Knives out for premier - and his mates
are angry
July 31, 2004
........"Absolutely anyone who's read the article can
see it's not a personal attack, but a judgement on a public
man's life," Flanagan said. Instead he saw Lennon's
response as another attempt to silence him. "This
is a government of thuggery and intimidation, and it seeks
to crush any dissenting opinion. "I think
it's very hard for mainlanders to understand how oppressive
it can be. It's a situation not unlike WA Inc, where there
is an appearance of prosperity, and government colludes
with business, but underneath it is corrupting and rotten."
Evidence emerged that Flanagan was not alone. Marine biologist
Karen Edyvane may have recently won national attention for
ringing an alarm bell on kelp forest decline, but she has
no job with the State Government any more. Dr Edyvane said
Fisheries in Tasmania "is dominated by the industry,
worth a lot of money in political donations, and has a culture
of secrecy". She wrote in support of Flanagan. "Freedom
of speech is indeed a scarce resource in Tasmania. Dare
to question and suffer the consequences. Be prepared to
be blacklisted, vilified and/or unemployed."
In the Bacon years, businessman Gerard Castles was a government-sanctioned
community leader consulting on the state's direction. He
fell foul of Bacon for wanting an end to old-growth logging.
He said Bacon presided over a
sick political process, where many were bullied and marginalised,
and Lennon was continuing this approach.........
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD... |
| MORE THUGGERY,
BY A FOREST VANDAL - A WARNING TO TOURISTS |
|
Scuffle over logging film has court
sequel
July 28, 2004
A TASMANIAN filmmaker fears his career has been
put at risk by injuries he suffered when he was
attacked by a log-truck
driver he was filming. Brian Dimmick
said yesterday he was left needing spinal surgery
and was physically incapable of carrying heavy camera
equipment. "I was assaulted by this guy who
attacked me, smashed my camera and caused me an
injury that now threatens my career," Mr Dimmick
said. Yesterday in the Hobart Magistrates Court
log-truck driver Gary John Coad pleaded guilty to
common assault and injuring property. The 59-year-old,
of Huon Highway, Huonville, admitted he pushed Mr
Dimmick in the chest and neck and knocked over his
$7000 video camera and tripod. ...... Mr Dimmick
had been filming log trucks travelling along the
Huon Highway for a documentary about logging......
NEWS.COM.AU...
• MORE
LOG TRUCK ACCIDENT NEWS & STORIES...
|
|
Forest 'frontier' beckons tribal leader
28 July 2004
THE destruction of forests is a global problem and a key
political debate, says a Philippines tribal leader visiting
Tasmania. ........ After visiting the Weld Forest yesterday,
Mr Mandipesa said there were close parallels between logging
in Tasmania and the Philippines. "Seeing so many trees
cut down is like witnessing a massacre," he said.......
HOBART
MERCURY... |
Forest land deal a can of worms for Labor
27 July 2004
A complicated deal involving a huge tract of forestry land
in Tasmania threatens to upset Mark Latham's delicate electoral
balancing act between greenies and timber workers, writes
Annabel Day. ....... The transaction involved the transfer
of what was initially thought to have been 77,000 hectares
of crown land given to the government business enterprise
Forestry
Tasmania as freehold, allowing FT
to sell the land without a public auction or notifying
parliament, something it would probably not have been able
to do if the land had remained crown. FT
has since admitted about 85,000 hectares were vested in
it as freehold and others believe the figure was closer
to 97,000. In exchange for the freehold titles, FT
was to surrender land of equal value to the crown within
three months. The questions centre on the lack of evidence
that FT
fulfilled its side of the deal by surrendering land of equal
value - or any land at all. Also, much of the freehold land
that FT
was given had still not been added to the Valuation Roll,
which records land values and is used to determine council
rates, at the time of The Australian Financial Review's
investigations, raising doubts over how the land was valued
in the first instance and suggesting FT
has not paid rates on it as other freehold owners do. And
a simpler question, which many feel has still not been answered:
why did FT
need freehold land in the first place?.........
AUSTRALIAN
FINANCIAL REVIEW... (Cost - $2.20)
• Gunns accused
of embarking on 'land grab'....Gunns now holds 675 land
titles in Tasmania (below) |
| University
of Tasmania academic PETER HAY sheds light on the
current Tasmanian political leadership of forestry
vandals (from TASMANIAN
TIMES) |
The Lennon Attack ...
27 July 2004
........ I think what has happened these last couple
of days is that the Premier
has conclusively proven Flanagan's central contention
about the way this government conducts its day-to-day
affairs. He has done this much more spectacularly
and emphatically than Flanagan's arguments, by themselves,
ever could have demonstrated. ......... Here
we have a citizen, Richard Flanagan, whose work has
done more to create an international profile for Tasmania
than anything the Premier
or the government, any
state government for that matter, has ever done or
could do, being ordered out of the island.
........ The Premier's
extraordinary, out-of-control exercise in verbal intimidation
is of a piece with his demanding, on national television,
that
a 4 Corners reporter give him the names of dissenting
East Coast councillors. It is of a piece with
the legion of stories you hear in this town, some
hearsay, but some straight from the relevant horse's
mouth, of prominent business entrepreneurs being publically
and privately abused by the hard men of Labor, being
told they are done for in this state, and
of people making a living in consulting and in cultural
industries being intimidated into silence for fear
of being blackballed........
AND
MUCH MORE @ TASMANIAN TIMES...
• RICHARD
FLANAGAN IN THE AGE... (Below) |
|
Shock claim on drinking water
By MICHELLE PAINE 25 July 2004
CHEMICALS in drinking water had
the potential to be the asbestos of the 21st century, an
East Coast doctor claims. ........ "We have
no knowledge base at present to judge what could be happening
with the health of the community that's drinking this water.
........ "As we speak we are unable to determine what
chemicals are in the catchment," Dr Bleaney said. ........
"Simazine was found in the Pyengana streams in 1994.
Since then we have no information about what testing has
been done," Dr Bleaney said.
SUNDAY
TASMANIAN... |
Spotlight on state political 'darkness'
By MICHELLE PAINE 25 July 2004
WRITER Peter Hay and journalist Charles Wooley say Tasmania's
culture of political "darkness" must change. Academic
and former Labor adviser Peter Hay backed author Richard
Flanagan's right to ask questions of Tasmania's progress.
........ Dr Hay, who served the Gough Whitlam and Michael
Field governments, said Mr Lennon's attack proved Mr Flanagan's
claims about a leadership that would not tolerate dissent.
"I've heard a Labor parliamentarian
say of one of its critics, 'he's finished in this town,
he'll never work here again'. That's appalling,"
he said. "There's always been
this darkness in our political culture, but it's much more
pronounced now. I've never seen people so scared to say
what they think. I think the Labor Party needs
to reform its culture of intolerance from within. ..........
Charles Wooley, who has covered Tasmanian affairs for more
than 30 years and reports for 60 Minutes, said
he had never seen such a political culture in a western
government. "I came back to Tasmania to
live in the middle of the political culture which under
Bacon was extolling the notion 'thou shalt not criticise',"
said Wooley, who reported on premiers Bill Neilson, Robin
Gray, Doug Lowe and Michael Field........
SUNDAY
TASMANIAN... |
| THUG DECLINES
TO DEBATE |
Premier challenged to debate Bacon
legacy
Saturday 24 July 2004
Author Richard Flanagan has challenged Tasmanian
Premier Paul Lennon to a public debate on the
legacy of the late Jim Bacon. In a newspaper article,
Mr Flanagan has criticised the former Premier's leadership,
saying big business has prospered and old-growth logging
has accelerated. The comments have been heavily criticised
as cowardly by Mr Lennon. Mr Flanagan says the Premier
should debate the article publicly at the Hobart town
hall.
ABC
NEWS ONLINE...
Hang him, Paul
By LINDSAY TUFFIN of TASMANIAN
TIMES
It must be unprecedented
... at least in recent Australian history.
The Premier
of a state effectively invites its most famous award-winning
writer - a Rhodes Scholar with an enviable world reputation,
the best ambassador a State could have - to leave.
Why? Because he dares to disagree ... dares to have
an opinion of his own. ....... "I challenge Paul
Lennon to a public debate in the Hobart Town Hall,
man to man, without his army of spin doctors and minders.
Let the Tasmanians in the
audience decide who is the real coward."......
HANG
HIM PAUL...
Lennon rejects public face-off
By DANNY ROSE 24 July 2004
TASMANIA'S most famous author, Richard Flanagan, hit
back at Premier
Paul Lennon yesterday, challenging the state's
top politician to a public showdown. Flanagan said
a debate in the Hobart Town Hall would settle this
week's row over his controversial article on late
premier Jim Bacon. It followed day two of an extraordinary
attack by Mr Lennon, who has labelled Flanagan a "coward"
for publishing the article just weeks after Mr Bacon's
death from lung cancer. "Paul
Lennon's thuggery speaks for itself,"
Flanagan said from his West Hobart home last night........
HOBART
MERCURY...
Newspaper report author under fire for Bacon criticism
........Leader of the Greens Bob Brown has
supported the article. Senator Brown says Mr Flanaghan's
article was very measured and thoughtful. "I
think it's a good analysis of Jim Bacon's legacy,"
he said. "I think one of the things we all know
when we go into politics is that we become part of
the public property and there has to be an evaluation
of what we're doing, while we're doing it. "Richard
Flanaghan absolutely lambasted Jim Bacon as Premier,
I was with him on podiums where he did it."
ABC
TASMANIA...
Lennon fury: Premier throws book at famous Tassie
author.
By JANE LOVIBOND 23 July 2004
PREMIER
Paul Lennon branded Tasmania's most famous author
Richard Flanagan "cowardly" and "uncourageous"
yesterday over an article he wrote about Jim Bacon's
legacy.......
HOBART
MERCURY...
===============
• RICHARD
FLANAGAN IN THE AGE... (Below) |
CODE OF ETHICAL CONDUCT
TAKEN FROM THE
TASMANIAN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY STANDING ORDERS
AND RULES
http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/ha/s0597.htm
|
|
CODE OF ETHICAL CONDUCT
FOR MEMBERS OF THE [TASMANIAN] HOUSE OF
ASSEMBLY
PREAMBLE
|
| As Members of the House of Assembly we recognise
that our actions have a profound impact on
the lives of all Tasmanian people. Fulfilling
our obligations and discharging our duties
responsibly requires a commitment to the highest
ethical standards. |
|
STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT
|
To the people of this State, we owe the
responsible execution of our official duties,
in order to promote human and environmental
welfare.
To our constituents, we owe honesty, accessibility,
accountability, courtesy and understanding.
To our colleagues in this Assembly, we owe
loyalty to shared principles, respect for
differences, and fairness in political dealings.
We believe that the fundamental objective
of public office is to serve our fellow citizens
with integrity in order to improve the economic
and social conditions of all Tasmanian people.
We reject political corruption and will refuse
to participate in unethical political practices
which tend to undermine the democratic traditions
of our State and its institutions. |
|
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES
|
Members of this Assembly must carry out
their official duties and arrange their private
financial affairs in a manner that protects
the public interest and enhances public confidence
and trust in government and in high standards
of ethical conduct in public office.
Members of this Assembly must act not only
lawfully but also in a manner that will withstand
the closest public scrutiny; Neither the law
nor this code is designed to be exhaustive,
and there will be occasions on which Members
will find it necessary to adopt more stringent
norms of conduct in order to protect the public
interest and to enhance public confidence
and trust.
Every Member is individually responsible for
preventing potential and actual conflicts
of interest, and must arrange private financial
affairs in a manner that prevents such conflicts
from arising including declaration of pecuniary
interest in any matter being considered as
part of their official duties as a Parliamentarian.
Members of the Assembly must carry out their
official duties objectively and without consideration
of personal or financial interests.
Members of the Assembly must not accept gifts,
benefits or favours except for incidental
gifts or customary hospitality of nominal
value.
Members of the Assembly must not take personal
advantage of or private benefit from information
that is obtained in the course of or as a
result of their official duties or positions
and that is not in the public domain.
Members of the Assembly must not engage in
personal conduct that exploits for private
reasons their positions or authorities or
that would tend to bring discredit to their
offices.
Members of the Assembly must not use, or allow
the use of, public property or services for
personal gain.
Members of the Assembly, when leaving public
office and when they have left public office,
must not take improper advantage of their
former office. |
|
|
Gunns
accused of embarking on 'land grab'
July 22, 2004
Tasmania's biggest private timber company Gunns
Limited has increased its number of land titles by about
17 per cent in the past 12 months. There are claims that
Gunns
has embarked on a "land grab" to provide timber
for its planned $1 billion pulp mill while maintaining its
woodchip exports. Inquiries by
the ABC show that Gunns
now holds 675 land titles in Tasmania.
The company is already Tasmania's biggest private land owner
and since July last year it has acquired 100 titles, while
selling 13 others. Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt says
Gunns
is on a "land grab" and not just for its proposed
pulp mill. "Some of those plantations may well be in
joint venture with their Japanese customers who would expect
woodchip to keep going to Japan," she said. Gunns'
executive chairman John Gay says that is ridiculous. "Gunns
aren't on a land grab - we are buying land all the time
for our forestry business and our wine business," he
said. Mr Gay says Gunns
has acquired only a few leases for publicly owned land from
Forestry Tasmania in the past 12 months, totalling 1,500
to 2,000 hectares.
ABC
NEWS ONLINE...
• (June 30, 2004) .....In a
pledge dismissed as "disgusting" by the Greens
leader, Bob Brown, Mr Howard offered $5 million for a feasibility
study by the timber company Gunns
Limited......
SYDNEY
MORNING HERALD...
• SEE
THE SLIDE SHOW ON THE LAND GRAB AT BUSINESS TASMANIA...
|
| JIM
BACON'S LEGACY TO TASMANIA |
The selling-out of Tasmania
July 22, 2004
Ignore the eulogies. Jim
Bacon’s legacy is a state ravaged by logging
and inappropriate development, writes Richard Flanagan.
Among the many bewildering responses to former Tasmanian
premier Jim Bacon's passing, few came more bizarre
than that of Albert Langer and his colleagues ("Vale
comrade Jim Bacon", on this page on July 2) presenting
Bacon as ever "on the side of the oppressed against
the oppressors". Unfortunately, history tells
a less uplifting tale. Under Bacon, Tasmania was given
away to the rich at the expense of the poor. Typical
was how millionaire Greg Farrell's Federal
Hotels group became the leading tourism operator
in the state, bankrolled by its monopoly on pokie
machines. In Victoria and NSW, gaming machine licences
are tendered for and millions of dollars paid to state
governments, whereas in Tasmania a 15-year monopoly
on gaming machines, estimated by Citigroup to be worth
at least $130 million, was inexplicably given by the
Bacon government to Federal
Hotels for nothing. ........ Too often misrepresented
as an environmental story, this
a dark tale of corporate greed and government connivance.
In spite of the overwhelming majority of Tasmanians
wanting the clearfelling of old-growth forests to
end, Bacon remained unwavering in his support of old-growth
logging and Gunns,
the Tasmanian ALP's biggest financial donor. Under
Bacon, clearfelling of globally unique native forest
accelerated; and no reform was made of an industry
described in evidence to a Senate committee by senior
forester Bill Manning as corrupted in its management
and prey to a culture of cronyism, bullying and intimidation.
Under Bacon, forests disappeared, rivers began drying
up, thousands of protected native animals were killed
with 1080, and Gunns
shares increased in value by more than 700 per cent.
........ Bacon had no tolerance of dissenting opinions,
making no secret of his fury with those who differed
from his point of view, no matter how small the difference.
Hailed as a champion of the arts, Bacon famously attacked
Tasmanian artists and writers who spoke out against
his policies as "cultural fascists" (a term
coined by Stalin), signalling clearly to his bureaucracy
who was and wasn't going to be part of Bacon's much-trumpeted
New Tasmania. Business consultant Gerard Castles echoes
other Tasmanians when he says that Bacon
introduced a climate of fear into Tasmania, with Tasmanians
knowing that their jobs, careers and businesses would
suffer if they spoke out against the government and
its close relationship with certain big companies.........
AND
MUCH MORE @ THE MELBOURNE AGE... |
|
Protection plea
on Tassie forest
By DANNY ROSE 21 Jul 2004
A DOZEN leading Australian academics have written to the
nation's top two politicians calling for an extra 500,000ha
of protected forest in Tasmania. Their letter urged Prime
Minister John Howard and Labor leader Mark Latham to commit
to "the immediate protection of all of Tasmania's high-conservation-value
forests". It was sent late last week by group leader
Professor Tony Norton of the Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology. ........ "Many high-conservation-value
forests, perhaps as much as 500,000ha, remain unprotected
and at risk," Professor Norton said. "Many
of them will be logged and seriously modified over the next
few months and years. "Time is quickly running
out and what we need to see is decisive action at a federal
level." Professor Norton specified the contested Styx
Valley and said there remained "other areas of forest
with significant heritage, wilderness and cultural values
that will continue to be at serious risk". His
letter was co-signed by 10 academics from RMIT, Monash and
Melbourne universities, Perth's Murdoch and Edith Cowan
universities and Canberra's Australian National University.
Two academics from the University of Tasmania also signed
-- environmental studies head Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick
and Dr Peter McQuillan of the Centre for Environmental Studies......
HOBART
MERCURY...
Regional forest agreement flawed says scientists
A group of environmental scientists and scholars has released
a statement, criticising Tasmania's regional forest agreement,
and calling for the immediate protection of all the state's
high-conservation-value forests. The group says the current
agreement was compromised by wood production interests,
and as a result many high conservation value forests remain
unprotected and at risk of logging. The head of Geospatial
Science at Melbourne's RMIT University, Professor Tony Norton,
says the group has written to the Prime Minister and the
Opposition leader, calling for immediate intervention. "We're
calling on the Australian Government to rethink its forest
policy and to encourage the Tasmanian Government to put
in place additional measures to protect those high conservation
value forests," he said. "Particularly to increase
the protected area network to ensure that many of those
conservation values, landscape values are protected for
the future."
ABC
NEWS ONLINE...
Experts weigh into forestry debate
Date: 21/07/04
A group of Australia's leading environmental scientists
has weighed into Tasmania's forestry debate. The academics
- including representatives from RMIT University, the University
of Tasmania and Canberra's Australian National University
- have issued a statement criticising Tasmania's Regional
Forest Agreement (RFA)......
CHANNEL
SEVEN NEWS... |
| AND
TASMANIA'S POISONED WATER CONTINUES - FROM
STORIES BELOW... |
Claim of chemical misuse
21 July 2004
A GOVERNMENT senator has blasted the Tasmanian forestry
industry, accusing it of misusing chemicals. .........
link between aerial-borne
agricultural and forestry chemicals and large-scale
oyster deaths on the state's East Coast after heavy
rains. Dr.Scammell
also suggested the problems
with oysters correlated with tumours and mortality
in Tasmanian devils, which are being killed off by
a mysterious facial cancer. New South Wales
Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, a key figure in parliamentary
inquiries into the industry, said yesterday Tasmanian
foresters were behind the times. "Where the plantation
forestry industry is in terms of its chemical regime
and the controls of its chemical regime is where the
cotton industry was 10 or 15 years ago," Senator
Heffernan told ABC radio. ...... "I
think most politicians in Tasmania are intimidated,
one way or another, by the employment side of the
forest industry," he said.....,
HOBART
MERCURY... |
|
Timber industry must
improve its practices: Heffernan
A Liberal Senator investigating timber plantations
says evidence from Tasmania proves the industry needs
to clean up its act.......
ABC
NEWS ONLINE...
Tassie MPs blast Heffernan
By MICHELLE PAINE 22 July 2004
.........They talk about
the triazine (atrazine and simazine) chemicals. Well,
the private forests use it, and the private forests
lease public land. "Triazines have permanently
contaminated the aquifer in southern France and in
mid-west America, where neither stock nor humans can
drink the water."
HOBART
MERCURY... |
|
| TAIL LIGHT
INTIMIDATION IS AT IT AGAIN |
Saturday 17 July 2004
In an approximate 5 hour period, there have been no
less than 2,292 accesses to the picture
of Barry Chipman of Timber
Communities Australia (TCA) at the WALK
FOR CHANGE webpage by around 1,400 different accessors
apparently consisting of networked or related IP addresses.
Although the Discover
Tasmania website is popular, it's never that
popular on just one image (and it is suspected that
neither is Barry (Bazza) Chipman). This is obviously
a component of Forestry Vandals trying to crash the
Discover
Tasmania website. Forestry Vandals are more affectionately
known as; "Tail Lights"... as they are
not bright enough to be "Head Lights".
|
|
TASMANIA'S BRIGHTEST SPARK... Liberal
Politician & Special Minister of State Eric Abetz
has publicly announced that he intends to seek whether the
Australian Electoral Commission should prosecute the owners
of the John Howard Lies website for possible breaches of
the Electoral Act. As a result the website has gone viral!!
• JohnHowardLies.com
ALSO a website defending the
Liberal Prime Minister's democratic right to lie to the
Australian people...
• LiarsForHoward.org |
| AND
TASMANIA'S POISONED WATER GOES NATIONAL |
Devil disease link
sparks alarm - by AAP
July 17, 2004
A report linking the use of forestry
chemicals with a deadly disease afflicting Tasmanian
devils has set environmental alarm bells ringing.....
BREAKING
NEWS SATURDAY SYDNEY MORNING HERALD...
MELBOURNE
AGE...
NINE
MSN...
Aerial spraying report renews health
concerns
Reporter: Jocelyn Nettleford 19 July 2004
KERRY O'BRIEN: A report commissioned by a small group
of oyster farmers has reopened debate about the impact
aerial spraying of pesticides and herbicides could
have on waterways and public health........
ABC
TELEVISION - 7-30 REPORT TRANSCRIPT...
....deformities in Tasmanian
devils and potential human health problems.
Fishermen commissioned the report after $1.5 million
worth of oysters died suddenly earlier this year......
ABC
RADIO - THE WORLD TODAY TRANSCRIPT...
|
|
Deaths link to water
quality
By JANE LOVIBOND - 16 July 2004
A SCIENTIFIC investigation
of water quality at St Helens has linked widespread
oyster deaths with the facial cancer devastating
the Tasmanian devil population.......
The damning report also raises concerns about public
health in the East Coast township and calls for
an immediate moratorium on aerial spraying of timber
plantations in the area. The author of the report,
marine ecologist Dr Marcus Scammell, said last night
there was a "good
probability" that biocide chemicals applied
at the upper end of the water catchment were getting
into the local water supply.......
THE
HOBART MERCURY...
|
Doctors seek spraying
ban
By MICHELLE PAINE - 17 July 2004
THE Australian Medical Association yesterday called
for a halt to aerial-borne sprays in Tasmania's water
catchments. ......... The
State Government admitted it did not know the volume
of chemicals entering waterways and would begin searching
contractor records........
THE
HOBART MERCURY...
Poison use accusation
By SUE BAILEY - 19 July 2004
AN Australian environmental health expert has accused
the State Government of putting profits ahead of people's
health and called for a moratorium on aerial chemical
spraying near water catchments. Mark Donohoe, who
has specialised in environmental and nutritional medicine
for 17 years, said last night one chemical used in
forestry operations, atrazine,
was a chlorinated herbicide which had a tendency to
damage DNA and had caused tumours in animals.......
HOBART
MERCURY...
-----------------
Environmental Problems Georges Bay,
Tasmania
Collated by Dr MARCUS SCAMMELL from information gathered,
in particular, between February 2004 to June 2004.
Specific Findings
The aerial spraying (using helicopters) of plantation
timbers appears to be responsible for large-scale
losses of commercial oyster following heavy rainfall
events. The normal environmental protection methods
do not appear to be in place and no policing of the
State’s own Forestry Code of Practice appears
to be occurring. More disturbingly,
the problems associated with oysters also correlate
with tumours and mortality in Tasmanian Devils. Further
there appears to be a risk to human health as contamination
of local drinking water supplies is also possible.....
General Findings
The Tasmanian issue appears
to be a symptom of a general breakdown in environmental
protection and human health protection processes at
every level of government.......
THE
SCAMMELL REPORT IS HERE...
-----------------
FROM NEWS TASMANIA IN JUNE
Chemical probe urged - (Friday,
11 June 2004)
Concerns raised after oyster deaths on East Coast.
Chemical spraying of forests
in the Georges Bay River catchment was yesterday highlighted
as a possible cause of mass
deaths of East Coast oysters in February.
..... The oyster industry of Georges Bay at St Helens
was almost wiped out earlier this year when almost
90 per cent of oysters in some Georges Bay farms died
virtually overnight. ..... But The Examiner
was also able to uncover that a chemical spill occurred
near the river when a helicopter, spraying private
forests at Pyengana in December, hit powerlines and
crashed. The aircraft, flown by Tasmanian Helicopters
on contract from Austwide Forestry Services, was
carrying about 60 litres of a cypermethrin-based spray
mix. About 20
litres of the chemical spilled on to the ground, not
far from the water. The Government's official
response was that the spill was of little environmental
consequence. But the crash raised the suspicions of
local oyster farmers, who have gone to great lengths
themselves to determine how much of the chemical is
being used in the area. A Dow Agrosciences chemical
information list rates cypermethrin
as "highly toxic to fish and aquatic arthropods",
saying that "care should be taken to avoid contamination
of the aquatic environment"......
LAUNCESTON
EXAMINER...
Town has herbicide in water
- (18 June 2004)
THE Health Department says Campbell Town's drinking
water is safe, despite the discovery of traces of
a toxic herbicide. Tests done by the plantation division
of forestry company Gunns
Ltd have shown a minute level of simazine
upstream from where the town draws its water.......
THE
HOBART MERCURY...
Health effects of Simazine from the
US - EPA
Long-term: Simazine has the
potential to cause the following effects from a lifetime
exposure at levels above the MCL: tremors; damage
to testes, kidneys, liver and thyroid; gene mutations;
cancer.
HERE...
-----------------
AND GUESS WHAT, WHILE TASMANIA
GETS POISONED ITS CULTURE THRIVES
The Tasmanian Aquaculture
& Fisheries Institute (TAFI) has Mr
Kim Evans as a member of its Board. Mr Evans was also
appointed Secretary of the
Department of Primary Industries, the Department
responsible for the Environmental
Management and Pollution Control Act 1994
and he represents the State on a number of boards
including Chair of the Tasmanian
Institute of Agricultural Research; the
FOREST PRACTICES BOARD [CHAIR]
(FPB
link), and the Board
of Environmental Management and Control.
He is also the Government’s representative on
the Board of SALTAS, a company established to assist
the development of the Tasmanian salmon and trout
industry. and WOW Kim has a science degree from the
University of Tasmania and is a member of the Australian
Institute of Company Directors.
MORE
ABOUT KIM... |
|
| TASMANIA IN
CONTRAST / BURNING THE OPPORTUNITY |
Call for state-led forestry decisions
By ROHAN WADE - 14 July 2004
TASMANIA needed to retain control of its forestry
decisions and not let outside influences have a disproportionate
say, the state's new Forests
and Forest Industry Council chairman said yesterday.....
HOBART
MERCURY... |
|
|
• IN CONTRAST:
.....International Processes
.....The World Environment Conference 10 years ago
in Rio was a watershed for forests; for
the first time it was accepted that forests were not
just a sovereign state matter (a matter
for individual countries). It
became clear that forest management practices adversely
impacting climate habitat water flows and even air
(smoke) were matters of global concern.
This has led to much more thinking about what sustainability
means beyond the tradition of biomass to habitat maintenance
and of course recognition of the human dimension.
Illegal logging and certification have become components
of an international dialogue......
......as an investment in a sustainable functioning
landscape of benefit to all whether or not they ever
visit a forest or woodland.....
DAVID BILLS... - PDF
DAVID
BILLS CBE David Bills was Director General and Deputy
Chairman of the Forestry ... research
scientist at what is now the CSIRO Division of Forest
Research in... - PDF
-------------
• TO BURNING THE OPPORTUNITY: |
|
|
Korean visitors may open up new
markets for State
By LUCY SPURGEON , Wednesday, 14 July 2004
A delegation of Korean importers and retailers arrived
in Launceston yesterday to examine Tasmania's finest
furniture in what could lead to a major export opportunity
for the State's developing industry. ........ Korea's
GaGu Guide monthly lifestyle magazine president Byun
Sang Joon, who is used to travelling to Milan and
Germany to look at furniture, said that Korean customers
would be attracted to Tasmanian furniture because
of the beautiful native wood
and its unique style.....
LAUNCESTON
EXAMINER...
• SEE
WHAT TIMBER WORKERS FOR FORESTS SAY...
-------------
Coming out of the woodwork
July 17, 2004
......Furniture retail turnover is tipped to be worth
$5.5 billion this financial year, yet
Australia does not supply its own timber needs.
Australia had a trade deficit in timber products last
year of about $3 billion - at least $1.8 billion in
forest products, mainly because so much paper is imported,
and more than $1 billion in timber furniture. .......
Australian timber is exported, usually to China, made
into furniture and exported back to Australia, often
with stolen Australian designs. ....... You can't
run a furniture business on an ethereal thing called
plantation hardwood. ........ "We must get our
act together,"
MELBOURNE
AGE... |
|
At 83, a caring man adds activism to interests
By Martin Flanagan - July 12, 2004
.........This year, on Australia Day, Denys Walter was declared
Citizen of the Year by the local council. Three months later,
he was one of three locals arrested for trespassing on an
area of rainforest in the Blue
Tier being clearfelled by the Gunns
timber company with the assistance of Forestry
Tasmania, a State Government body. ........ This is
the entrance to the logging operation known as Coupe 134D.
The gate is unlocked. We could enter but that would put
him in contravention of his bail order. He says he doesn't
mind, to enter if I wish. When he joined a party of locals
here on April 15, it was not his intention to be arrested,
merely to register a protest. ......... He describes Gunns
as the monopoly taking over the state. They have their own
agenda, and that's that. About an hour later, a Forestry
Tasmania official arrived declaring a 15-square-kilometre
exclusion zone around the coupe and ordering them to leave........
THE
MELBOURNE AGE...
• NATIONAL
TREE DAY 25 JULY 04 AT THE BLUE TIER... |
| IT'S A WORRY |
Out of the blue, a desperate cry
for kelp
By Leigh Dayton, Science writer
July 10, 2004
FOR nearly 30 years, Mick Baron has dived amid the
cold kelp forests of Tasmania. Like underwater jungle
vines, the plants twist from the seabed towards the
sunlit surface, up to 30m above. Colourful fish and
tiny invertebrates dart among the leafy fronds and
the gas-filled bladders that keep the glorious wet
forest afloat. "The cliche is that diving in
the kelp forest is like flying through a land forest
- and it's true," Baron says. But
now he's worried. The underwater forests
were flourishing in 1991, when along with Gary
Myors , Baron set up the Eaglehawk
Dive Centre in southeast Tasmania and introduced
divers from Australia and beyond to the secret ocean
forests. Not so today. "There
is no doubt whatsoever the kelp is in rapid decline."
That means trouble for the state's diving business,
which has grown from next to nothing to a multi-million-dollar
industry. What's more, healthy kelp forests are critical
habitat for an ecosystem of creatures, including economic
species like abalone and rock lobster. ......... "It's
shameful ... and curiously self-defeating," Senator
Brown said. "If you don't look at the basis of
economic wealth, you lose it."
THE
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN...
• MORE ON
THE KELP LOSS IN THIS JULY ISSUE (below)... |
FOOTNOTE - In April
2003 the publisher of the Discover Tasmania Tourism
Website featuring "Eye on the Forests" (http://www.Discover-Tasmania.com.au)
successfully defended being sued at the World
Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva (WIPO)
by the Tasmanian Government vandal & global warmer
trading as Tourism
Tasmania for registering the domain name Discover-Tasmania.com.au
on 28 November 2002, (the decision is here).
Below is what Gary Myors
of the Eaglehawk
Dive Centre said about it by email of 5 May 2003
[:<)))))
"Obviously the [WIPO] panel have their collective
heads as far up their arseholes as you do. Try being
constructive rather than destructive you pompous ass.
There are a lot of hard working Tasmanians who rely
on Tourism
Tasmania to sell this state to the world just
to survive. You should try it getting a real job sometime.
Gary Myors" |
|
|
ANDREW WILKIE - THE MAN WHO
TRIED TO STOP JOHN HOWARD FROM ASSISTING IN CAUSING
A GLOBAL JIHAD
MICHAEL
WARE, TIME MAGAZINE - spends time with Iraqi insurgents
"Now we have the jihad that we say we came
here to prevent." .... "This is a big
one. They call this a world war until judgment day,
maintaining a state of perpetual jihad."
|
Into the Styx - with Andrew Wilkie
July 2004
Hundreds of hectares of native forest in Tasmania's
Styx Valley are destroyed every year by logging. Andrew
Wilkie witnessed the devastation for himself when
he visited the Styx in April.
"What I saw shocked me profoundly. On one side
of the road there were the most magnificent old-growth
forests with trees 80 metres tall just towering above
the bush around it. I'd never seen trees like that.
I'd never seen such beautiful bush. "But on the
other side of the road where it had been clear-felled,
I was shocked by the contrast between these magnificent
forests and this wanton destruction." ........
"In big areas they would actually incendiary
bomb from helicopter to form what they call an ash
bed, so then they could go through and seed either
mechanically or by air with a single species of tree,
"But forests of one species can only support
a fraction of the wildlife of a natural forest. "At
every turn it’s destructive." Andrew found
the poisoning of native animals to prevent damage
to the seedlings particularly disturbing.......
ANDREW
WILKIE - GREENS CANDIDATE FOR THE HOWARD SEAT OF BENNELONG...
AT THE DESTRUCTION... |
|
| ONE DOESN'T
HAVE TO LOOK FAR TO FIND ENVIRONMENTAL NEGLIGENCE
IN TASMANIA |
| While Coles Bays in Tasmania is hailed for its policy
on abolishing plastic bags [Planet
Ark story], the Tasmanian
Chamber of Commerce & Industry Ltd (TCCI)
sees fit to put its development at all cost propaganda,
into plastic bags. |
|
|
* There are approximately 46,000 pieces of plastic
floating in each square mile of our oceans.
* Plastic kills up to 1 million sea birds, 100,000
sea mammals and countless fish each year.
* Turtles, dolphins and killer whales mistake plastic
bags for jellyfish and die of intestinal blockage.
W.H.E.N.
Australia Inc.....
----------------
Oceans Awash With Microscopic Plastic, Scientists
Say
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC...
----------------
.....In a pledge dismissed as "disgusting"
by the Greens leader, Bob Brown, Mr Howard offered
$5 million for a feasibility study by the timber company
Gunns
Limited......
SYDNEY
MORNING HERALD...
----------------
......Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce chief executive
Damon Thomas said Gunns
Ltd deserved its elevated position in the rankings,
and he said the company was a "misunderstood
part of Tasmanian culture"......
HOBART
MERCURY...
TELL NEWS TASMANIA WHY GUNNS IS
MISUNDERSTOOD...
----------------
Links - TRASHING
OUR OCEANS... |
|
Greenhouse
gases "threaten Australian way of life"
July 6, 2004
SYDNEY - Australia's easy-going beach lifestyle could be
at risk if it fails to take immediate steps to significantly
reduce greenhouse gases which feed global
warming, scientists and environmental groups
say. ...... Australia, which has one of the highest per
capita emissions rates worldwide, has refused to ratify
the Kyoto treaty that aims to cut the emission of greenhouse
gases. Last month the Australian government issued a multibillion-dollar
energy package which protected the country's valuable fossil
fuel energy sector.......
PLANET
ARC...
Marine scientists warn against kelp forest
degradation
Tuesday, 6 July , 2004 - Reporter: Annie Guest
.......Marine scientists meeting in Hobart today are warning
about the impact of global warming
on the giant kelp forests in the seas off south-eastern
Australia and on the commercial fisheries there. Higher
sea temperatures are being blamed for already wiping out
all but a remnant of the undersea forests, which are a critical
food source and habitat for an enormous range of marine
organisms. The devastation has been likened to a rainforest
being reduced to a few myrtle trees.........
ABC
THE WORLD TODAY...
Warning as kelp call fails
A PUSH to have Tasmania's giant kelp forests listed under
threatened species law has failed the first hurdle. .......
Half to 95 per cent of underwater forests of macrocystis
pyrifera, which grows up to 35m high, are believed destroyed.
....... In the past Dr Edyvane, named as one of Australia's
smartest 100 people by Bulletin magazine, has urged that
the species be classified as endangered as a first step
to protecting it........
HOBART
MERCURY...
• SOME
OF TASMANIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING...
Clear-felling in Tasmania: an environmental
catastrophe
By Annie Philips
Living in Hobart I witness the rather sobering daily event
of scores of laden log trucks thundering down the main street
of town. It’s a continual reminder to all those who
care about the environment of current Tasmanian forestry
policy: namely the accelerated clear-felling of old-growth
forests and the poisoning of forest inhabitants......
GREEN
LEFT... |
DEFAMATION
UPDATE - 4 July 2004
Report of the Supreme Court Hearing - 30 June 2004 |
Supreme
Court of Tasmania - No. 435 of 2003
........the plaintiff
registered the domain name Discover-Tasmania.com
in November 2002 and published a website criticising
Tasmanian forestry practices ....... On 21 November
2002 the Examiner
Newspaper (part of the Rural
Press group of newspapers) published (in its newspaper
and on its internet subscription site) an article
written by Melanie Alcock headlined "Police May
Check Website" and reproduced quotes of Rene
Hidding MHA ........ and then stated...
"its obviously fraudulent, designed to mislead,
lie and cheat". So,
in effect whoever was the owner of the website was
being called a liar, cheat and a fraud because of
a hyphen in a domain name. ......... The
Tasmanian Government declined to exercise its right
of appeal / review to the Federal
Court of Australia. .......... and unsuccessfully
trying to get Rene
Hidding to retract and apologise, in August 2003
the plaintiff filed the current proceedings in the
Supreme Court at the Hobart Registry. ........ Rene
Hidding had another lash by way of publishing
a media
release which accused the owner of Discover-Tasmania.com
of (amongst other things) being dishonest
and deceitful. ........ The plaintiff has
advised Douglas
& Collins that this
is a total fabrication as the plaintiff
has never had any discussion whatsoever with Heather
Long or any Examiner
staff, and that if such proposed
false evidence is filed or testified in
the Court, that the plaintiff
will be making an immediate complaint of perjury to
the Tasmania Police. ......... on Wednesday
30 June 2004 before the Master of the Supreme Court,
Rene
Hidding was represented by Mr.
Graeme Jones senior partner of Douglas
& Collins. The defendants Examiner
Newspaper and Melanie Alcock were represented
by Mr.
Scot Wheelhouse SC St James' Hall Chambers &
Mr. G. Rhyce both traveling from Sydney NSW for the
hearing. ......... that the disclosure of his identity
to the Mercury
Newspaper was in circumstances of receiving a
perceived threat from a
Mercury
staff member .........
the plaintiff says that as there appears to be no
direct Australian authority on the identification
matters in issue, he believes that it may even end
up at the High
Court. .......... With
the consent of all the parties an order was made for
a separate trial of identification issues
.......... The trial is to be before a judge without
a jury ......... if the plaintiff wins the final outcome
he will have proved that he has been defamed to the
Examiner
Newspaper circulation of around 86,000 readers.........
has the potential for the awarding of substantial
damages........
THE FULL
UPDATE & REPORT HERE...
|
|
Senator blames
politics for forest report delay
Friday, 2 July 2004
It is claimed the report from the
Senate inquiry into Australia's plantations is being delayed
until August 12 for political purposes. The six
member Senate committee studied Australia's forestry plantations
for the past two years and the report was due last month.
Last October it heard evidence
of corruption, cronyism and intimidation in Tasmania's timber
industry from whistleblower, former forestry auditor Bill
Manning. Independent Tasmanian Senator Shayne
Murphy says he is not surprised the report is overdue. "The
two major parties would prefer to see this report delayed
until after the election," he said.......
ABC
TASMANIA...
| THE
FORESTRY REPORT CONCERNS: |
|
•
|
Forestry
Tasmania criticised at Senate committee..... ABC
NEWS report 9 October 2003
Bill Manning, a former auditor with the Forest
Practices Board, said his old employer is "hopelessly
compromised" by an industry riddled with cronyism
and CORRUPTION. ...... "The forestry
industry culture he said was one of "BULLYING,
CRONYISM, SECRECY and LIES". |
|
•
|
"When an exasperated Mr Manning
finally tried to prosecute Forestry
Tasmania, his charge books were taken from him.
He was shifted elsewhere in the public service"......
THE
MELBOURNE AGE |
|
•
|
The nightmare began when he alleged
Forestry
Tasmania had breached the Threatened Species Protection
Act, the Forest Practices Act and the Environmental
Management and Pollution Control Act............"Within
two weeks, the chief forest practices officer had
demanded my notice books withdrawn. My authority to
lay complaints under the Forest Practices Act was
withdrawn as well." Mr Manning said the person
stripping him of his power was FPB [Forest
Practices Board] chairman,
Ken Felton. Mr Felton is an executive director of
Forestry
Tasmania...... THE
SUNDAY TASMANIAN |
|
•
|
Senate committee hearings THE
MANNING TRANSCRIPT - PDF 450k |
|
•
|
Manning evidence to the Senate committee
PHOTOGRAPHIC
EVIDENCE |
|
Deaf ear to church attack on Forestry
By MARGARETTA POS - 30 June 2004
FORESTRY
Tasmania yesterday ignored a Uniting Church report critical
of state forest practices, and its fears for their impact
on water quantity and quality. Forestry
Tasmania also ignored a call by a geohydrologist for
a halt to the spread of plantation farming until an independent
audit is done of water catchments and users. "We're
not going to comment," said Forestry public
affairs manager Cathy Limb. Independently of the report,
David Leaman, of Hobart-based Leaman Geophysics, said plantations
soaked up ground water storages, affecting river flow for
farmers and towns. "Water is already a big issue facing
the state. That's why there must be an audit before any
proposal for a pulp mill is considered," he said. "And
we must have an open system for declaring the amount of
water used, which includes the forest industry." The
Uniting Church report called for an independent and transparent
regulator of the industry and that it be open to freedom
of information laws.........
HOBART
MERCURY... |
Church takes axe to forest industry
June 28, 2004
The Uniting Church has joined the chorus of criticism of
the Victorian and Tasmanian forestry industries. According
to a report commissioned by the Uniting Church Synod of
Victoria and Tasmania and released in Melbourne today, Tasmania
is suffering a serious crisis of confidence in its forest
industry. The report, "Forests and Forest Issues in
Victoria and Tasmania", was written by church members
David Blair (who has a forest science degree and whose work
experience includes researching wildlife in Australia and
overseas and forestry work for the Victorian government
in Gippsland) and Margy Dockray, who has co-authored several
community reports on forestry-related activities. The report
found the self-regulated industry in Tasmania was exempt
from local government planning schemes and freedom of information
laws, and urgently needed an independent and transparent
regulator......
MELBOURNE
AGE... |
| GREED &
STUPIDITY |
Nothing to show but a wasteland
By Paul Sheehan - June 28, 2004
Australia has the potential
to become one of the most stupid, short-sighted, short-lived
civilisations (for want of a better term) ever created.
The nation could last little more than three greedy,
mediocre centuries as an advanced economy, and two
of those centuries have already passed. Compared with
what's heading our way unless we mobilise as a nation,
such passing obsessions as the Iraq war and the latest
federal election are mere sideshows. ........ People
keep talking about the historic "drought"
afflicting the eastern states. It is not a drought.
It is far more serious than that. Even if good rains
come they are not going to change the fundamental
problem. The weather pattern has changed. Having mined
and altered and channelled and stripped the landscape
for the past 150 years in an impossible attempt to
re-create Europe, we can't even see the obvious -
that when you profoundly change the landscape, when
you destroy vast amounts of balancing energy in the
soil and vegetation, you change the weather. .........
Take his views on that most totemic green cause, the
clear-felling of old-growth forests in Tasmania, protected
under the bipartisan Regional Forests Agreement: "It's
a disgrace," [Senator]
Heffernan told me. "They
could end clear-felling of old-growth forests tomorrow.
And they should. They are over-committing Tasmania's
forest resources in a way they will regret in a hundred
years ... And in their haste to clear the timber they
waste and burn and haven't even done any work on the
impact on the water system. Places like Launceston
are having a dramatic change in the stream pattern.
It could be a long-term disaster."
........ "In Tasmania,
they burn everything that's there and 1080 [poison]
them, it's just a mournful operation and the process
of pushing down old-growth forests is a huge waste.
They recover only about 10 per cent of the old growth
as saw logs, the rest just goes to the chip mill."
He wants his Senate committee to consider a proposal
to protect a further 240,000 hectares of that state's
high-value old-growth forests, offset by what he calls
a "wall of wood" coming on stream from new
plantations in Tasmania and Western Australia........
SYDNEY
MORNING HERALD...
• SOME
OF TASMANIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING...
AND IF ANYONE THOUGHT LATHAM WAS
THE ANSWER
Garrett out on a limb as
ALP backs logging vote
Glenn Milne - June 28, 2004
IN a move likely to antagonise the Green voters encouraged
by Peter Garrett's conversion to the Labor Party,
Mark Latham has held a private meeting with Tasmanian
loggers to reassure them Garrett's conversion will
not affect his stand on felling old growth forests.
Of course, these forests are one of the emotional
litmus tests of the environment debate. Which is why
on Wednesday, the week before last in Parliament House,
Latham quietly went around to the office of his Tasmanian
Labor colleague Dick Adams [Big
Dick of; "I Don't Give a Fuck About Your Opinion"
fame ]. Adams has always been vocal in the debate
over where exactly the balance should fall between
job losses for timber workers and the protection of
Tasmania's forests. And there's never been any doubt
about where he comes down: when it comes to the workers'
livelihood and families, trees come second. ........
The Parliament House meeting was about reassurance
and guarantees. Apart from Adams, waiting for Latham
were Terry Edwards from the Tasmanian branch of the
Forests Industries Association and the exquisitely
named Barry Chipman, representing an organisation
known as Tasmanian Timber Communities. ....... Any
hope among so-called soft Green voters that Latham's
courtship of Garrett and Garrett's subsequent acceptance
means a softening in Latham's stand on the environment
is clearly delusional........
THE
AUSTRALIAN... |
|
| HOW THE AUSTRALIAN
TAX OFFICE SUBSIDISES THE VANDALISM |
Sell a tree and, by gum, it's a
tax deduction
By Alan Kohler - June 26, 2004
The business of selling tax deductions is just finishing
off another very big June, writes Alan Kohler......
Tax Commissioner Michael Carmody is the Johnny Appleseed
of Australia, scattering seed thither and yon. Thanks
to the annual ritual of "product rulings",
under which scheme promoters gain the certainty of
tax-deductibility, Carmody is, undoubtedly, Australia's
greatest greenie - Canberra's answer to Bob Brown,
except he actually pays for trees rather than just
talking about them. Which
raises one question: how come we are still cutting
down old, natural forests? One answer to that, I understand,
is to make space for more plantations. Apparently
Gunns
in Tasmania is running out
of ground to plant tax-effective trees and is now
clearing old growth forests merely to make room.
Next question: are they good investments? Answer:
only because the tax deduction, and even then they're
ordinary. The big winners, of course, are the promoters.
....... Upfront commissions of between 5 and 15 per
cent - averaging 10 per cent - are paid to the happy
accountants and planners who act as distributors.
......... It's beautiful because the companies are
selling trees, but their customers are buying something
else - a tax deduction. This mismatch between the
sale and the purchase motivation means the price is
unrelated to the product. ....... Here's how the deal
roughly looks for the investor - and a warning: what
follows may disturb some readers........
SYDNEY
MORNING HERALD...
Tax effective plantations
7 July 2004
.......The average price of a hectare of blue gums
is about $5000 (you don't buy the land, just the trees;
you rent the land, with rent sometimes based on inflated
land values, and the promoter then waters and fertilises
them, expensively)........
BOMBALA
TIMES... |
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