to yourself. If Forestry Tasmania or whoever was really driving this demand really expected to force him out of the Senate, they should have realised that $240k wasn’t going to do it. Most of us may not be very rich, but there are a hell of a lot of us.

Many of us lived and breathed this case. That day, 19 December 2006, when Judge Shane Marshall handed down his decision was one of the best days of our lives. Finally someone with some authority had spoken a bit of sense about the realities of Tasmanian forestry. A court had ruled that, in one part of the State at least, “RFA forestry operations” DID have a significant impact on threatened species. And it wasn’t a huge imaginative stretch to infer that given the manner in which forestry is carried out in Tasmania there would be a similar impact in other places too. That finding has not been overturned.

From now on, any person engaged in these forestry operations may like to reflect that the reason they can do it is NOT because it is environmentally benign. On the contrary, the effects are damaging. That wasn’t hard to figure out before, but now a court has actually said so. The impacts seem quite at variance with the aims of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, as expressed in its section 3. The forestry operations are permitted only because the way Australian Law is written it gives forestry operators a licence to kill.

This realisation won’t of course bother some of the functionaries. They may indeed feel a little extra thrill of power in the manner of the guards at Nazi concentration camps or the waterboarders of Guantanamo Bay. But those people with more complex brain functions and a working conscience may care to investigate whether there may in fact be a more appropriate job that they could be doing.

Perhaps we may win one day. But irrespective of that, Bob Brown, thanks again.

Neil Smith