Yep where do we start.
- Selling the old Launceston Hospital for a song when it was worth more as a carpark or could have easily been used as a specialist clinic for the hospital.
- Brighton Army base sold for $180 thousand including the 64 houses. The real value was reportedly $6.4 million
- Can’t forget the new police boat designed by one of Thuggo’s mates. $1.5 million and counting for a floating artificial reef.
-Water corportations that are doing nothing more than the councils were doing (except pusihing up costs for water)
-Billions of dollars in subsidies to the Forest Industry
-Road damage subsidies for the logging industry
-$60 million spent making the East Tamar Hwy look like it belongs in Los Angeles.
- A banked corner on the road from Exeter to the Batman bridge with re alignment of the road so log trucks can go faster around it.
More to come

$270m to bail out the Hydro finanaces after it’s disastrous pursuit of Basslink

Well,
- the two remaining Spirits running at a loss (bloodnut replaced one with three)
- the railways
- the ports
- Hobart hospital
- the peeling, flaking recently ‘resurfaced’ roads
- Scott Gadd’s $400,000 to head a Department that doesn’t exist
- the Health Department’s bureaucrat holiday travel slush fund
- payout to a Government driver for f’ing around
- jobs for brothers, sisters and close mates
- Airhead’s $50,000 jaunt to Europe to tour pulp mills and promote Gunns
- public servant job blowout to be the largest employer in the state
- Meander Dam built to supply almost free ($24ML) water the proposed pulp mill, but overpriced ($1200ML) to farmers
- exorbitantly increased electricity charges, still set to rise further to subsidise industry (the biggest users) who get it for a song
- rural school bus children’s rising fares where it used to be free in order to get to school (as is compulsory by law)
- the flogging off of the state’s agricultural research assets
- cutting of Parks funding and closures just in time for the tourist season
- the Fox Task Farce
- Bass link
- the gas pipeline that no-one can use
- the optic fibre cables already installed (for years) in Telstra’s exchanges throughout (rural) Tasmania which have never been used outside major Tasmanian cities (even South Hobart doesn’t have broadband by Bartlett’s own admission)
- $15Tonne delivered state forest old growth wood to Gunns for chipping
- 1080
- the Devil Facial Tumour Disease (most likely linked to 1080) investigative and action failure
- Tasmania Tomorrow
- Health
- Steve Kons
- Bryan Green
- Graeme Sturges missing the boat for the $billion dollar Federal infrastructure funding handouts, but not missing the boat for a free feed, drink and irresistable opportunity to abuse and threaten a security official for doing his job
- the BMW fleet
- the community forums which didn’t involve the community
- the Minister makeovers to turn grumps into frumps
- the thousands of jobs lost in the timber and agriculture industries (opposed to the 40,000 new jobs falsely claimed by Backdoor Bartlett)
- Dismal Swamp

That’ll do for now, as with Pete, more to come

Basslink has been a real success. All that ‘green power’ that turned into brown coal power. We bought the electricity during a drought we helped cause using deforestation.
A $70 mullion ‘log truck autobahn’ leading to a partially moth-balled wood chip mill.

Abt railway sold for a dollar.
Gaming lease given away with the help of Rene Hidding.
Exploitation of Glenorchy by adding more gaming machines.
Decrease of $600,000 disposable income to Main St Tasmania by gaming income.
Increase in costs of social services by gaming addicts.
A full women’s prison because of embezzlement caused by gaming.
Counter productive advertising by government sponsored anti-gaming addiction.
Increase in school psychological and social costs by breakdown in families from gaming.
Investment stalled in tourism because of monopolistic ownership of the Tourism Boards.
No backpacker industry in Tasmania because of lack of investment.
Poor people exploited by gaming hotels.
Restaurants forced to compete against subsidised meals in gaming hotels.
Independence of hotel industry given to Federal Hotels. All applications for gaming machines must be approved by Federal Hotels.
No nett postive employement effect from the introduction of gaming until now (15 years)
Federal Hotels fails to be held accountable for not honouring the gaming lease conditions.
Exploitation of the poor by sophisticated gaming machine design.
Drysedale College reduced to producing cannon fodder for large hotels, which have nothing to do with the Tasmanian experience.
etc etc etc

Hmm. Didn’t the government spend half a mill on a tourism film/video promotion that never saw the light of day?
They dismantled the Dept of Parks & Wildlife, sacking all who worked in her, paid off the Dept director & then realised their mistake so promptly began rehiring again. At taxpayers’  expense.
Then we have the Tarkine Road fiasco, which David B is still stubbornly insisting will go ahead, although Peter Garrett’s heritage listing of the area makes the reality increasingly unlikely. (Thank God)
And there’s the other fiasco involving Adult Education and restricting payment methods to online only, thus disadvantaging all those people who do not have access to a computer.
Plans to build a four-lane highway between north and south - which wouldn’t be neccessary if we had a decent rail service that could transport all the freight currently carried on roads that are hopelessly unsuited to the size and weight of the vehicles used. And which the freight contractors pay relatively little towards maintaining! Log trucks for example.
Yet we hear David & Co want to allow even heavier and more unsuitable trucks on our roads. And they have the audacity to question the number of road accidents and fatalities that occur.
Irresponsible madness.
Roll on March . . .

Must disagree with Pete about the water corporations.  They have proved to be quite different from the councils.  Under council control we had blue-green algae; under the corporations we have e-coli.

So what is the prize for really effective complaining?  A Hodgman government?

I cant remember the name exactly, the Commission for Inclusion or something like that—what I do remember is that it was allocated $900,000 with much fanfare. Later it was found that $100,000 went to the services and organisations that actively helped those marginalised in society - the other $800,000 was spent on salary for the appointed Commissioner (or whatever he called himself), advisors, researchers and other assorted bureaucrats,  clerical staff to administer the fund, refurbishing and hiring of prime city office space, state of the art office equipment and God knows what else——you get the picture

At the time this came to light the Mercury reported it almost as an afterthought, with only a couple of paragraphs. It disappeared from the website after a day or so, never to be mentioned again…...of course at the time the “opposition” was not in election mode so didn’t bother following up this criminal waste of public monies up.

This is just one example - what else is there that the public will never know?

Don’t forget the Q V hospital in Lonnie, sold for 1 million !  after knocking back 11 million ! 12 months previously. So i am informed !

                  d.d.

My list is in addition to Pete Godfrey’s and Russell Langfield list…So many to choose!

The PAL Act.

The Mill Task Force and Education Bus

The sacking of the RPDC

The fast track mill assessment

PMAA Section 11

The Trevallyn water pipeline

Gunns 20 year timber supply

The line in the sand

The Pulpmill Clarification Act

Evan Rolley and others promoted to non-jobs

The Criminalisation of protestors

Bass Straight shipping,

The Pokies Contract

The Tote

Ralphs Bay

The Education Revolution PY10 cock up

The Food Bowl proposed in an area of latent salination

The Airport -RBF debacle

http://www.wilderness.org.au/pdf/PEFC_leak.pdf ...
What can anyone say about this propaganda plan and spin mission?
What have they done with the tax dollars?
Do you trust them ?? Why ? How?

Some more:
- the whole pulp mill fiasco
- the $1,000,000 give away of the state’s railway sleepers
- camping swags doled out to the homeless to use as temporary shelters
- Ralph’s Bay
- all the enquiries that go nowhere and end up with government ignorance and inaction (eg: river and catchment water quality, Roseberry soil contamination, etc.)
- the $1million bailout to the call centre occupying one of the Kons family building assets in Burnie
- the waste of time, money, resources and public trust following up John Gay’s “virtual home invasion” and terrorist attack with graffiti and sparklers

Have we missed the Indigenous arrests due to inadequate consultation by the government prior to the start of the Brighton Bypass project?

http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/article/aboriginal-community-another-25-arrests/

When will the many highly fragile Tasmanian Aboriginal historic sites be properly documented and protected? They are essential aspects of identity.

Good point Emily, about the Social Inclusion gravy-train.

The SIU lists eight employees, mostly of the ‘policy analyst’ variety. 

I think one of them, Bridget Hutton, is Lisa Hutton’s (Justice Dept boss) sister. 

Another example of Bartlett’s wonderful cross-linked world of employees.  So why shouldn’t mates count for ‘social inclusion’?

Social Inclusion Unit
Department of Premier and Cabinet
Level 8, 144 Macquarie Street, Hobart, 7000

Professor David Adams - Social Inclusion Commissioner

Ms Fiona Benka - Executive Assistant to the Director
Miss Sam Davis - Administrative Assistant
Mr Antony Deck - Senior Policy Officer
Mrs Mellissa Gray - Director Social Inclusion Unit
Ms Ann Herbert - Principal Policy Analyst
Ms Bridget Hutton - Principal Policy Analyst
Mrs Sharron Middleton - Principal Policy Analyst

http://directory.tas.gov.au

search ‘Department or Section’ for SIU

So what is the alternative that will make a real difference?Don’t knock,knock,knock without having a real meaningful alternative.Quality independents and accountability?People who can admit to having made mistake?Listeners?

What cost, the denigration of our Parliament?

It conjures up the biblical tale of the money lenders in the temple.

When do we decide that principle must be upheld and take the required action?

Ben Quin

What about Lennon’s $30 million spent on the Elwick racecourse refurbishment?

Sight-seeing helicopter trip and banquet luncheon for Rosanne Haggerty (and partner) at the taxpayers expense.
For this we got a 2 page report from her that read, “homeless people need houses” or something.
As I recall there were some other blown-in experts that did nothing but bleed us all white. Perhaps other TT readers can fill that chapter in?

Thanx for the link Peter

Social Inclusion Unit staff / expenses

I can confirm that Bridget Hutton is the sister of Lisa Hutton, Secretary of the Justice Department.

Bridget Hutton is listed as a Senior Policy Analyst with the SIU.  Her salary exceeds $100,000.

Has anyone mentioned the FOX FIASCO !

                d.d.

Re #15
I think “Hag” has raised this topic to gather and highlight the 11 years of consecutive and consistent failings of the current Lennon/Bartlett Labor regimes in the lead up to the March 2010 election in order to keep it foremost in people’s minds as Barty and Co somersault, stumble, twist and squirm their way through the next 3 months.

Re-electing the current mob would be worse than any alternative, and the thing is they’ll get worse.

Yes, preferably quality Independents and Greens, accountability, people who can and will admit their mistakes (and learn from them), definitely listeners but also those who will act on the community’s wishes and aspirations (not exclusively that of business and especially not that of one business in particular). Those who want to better serve Tasmania, rather than themselves.

Another one that’s under the radar is the new Heazlewood School in Howrah. At least 12 months behind schedule and hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget.
Why, well being built with public money that’s why !

A decent story here for any journalist willing to do some leg-work.

If you count Barty’s general undertakings to be open, progressive, honest, etc, you have a task stretching to infinity.

The Augean task includes the land swap fraud, which saw over $200,000,000 worth of public plantation land on nearly 78,000ha of State Forest disappear into private hands with no evidence that it was paid for, as required by its deed of arrangement.

We have repeatedly seen the justice system operated as an ad hoc charity for mates.  We have seen the Forest Practices Tribunal rule against every single PTR objector for years without ever bothering to define its unique grounds of objection, and then have the SC rule that no such grounds actually existed.

The paperwork required to comprehensively investigate or prosecute this stuff would put paid to our remaining forest.

John Hayward

Then there’s the legislation to make it illegal to protest; The appointment of Bob Gordon to head FT while Evan Rolley resigned, only to become a consultant, still addicted to being paid out of the public purse; the 20 year timber supply extension to Gunns; the sale of the railway for $1 to buy it back for $32,500,000; the aborted appointment by Airhead of Lennon to the chairmanship of the new Racing Authority; and the list goes on..and on..and on..

There’s Zero Davey, sold for $1
The old transport department building, which I believe went for slightly more, $10,000.
The Henry Jones building whose roofline was not to exceed the original - but oh dear, it does, must have missed that bit!

Now we have Bartlett saving jobs at any cost, splashing money around as though he is an oil tycoon. How can this state be giving an international company an interest-free $12 million loan for 3 years? For only 90 jobs? Swift have certainly managed the state government well! Bartlett never pulls his hand out of his pocket when it comes to small, local business.

What is the alternative? A wishy washy liberal party playing patta-cake, or the chance of the Greens getting the balance of power to introduce some real value and ethics into governance.

I fail to understand why our politicians have to be pushed, harassed and re-educated, to get them to produce good outcomes for the state! And why disaffected labor supporters can be bought by Bartlett’s flip-flopping circus act.

Should’nt these common criminals be behind bars?

The list does indeed go on . . .
Don’t think anyone has mentioned the withdrawal of funding for the A-Team program (children on the Asperger spectrum) - a measly $180,000 approx I understand, but which delivered fantastic & proven results for children with autism/Asperger’s. A lot of lobbying later & it has now been partially reinstalled. But for this amount of cash, why on earth did Bartlett (who is after all also Education Minister) consider cancelling in the first place? Especially when it was helping so many kids so successfully? Hardly an example of clever or connected.

What about lara’s scarfs…so wrong.
Bartys rather unfortunate paunch (dont worry dave, I’ve got one too tiger).
Paula’s…..no wont go there.
Alison Ritchies huuuuge family thingo mess.
Lyn Thorpes…under the radar
Big Reds scrotam eyes (Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker!).
Lisa’s ABC pollies forum tanty.
Sturgos’......Well just Sturgo really.
Brenton Best…..??...ditto Sturgo.
Daniel Hulme,s progressive policy and impressively small vote
Airdy’s fibs and conradicting Barty ( now dont deny it and make it worse airdy!)
Kons…..somethings and some folks are best forgotten really
B.Greens uprightness & warm friendships with Konsy and Barty.
Llewelyn….Oh for god sake just retire Mr Llewelyn.
Polley…..as above

So, who is writing under the ‘Hag’ tag this time? Now let me guess….!
As for the comments, the usual bunch of whinging misfits, grizzlers, and serial exaggerators who sit around reinforcing each others misconceptions.
So what is it they see in the Liberals. then?

#30 Ah woody dont be so negative about all the negativity.

Woodworker,
The Liberals are a carbon copy of the despicable, corrupt Labor party.

The Libs have backed everything from the fast tracked pulp mill to the PMAA section 11 and every other low life action outlined in post # 1 and 10.

If you think all the above posts are serial exaggerators you must be brain dead.

Dear Woodworker,
it’s just their turn. Same old, same old.
Gary.

1) The Secretary of Health, David Roberts travel bill, plus the massive bill from 20 odd staff going to the UK for a factfinding mission, and of course the obscene number of locums and agency staff being used instead of employing staff directly.
( Margaretta Pos, HERE: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/category-article/76 )
2)The Dr McGinity debacle - still going - not least where six staff lost their jobs on the spot
3)NBN - without a business plan - WTF?
4)The worst biodiversity account on record, via the Attorney General’s report
5)Environmental policies - zilch
6) Inclusive social policies - zilch
7) Devisive policies - too numerous to mention
8) Infrastructure Australia funding - how many times was Sturgo encouraged to put in a bid, even by members of the IA board - and didn’t
9)Auspine
10)Lack of understanding of how to play by the world rules, you know if you want to play on the world stage you need to play by the rules, think Eurogap and FSC as being drivers for market access, that might help, instead of this continual bleating about world’s best practice when you wouldn’t know what it was because you dont do it and you think the changes required to get there are a subversive green ploy.

Re #30
Once again, anything constructive or on-topic to add, woodworker?

Santa shit down your chimney?

How easy we forget, we need a reminder just before the election.
The list goes on and on and wasn’t there some thing funny about Gunns doing Paul Lennon’s renovations.

What about Richard Butler as governor (and partner) and the cost of getting rid of them?

The Tasmanian Education Foundation, though tiny at $250,000, deserves a vote for doing its daring burlesque stark naked.

John Hayward

One only has to examine the approach taken by both Liberal and Labor throughout the Parliaments assessment of the Pulp Mill to realise how the average punter is regarded by these parties.

All Tasmanians, not just mill opponents were shown utter contempt and treated like ignoramuses and mushrooms by both parties.

Mr Ivan Dean though promising in his inaugural speech never to use his position in the upper house to be a government rubber stamp did the complete opposite.

The only party Mr Dean was independent of throughout the fast-track assessment were his electors and other Tasmanians.

This truth was clearly exemplified by his paradoxical statements about the credibility of 10,000 protesters in his home town (‘misinformed’ said Mr Dean) and the credibility of Gunns (“why wouldnt you believe Gunns, they are a reputable company” said Mr Dean).

And of course Mr Dean merely expressed a view clearly not held by most Tasmanians yet stubbornly adhered too by all Liberal & Labor pollies.

Put it any way you like. Labor and Liberal sold Tasmanians out in a grand & grotesque abandonment of all the people’s parliament should stand for just so their corporate master Gunns could have what it wanted.

Never, ever forget where you and I really rate with the Liberal and Labor mates.

Has anyone mentioned the waterfont hospital? How many millions were spent on that pie in the sky with no discernable benefit to the community,  while Tasmania’s public hospital elective surgery waiting lists are the longest in Australia.

Hmmmm,
- too CLEVER by half, special deals to the well CONNECTED, history will not be KIND to this mob and nor should it BBB.
- The bungled tendering of the Gas roll out ignoring the Eastern shore and many other areas.
- The Post year 10 education deforms destroying the college system which is regarded as the best model in the nation (ignoring the fact that the real help and assistance is needed in the early years).
- appalling lack of foresight for road infrastructure. 
- The theft of water and sewerage assets paid for by ratepayers of adequately run councils who were charging appropriately. Text book MORAL HAZARD!
- smashing the faith of hundreds of life long labor voters that won’t vote Labor this time.
- squandering opportunities (afforded by economic conditions) that previous premiers would have killed for.

Either of the major parties could not manage a motel without being told how to do it and when to do it.

This is the problem!  They cannot manage!

Following are some corruption comments from an ABC Radio National program:

Ian Townsend:
Recently, 160 Queensland Public Servants and government contractors sent to breakfast at a swish Brisbane hotel, to learn what ethical behaviour means.
This ‘ethics and integrity’ breakfast was part of a flurry of meetings, sparked by a string of scandals.
In the past few months in Queensland, a government minister’s gone to jail for corruption and 25 police implicated in exchanging cash and favours with prisoners. On top of that, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about former politicians being paid huge sums for helping businesses win government contracts.
On the 20th anniversary of the Fitzgerald Report into corruption in Queensland, former special prosecutor, Doug Drummond QC, told the breakfast that the government faced a crisis of public confidence.

The World Bank says corruption’s at the heart of most of the planet’s economic and social trouble. Each year, corrupt officials pocket $1-trillion in bribes, that’s a million million dollars in bribes alone. Corruption in all its forms has been blamed for the global economic crisis.

Robert Needham: (Head of the Qld Crime and Misconduct Commission, CMC)
Look, one would like to think that everyone would have proper ethical standards within themselves and that they’d always abide by those, but unfortunately history tells us that human nature being what it is that there will always be people who will push the envelope for the sake of what could be just bluntly put as being greed. If the opportunities are there to make a good amount of dollars for themselves, they’ll take them. In those circumstances we have to guard society against those people succumbing to those temptations.
Ian Townsend: We’re talking here about the people who turn the wheels of government; public servants, politicians and police. We’re also using the language of bureaucracy. The term ‘integrity’ means following the rules to the highest ethical standards when doing a job.
Corruption’s the opposite. It’s the misuse of a public-paid job for private gain and it’s a perennial problem not just in Queensland, but in all levels of government around the world.

Back in Queensland in 1989, Tony Fitzgerald warned in his report that his package of reforms needed eternal vigilance.
Here’s a reading of what he said.
Reader: Institutions become corrupt or inefficient because of the attitudes of those who work within them, and the corruption and inefficiency are factors which cause such attitudes to persist. Innovations will be sterile and impotent if attitudes do not change. If the community is complacent, future leaders will revert to former practices. “

So understand this any of you politicians and aspiring politicians, if you think we are going to stand back in this age of computer transparency and see you waver from the straight line of justice and integrity then you are wrong. 

WE WILL NOT LET YOU STEAL FROM US!

Cynically, one does wonder at the enthusiasm of many countries at Copenhagen to receive climate change grants.
And the reluctance of many ‘developed’ countries to grant them may also be based on previous experience.
To that end, a history of cultural corruption may be yet another black mark in mankind’s eventual demise.

I almost think that the Governments mistakes are worth it when I see how they affect some of your unforgiving perfectionist driven contributors.

What are often simple mistakes made by ordinary and for the most part decent hard working people in both the government and the Public Service seem to send so many of your self-righteous, over bearing,  pontificating,  sanctimonious contributors close to edge of insanity.  As the month and years pass clearly some have become so paranoid that some of their conspiracy theories come close to being delusions. 

The really great thing is that despite all the chest beating and screams by this minority our wonderful Hare Clark voting system guarantees that come April nothing will have changed because such contributors will continue to remain in the minority in Tasmania and the Tasmanian electoral system will continue to reflect this when the votes are counted.

Bazzabee…... So, I take it that you consider 1/9th of allocated monies for a fund being used for the benefit of those it was set up for and 8/9ths being used to employ yet more highly paid public servants, brand new state of the art computing, telephony and office equpment. I also take it that more money being spent on the bosses salary than the actual beneficiaries (that’s the people that the fund was set up for) is what you consider a “simple mistake ”

“such contibutors” as you call TT readers are the informed few. One poster was lamenting the ignorance of the electorate in re-electing the same people and the criminal waste of public money by the government. He told us of a good friends wife who intended voting for the LibLab candidate of her choice because “he’s a spunk”. And there you are Bazzabee standing right there with her.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter…
Winston Churchill

Oh, thank you, Bazzabee, (#44), for your observations. I now don’t feel so alone on this site amongst this diabolical bunch of wankers!

Re #44 & #46
Two paid Labor/FT spin doctor puppets. Minority? If that was so, there would be a hell of a lot more of your type posting on TT.

Lets get this right Bazzabee. You’re saying the government mistakenly made mistakes solely to affect people that would post to Tas Times in the future?
Jeeze mate, never do anything involving logic. You’re going to come off second best.

Postings 45/47 Emily who doesn’t seem to believe in democracy and quotes the great conservative Winston Churchill to support her beliefs and Mr Langfield who doesn’t understand minority surely goes some way to proving my original points.

To both of you sorry but we do in fact live in a democracy OK so its far from perfect but I have always found the idea of perfection to be rather terrifying be it perfect beauty or a perfect political system. 

And for Mr Langfield a minority is what you and your fellow TT correspondents are outside the safety of this blog. 

In March of this year your minority status will once again be confirmed when the votes are counted.  However I predict a small increase your vote but you will remain a minority as you have done for the last thirty years.

Which bring us back to democracy nowhere is it written that you have to like the results of election or polls but living in a democracy requires that you accept them.  Be grateful Emily and Russell if you didn’t live in a democracy you would not even be allowed to express either your oppositionist views or your paranoia, think Iran, think North Korea.

PS. I am not on the ALP pay roll nor am I a spin doctor puppet what ever that means.  By the way why is it that when ever someone opposes you guys you revert to pettiness and personal attacks could it be thirty long years of wandering in the wilderness?

All the major (non-forest) industry leaving Tasmania like Vesta, Cadbury, Pacific Brands (Bonds, etc), Blundstone.

Re. the article above this one. The one put in by Hag. As there is not yet any provision for comments I have had ALL day to think about the positive things that this Government have done. Well, there is - - - - -umm. However hard I try I can think of nothing positive that they have done for the people of Tasmania though a few things positive for themselves.Silly me to have thought that they were there for us!! Of course there have been one or two noteworthy changes of heart over the last few days or so but there again that is for themselves, they want to get back in power.Please, however, no more backflips as that just is a term that you do a dramatic leap but finish up exactly where you were! On the other hand - - - - -

Bazabee #49….Everytime you open your mouth you confirm that you have no idea what democracy really is!!........ps. ....oh, never mind!

Some of the local highlights.

Michael Aird going on a lovely taxpayer funded trip to Europe to help his old friend find a pot of gold for the pulp mill, and David Bartlett tripping over a line in the sand and coming up with a Pulp Mill Clarification Bill.

Latrobe Hospital that was closed, saved, sold, saved again and survived visits by Lara Giddings and John Howard.

Bryan Green deciding that there were too few opportunities in parliament so stood to be the local mayor of Burnie instead.

The clean, green state just happens to happening to have the highest ratio of health problems in the country and in some instances, in the world, but our minders can find no link to pollution of the water and the air and believe that it is the fairies that are causing it.

Low unemployment figures due to some imaginative thinking on the part of the government. If your department is cancelled and your prospects blighted, take hope, you can always join the ranks of Gadd, Rolley and Humphreys on super salaries.

Creative thinking that went into sponsoring an offshore footy team to the tune of $3.7 million because it would bring thousands of visitors to Tassie for reciprocal matches. It wasn’t their fault that the combined air and sea travel capacity could only bring in a couple of hundred at a time to cheer at these games.

Dreamtime is not just the prerogative of the indiginous people. Our own Barty has dreams as well. He dreams of having a food bowl in the driest and most infertile parts of the country while turning all the real agricultural land into woodchip plantations. Pity he can’t get any support for this idea from some of the bigger vegetable buyers like McCain and Woolies.

Then there are pipes and pipedreams and water for us and water for them and more backflips than a circus performer.

Really inspiring stuff. Makes the ‘Hollow Men’ look like heavywights!

To keep Woodworker on his toes
1 The PAL Policy Labor’s gift to the plantation industry.
2 PTR’s Created by a GBE to take Forestry on private land outside the Planning Scheme; this is now the major source of Native Forest logging in Tasmania.
3 Exemption of Forestry from all Heritage Legislation.
4 Tasmania is the only Australian State with No Landscape Legislation.
5 Vast subsidies to the logging industry that currently exceed corporate profits.
6 Writing off over 500 million dollars worth of losses made by Forestry Tasmania.
7 I ask myself would I give any Tasmanian polly, Labor or Liberal, however well meaning, a job? Answer, No.

“....often simple mistakes made by ordinary and for the most part decent hard working people in both the government and the Public Service seem to…”, your position would be stronger if this all it were, bazzabee

Bazzabee indeed ? one doesn’t need much imagination to figure that one, most especially with the woodjerker backing him up.

                    d.d.

Re #49
It’s March “next year.” You Labor snitches can’t do anything right can you? Another blunder.

And, don’t you read the public comments any other newspaper? You’re views are in a minority in all those as well, even the pro-Labor Examiner.

And then there’s this piece of ill-informed small mindedness…“Be grateful Emily and Russell if you didn’t live in a democracy you would not even be allowed to express either your oppositionist views or your paranoia, think Iran, think North Korea.” So, what do you call Section 11 or the undemocratic acts of Backdoor Bartlett to have those with “oppositionist views” hauled off by the Tasmanian Police? Me thinks you don’t pay attention to the reality of the goings on in Tasmania, or just choose to ignore them.

And yes, I believe you are indeed one desperately trying to hold on to your Labor-sponsored job within the Tasmanian Labor Ministry of Propaganda.

How about you give some examples of the positive things Labor has done over the past 11 years instead of whingeing about “the majority” here? An intelligent contributing post from you would make a nice change, Bazzabee. Then again, you’re not paid to be intelligent.

Re #53
Sorry, just a quick correction regarding the Burnie mayoral ‘hopeful’ Gerry, but it’s so hard not to mix up Bryan Green with Steve Kons. They have such similar backgrounds and character.

Adding to your ‘low unemployment figures’ imaginatively created by Labor spin-meisters, they don’t stack up when you take into account the Bureau of Statistics figures that 38% of the Tasmanian population is on welfare of one sort or another.

Back to the Labor failures:
- McCains
- the proposal to sponsor an A-League team
- 50% increase in the public service (positions filled mainly by Bazzabees)

Posting #52 Dear Emily please enlighten me and those of us who dwell in dark places what is democracy?

What about pumping money into the Abt railway for it to then go heap to fedrals?

#58.  Sorry…. I always get confused between Steve Green and Bryan Kons!

‘Adding to your ‘low unemployment figures’ imaginatively created by Labor spin-meisters, they don’t stack up when you take into account the Bureau of Statistics figures that 38% of the Tasmanian population is on welfare of one sort or another.’

But I thought they WERE meaning the ones that worked for the government?

#57 and others poor dear bewildered Russell if only fly fishing were as easy a swift flick of the wrist and you swallow the fly whole everytime, don’t you?  Talk about come in spinner. 

If you haven’t worked it out yet someone, maybe its bazzaa, is having a loan of you and it is so so easy 60 postings on this one subject and you are responsible, if that’s the word,  for ten of them, not to mention all the other paranoid postings in a similar vein across this blog site. 

But enough of all that to be frank u are no fun anymore far to easy to take the p… out of.

I think I might go back to my day job, now where do I work Forestry Tas,  Gunns Pty Ltd, The Liberal Party, Government Media Unit, The Examiner, CFMEU, Forest Industries Council, Timber Communities Australia or do I work for, no u will just have keep guessing and one day maybe your poor deluded paranoid mind will finally work it out.

BYE BYE RUSSELL -  I would like to say it was fun but I’d be lying and we Greens don’t Tell lies do we?

Re #62
Good riddance puppet, happy new year :)

The Social Inclusion Unit sounds like an absolute joke and a massive waste of taxpayers money.

It highlights a more systematic failure in Tasmania, which is that the bureaucracy in this state far too large.  There must be so many highly-paid “Policy Analysts” and such types who apparently write reports so that other bureaucrats can read them, but the reports are not acted on because there isn’t enough money left after paying all the bureaucrats.  Then in a few years time a new report is written on the same subject.

Not to mention our three levels of government and our 29 local councils - this is far too much.

Unfortunately, no politician will criticise the bureaucracy because too many voters are public servants, so the waste continues.  I don’t expect Hodgman will do anything to reduce the number of bureaucrats if he becomes Premier.

Two pulp mill issues;

- The granting of public land at Trevallyn reserve to a private company.

- The reserve status of the mill site removed.

What was a natural wildlife reserve and buffer between industry and farm/residential properties was erased by the Lennon government. More than 90% of the site has been clearfelled by Gunns.

Not sure when it took place but there was the sale of the ENTIRE hydro town of “Poatinna” to some religious group for a peppercorn price !

                      d.d.

Dear Bazzabee, do feel free to piss off and get a real job. Tata.

#67 One of the things that motivates me to keep posting here is not that I care what any of you really think because clearly I don’t; what in fact motivates me is that it takes so little to get under your ever so think skins and expose you for what so many of you are which is deeply prejudiced and anti-democratic.  In fact I would go so far as to suggest that some, not all who post here, have moved to a potions that are boarder on the totalitarian and that is why I really post here.  Put simply totalitarianism was the single great evil of the last century and it must be exposed and opposed where ever and whenever it raises its ugly head. 

So here’s hoping to keep you under the gun or should that be Gunns in 2010. 

By the way I do have a job and yes its real and it pays more than tree sitting in the upper Florentine an area I first saw and walked almost thirty years ago not thirty minutes ago.

Poor baaaaz.

Bazzabee(68) has declared his absolute opposition to the totalitarianism of section 11 of the Pulp Mill Assessment Act.
Good on you Bazzabee! We need more brave Australians willing to stand-up to the lecherous traitors shifting Tasmanian assets to foreign shareholders.

posting # 69, I have to say I do like 69 a wonderful number so many possibilities so many memories of holidays in France. 

So bless you Russell I will wear your disapprobation with pride and your tragic attempts at humour with the slightest flicker of a smile.

Re #71
Sure it wasn’t 69 in the paddocks of New Zealand, baaaaz?

(68) 
    “your ever so thin skins expose you for what “SO MANY” of you are which is deeply prejudiced and anti-democratic.”

    Bazza ! you are indeed an absolute !  and, the above is indeed the only factual statement you have ever uttered .

                    d.d.