RALLY and MARCH - DEMOCRACY BETRAYED – TASMANIANS BETRAYED ROYAL PARK LAUNCESTON Saturday May 14th 2011 at 11.30am.
“We’ll be flying hundreds of black flags”, said Bob McMahon TAP spokesperson.
“The flags and the choice of black as the colour of the rally is to signify those dark days in March 2007 when the great betrayal of our democracy took place.
“That was when the Pulp Mill Assessment Act, the ‘fast track’ assessment, was rubber stamped through both houses of parliament by Labor and Liberal. The only dissent was from the four Greens in the lower house and a handful of honourable independents in the upper.
“Let’s be absolutely clear as to what happened back in March 2007. The legislation was substantially written by the company which it so obscenely favours – this they have never denied – and the bill was escorted through the corridors, bar, and chambers of Parliament by a squad of lobbyists, lawyers and heavies from Gunns, the CFMEU and the logging industry.
“It was tantamount to a coup d’etat.
“That Labor and Liberal politicians and their fellow travellers in the upper house were the willing patsies of this gross abuse of parliamentary democracy should never be excused or diminished in any way,” continued McMahon.
“It was one of the most shameful episodes, perhaps THE most shameful episode, in out political history. It demonstrated a breathtaking contempt for the institution of parliamentary democracy by the very parliamentarians whose sacred duty it was to uphold.
“The great irony is that it was all for nothing,” said McMahon. “There is no pulp mill. Not a single cent of investment money has been attracted to the project in six and half years. It remains, as it always was, a grand delusion. Yet unprincipled government has wasted vast sums of public money on it, money that should have been allocated to health, education, policing, aged care etc.
“The pulp mill is over. The nightmare of an uncompetitive, world scale resource gobbling industry for an island that is not world scale, has held Tasmania back for six and a half years.
“Let us get on with what we do best in Tasmania, establishing innovative, creative, small to medium business directed at the quality end of the market.
“The pulp mill has already destroyed two premiers. As sure as night follows day it will destroy a third unless she cuts herself free from the mill insanity and embraces and articulates a positive vision for Tasmania,” concluded McMahon.
RALLY SPEAKERS
Dr Frank Nicklason, Royal Hobart Hospital and a Gunns 20.
Peter Cundall, campaigner without peer.
Lucy Landon-Lane, Pulp The Mill.
Kim Booth, Greens.
Bob McMahon, TAP spokesperson.
CONTACT: Bob McMahon 0448 547290 or 63944225
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3 March 2011 Joint Media Release TAP Into A Better Tasmania (TAP) and Tasmanian Public and Environmental Health Network (TPEHN)
Community Groups TAP and TPEHN join in condemning the ‘forest principle agreement’ because it is very specifically tied to the delivery of the Gunns' Tamar Valley pulp mill.
As reported in The Australian yesterday, Bill Kelty said ‘green’ groups must strike a deal on the Gunns' Tamar Valley pulp mill or miss out on permanent protection of 565,000 hectares of native forest.
“There you have it. This is what the ‘roundtable’ negotiations have been about all along,” commented Dr Alison Bleaney of TPEHN.
“From the point of view of Gunns and the Labor Party, the forest ‘roundtable’ was about delivering the Long Reach pulp mill. From the ENGO’s side it was about delivering protection to native forest. They were the two glittering prizes up for grabs and to pretend otherwise is misleading,” said TAP spokesperson Bob McMahon.
“In order for both sides to get what they wanted it was important to exclude the community first and foremost. Why? Because it was expected that the community would be opposed to any trade-off of the sort so bluntly expressed by Kelty”, continued McMahon.
“After all, the community was going to have to pay the price for the sort of deal the forest industry negotiators had in mind. The community had to be sidelined and kept in the dark. Thus the secrecy. We were the sacrifice."
“That the blatantly undemocratic, rigged and secret ‘roundtable’ negotiations and the ‘forest principles’ that resulted (including in principle support for plantations and ‘a pulp mill’) received the enthusiastic support of the ALP is no surprise."
“That the Greens have also been enthusiastic supporters of the undemocratic negotiations as constituted, and the ‘forest principles’ that resulted from the illegitimate process, is deeply distressing for the community and incredibly damaging to the Greens themselves,” said McMahon.
“Kelty has made it abundantly clear that the success of the Gunns/ALP pulp mill is dependent on the signing of the ‘forest principles agreement’,” said Dr. Bleaney.
“Therefore, both TAP and TPEHN, demand that The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and Australian Conservation Foundation either refuse to sign the agreement as it exists or insist that the Gunns Tamar Valley pulp mill be specifically excluded from the agreement as a principle."
“We expect many other community groups will join us in making this demand”.
“It is not too late for the Greens to redeem themselves either”, confirmed Bob McMahon. “They will have to stop the doublethink and unequivocally withdraw their support for the ‘forest principles’ as they stand and the illegitimate roundtable process which produced them. It is not good enough for the Greens to say they do not support the Tamar Valley pulp mill while supporting a process designed from the very beginning to deliver that very same pulp mill.
“Dr Bleaney and I want to put this bizarre chapter of Tasmanian history into context. This is a monumental issue of social justice. Should the environment groups sign up to the ‘forest principles’ deal as it currently exists it will be viewed as a great betrayal of current and future generations of Tasmanians, whose social, economic and environmental horizons will be severely diminished and restricted by the demands Gunns mill will place on our basic resources of land and water and of the huge public subsidies the mill will need in order to compete against cheaper producers in developing countries.
Contact:
Bob McMahon 0448 547290 TAP
Dr Alison Bleaney 0417 302549 TASMANIAN PUBLIC and ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH NETWORK
