Letter to Daniel Hulme

Patrick Synge
Firstly, congratulations on having ‘inherited’ the seat of Franklin and good luck with your new job. As a Franklin elector I read with interest your ‘maiden speech’ and was extremely disappointed at its tone in places. The last thing we need in Tasmania is someone who perpetuates the old divisions and polarisation… …Be careful, Daniel, when you commit your thoughts to paper. You are now on the public record and your words are no longer yours alone.
Letter to Daniel Hulme

HELLO DANIEL

Firstly, congratulations on having ‘inherited’ the seat of Franklin and good luck with your new job.

As a Franklin elector I read with interest your ‘maiden speech’ and was extremely disappointed at its tone in places.

The last thing we need in Tasmania is someone who perpetuates the old divisions and polarisation. As a young person who has been fortunate to find himself in a such you have a responsibility to act in the best interests of the community.

“It won’t be good enough, Mr Speaker, because the critics wont be happy until they have shut down the forestry industry altogether.

If there’s one thing I would like to achieve in this Parliament it’s to step up our efforts to combat the campaigns of misinformation about the environmental impacts of our sustainable industries such as forestry and fisheries, and the campaigns of misinformation against value adding proposals such as the Bell Bay pulp mill.”

While it’s undeniable that forestry can (and should) be a sustainable industry it’s equally undeniable that poorly managed forestry can be extremely destructive. You appear to ignore that the changes you laud in forest management have come into place largely because of the pressure brought to bear on FT and others by the very critics and activists that you revile. To suggest that , “ the critics wont be happy until they have shut down the forestry industry altogether” displays ignorance and a lack of understanding of the issues. It is exactly the kind of statement made by extremists.

While it’s true that some extremists on both sides have behaved irresponsibly this does not mean that those who constructively criticise certain forest management practices have not made a valuable contribution to Tasmania (and the forest industry) despite the efforts of many to portray all environmental activists as negative and irresponsible. To do this is neither helpful nor constructive.

You say that we “have a strong marketing brand as a clean, green State, despite some people’s best efforts to trash our reputation.”

I would suggest that the best way to destroy this “marketing brand” once and for all is by allowing unbalanced development to proceed for the sake of short term employment regardless of the long term social, economic and environmental outcomes. Trashing the environment is what will destroy the ‘marketing brand’ since reality is ultimately what maintains reputations – not advertising slogans, spin and slick promotion.

As David Bartlett pointed out in his SotS speech the other day a hundred $1M projects are more valuable than a single $100m project. Tasmania would be far better of with 2000 x $1M projects rather than one financially wobbly $2B project regardless of whether this is a pulp mill or some other mega project. We have seen many large businesses in financial difficulty recently calling for a bail outs and governments obliged to spend vast sums of taxpayer dollars helping them because they are intrinsically so vulnerable and so many become dependent on them. It‘s likely that the proposed Gunns pulp mill, had it been built five years ago, would now be in exactly that situation and we would be supporting them again. Jobs are important, of course, but truly sustainable management of the resources that underpin those jobs is the first essential.

This brings me to the last comment of yours that I will mention here.

“There is no better way for a person of working age to gain a sense of identity, dignity and self-respect than having a job”.

I appreciate that you probably don’t really believe this (but thought it sounded good at the time) I will nonetheless make the point that there are many in our society who cannot have ‘a job’ through no fault of their own. Such a statement undermines their sense of “identity, dignity and self-respect” and, as such, is both unfair and uncaring. It also ignores the hard work of all those business people and entrepreneurs who work hard to earn their own living and often, in doing so, create employment for others. It ignores the many who work voluntarily to help others, protect our environment or undertake the many unpaid tasks that are essential for community well being. Simply being a successful full time parent can provide a “sense of identity, dignity and self-respect” and contribute to the well-being of our community. There are many ‘jobs’ that people find themselves obliged to undertake that are personally destructive.

Be careful, Daniel, when you commit your thoughts to paper. You are now on the public record and your words are no longer yours alone.

Regards

Patrick Synge