A final response to comments on Cassy O’Connor: A view from inside and outside the tent, so to speak …:
Once more (finally, for a while) into the TT fray …
Obviously, I won’t get to every single question put or criticism made, but will try to cover the major themes.
The Statement of Principles and the pulp mill: Simon, the meetings that led to Statement of Principles were happening before the Greens, Labor (or Libs) knew that talks were started and certainly some time before they became public knowledge.
I understand these talks began as a search for some common ground between old enemies, united at one level by global market forces and Gunns’ plans to exit native forestry.
Participants self-identified as ‘signatories’ and were nominated by the organizations they represented. Timber Communities Australia delegated its own negotiator, as did the Wilderness Society etc.
The signatories developed a document, the SoP, with each opposing side’s objectives made clear but not all were agreed between parties involved. The reserve agenda and the Gunns’ mill were two key sticking points.
None of the 5 Tas Greens have ever contemplated or suggested there should be any trade off between forests saved for a valley lost to a pulp mill.
You can’t buy a social license and Gunns doesn’t have one for its Tamar mill.
On the payment of Commonwealth IGA money to Gunns and FT – those federal funds were used to buy back residual rights to Gunns’ quotas (including, btw, the pulp mill wood supply agreement) allowing for the retirement of nearly half the State’s legislated quota and facilitating up to 572 000 hectares going into reserves under the IGA.
Re the Les Baker emails – as a Gunns’ employee under the pulp mill regime, we would expect him to say that wouldn’t we? Who expected Gunns to publicly fully disclose potential dioxin levels during the assessment process? He simply confirms what we knew, what was pointed out repeatedly by experts and others, to the RPDC and State and Commonwealth governments, and the Upper House, during the political and assessment processes underway between 2006 – 2008, and since.
Russell: both Nick and I have been to many pulp mill marches and rallies, as have Basil and Tim. We didn’t speak at the Launceston rally in May as neither of us were asked to make a contribution! Of course, Kim Booth was our spokesperson on the day. He is our man on the mill for very obvious reasons …
John Biggs and Chris Harries: I know you are true Greens. I didn’t say we had no other choice, but not many other choices… Our party room debated the options we could identify. In the end, 4 out of 5 of us believed accepting roles in Cabinet gave a better chance for Green outcomes, and an opportunity to demonstrate the Greens are capable of holding portfolios in government.
One day there will be a Green Premier of Tasmania. There is a view that we need real experience of government to get to that day. And, it will come … Somewhere in a classroom or workplace near you may be the State’s first Green Premier.
Robin Halton: During debate on the Liberals’ No Confidence Motion against Lin Thorp, we tried to have the Minister censured by the House instead. To censure a Minister is a serious move on the part of the House.
Briefing the Greens following the release of his report into the matter, the Commissioner for Children confirmed that from a political perspective, this awful situation could have befallen any government.
The State can’t be in all homes protecting all its vulnerable citizens all the time. That said, the State failed a child in its care, Robin. Sacking a Minister who I know genuinely had the interests of young Tasmanians at heart, doesn’t change the fact.
The Liberals were after blood, as was the media in my view. The Mercury at the time also committed the near unforgivable act of trying to contact the 12 year old girl at the centre of this tragedy … I do not resile from what I said in that debate; about Ms Thorp, about the macabre sensationalism surrounding this horror story, or the need to have a much more informed understanding of how it is that some Tasmanians can commit such unspeakable crimes against the innocent – what the Commissioner in his report described as, “the resistant culture of Tasmania’s child-neglecting community.”
The Hansard can be found on the 10th of October last year.
Tom Nilsson: you are dreaming and it’s a nightmare. Wake up! Watch Parliament online or come in one Wednesday for Private Members Time and bear witness as our guest, check out the Liberals’ form …
In government here they shut down 30 public schools, sold the Queen Alex contributing to chronic space problems at the Royal, sacked hundreds of nurses and raided the hospital trust funds. Right now, a Liberal government is privatizing public health infrastructure in W.A.
After presenting an Alternative Budget that wholly endorsed the scale of Health savings, the Hodgman Liberals took some months – getting their act together, hoping everyone would forget they supported the Budget – then set about being dishonest with the Tasmanian people about their proposed approach.
The Opposition has detailed nowhere near the necessary savings through other program or service cuts because they don’t want to reveal (or don’t really know) what they would do in government, faced with a four year forward shortfall of almost $2 billion. Instead, they hope Tasmanians will believe such measures as abolishing the State Architect along with cuts to Park and Ride and regional bus services will save the Health budget. It’s a giant con, don’t fall for it.
On forests, the Libs want things to be the way they were before the export woodchip market collapsed and no self-respecting company wanted to buy our old growth chips. They are in total denial about the almost $700 M in industry subsidies over the past decade, and in no way are they responsibly serving timber communities. The Liberals want to tear up the IGA but keep Canberra’s cash …then vote to reject the protection of HCV forests.
And like State Labor, the Liberals are still salivating at the prospect of a Tamar Valley pulp mill. A change of government won’t change that.
To know what Opposition MPs really think about the champions of the forest fight or the battle for the Tamar Valley, go to Hansard 21 September 2011 Part 2, for the debate on the Liberals anti-protest Bill.
And Tom, do you really want to see Eric Abetz get a firmer grip on our precious island …
Lastly, to correct the record for accuracy from my previous post – not all the 78 000 hectares of Crown Land set aside for reserve has yet been gazetted, but over half has and the rest to come.
To the concerned lady whose post, and therefore name, I now can’t find – the PWS is, like every other government agency, required to find savings and that will have an impact on the jobs of good people, working to look after our Parks. This is also an obvious potential negative for our reserved lands, the management of which has been grossly underfunded by successive State Governments as we have repeatedly stated … That’s why we worked to get that extra $16 M last year.
I don’t think it is entirely reasonable to dismiss the current conservation of such a significant area of public land in the context of this very human cost of these Tasmanian times.
Good night everyone and thank you Judith, Anne, Pete, Steve, Denyer and others for your kind and thoughtful words. They help very much to keep us going …
Earlier:
• First Response: ‘No Sugar Syrup’
• Original: A view from inside and outside the tent …
