What Leo says about Richard Flanagan ...
Leo Schofield. First published in Mercury, Sept 24. Pic: of Leo
12.10.11 12:00 am
For me he is far and away the most distinguished living Tasmanian, scourge of inept politicians of whom we have far too many, fearless opponent of those who would destroy this island’s unique natural environment, which he celebrates so eloquently. His latest book, And what do you do Mr. Gable?, is not a novel but a collection of short pieces written for a variety of publications.
T. Clipper
15.09.11 1:00 am
Boutique tea shop Jefferson’s Tea - tucked into a shopfront in Wellington Arcade, Hobart - has created Flanagan’s Blend in honour of the author’s regular patronage and request for a particular blend to suit his taste ... which is brewding, strong, intense (and very thirsty). Just like the writer. Clipper has no doubt Bryan Green has cleared his schedule to order a pot, and sit and listen to the Flanagan oration, today, 10am.
Our compass for hope into the future
Richard Flanagan. Pics: Pic: Matthew Newton. http://www.matthewnewton.com.au . rapidexposure@ozemail.com.au
08.08.11 5:08 am
Over the last decade we in Tasmania had the opportunity to transform our island into a jewel celebrated around the world, a transformation that would have brought prosperity and a great future to our island.
Instead, we blew it.
Over the last decade we mortgaged our future to the forestry industry and now we must pay for our folly with our jobs, with our services, with a devastated economy and a despairing people. For the best part of ten years our government has had only one policy and that policy was called Gunns.
Richard Flanagan and Matteo Pericoli, New York Times
09.05.11 4:15 am
A series in which writers from around the world describe the view from their windows.
Greg responds to Richard ... again
Greg L’Estrange, Managing Director, Gunns Limited, on The Drum
01.04.11 2:20 am
Many voices in the Tas pulp mill discussion, A response to Richard Flanagan: Holding up Gunns through secret deals, HERE The genesis for the Forest Agreement talks was the initiative shown by veteran forest campaigner Sean Cadman approaching me to see if some sort of peace might not be found on my taking over the CEO’s role at Gunns. An outbreak of peace I would like to continue. Since then, and during the Kelty talks, Gunns has ...
• Anne: What Christine Milne says about the mill economics
Holding up Gunns through secret deals
Richard Flanagan
28.03.11 5:15 am
Bill Kelty has covered himself in ignominy by doing what Tasmanians now understand to be the only purpose of Labor apparatchiks in Tasmania: to keep propping up a company for which not even the markets now have any use. Was Bill Kelty appointed by the Federal government to help Tasmanians out of the decades long conflict over the forests, or to perpetuate it by breathing life back into the dying monster of the pulp mill?
Richard Flanagan. Batman Reserve anti pulp mill rally, Sunday 19 March. Pics: Matt Newton*. Garry Stannus
21.03.11 7:29 pm
But we have discovered within ourselves a power greater than their money. It is the power of the powerless. And it is a simple thing of terrible beauty. It is the power to say, No; I do not agree.
• Pulp The Mill, Kim Booth MRs. Anne Layton-Bennett, FTV ...
• Videos of Flanagan speech, bridge walk
Sweet-reasonable L’Estrange monsters Flanagan ‘cynicism and contempt’
Greg L'Estrange, writing in Mercury
12.03.11 9:36 am
Richard Flanagan might want to go to jail in support of his long-held cynicism and contempt but it won’t be Gunns’s actions that put him there, it will be his own choices. I want to engage in a proper discussion and I fully understand that putting old enemies aside is very difficult. We can’t let that stand in the way. Holding on to these feuds is a luxury I can’t afford, nor can the rest of the Tasmanian community.
And, Mercury P45: Chopping through new chapter of pulp fiction:...as does former Forest Industries Association of Tasmania Chairman Julian Amos (but it isn’t online)
Tamar Valley Protest Groups
11.03.11 6:05 am
Flanagan, Cundall, Booth, Beresford, Milne, Biddulph line up to rally the valley ...
Not the cake, Lara, the Bread ...
Richard Flanagan
07.03.11 3:27 am
If we are ever to escape the hopeless cycle of environmental destruction subsidised by our taxes leading into yet another financial crisis, we need government by politicians engaging with the very real issues that confront Tasmania with a sense of responsibility to the people, rather than servitude to Gunns’ bottom line as their only purpose.
Not the cake Lara Giddings, in a Marie Antoinette moment, described Gunns’ mill as, but the bread of real government.
Some years ago I spoke at a rally of fifteen thousand Tasmanians opposed to the Gunns’ Tamar Valley pulp mill. I said if it came to it, I would stand between the machinery and the site and go to jail in an attempt to stop the mill. I then asked those who would stand there with me, who would also go to jail, to raise their hands. An overwhelming majority raised their hands. No matter what deal has been done, I haven’t changed my mind. Nor, I strongly suspect, have most of those who raised their hands that day. The one certainty that Mr L’Estrange, Mr Kelty, and any prospective financing partner need to understand is this: whatever the backroom deal, there is no social licence.What there is, in consequence of Gunns’ ruthless determination to build this mill, is a fundamental social betrayal. And if it takes thousands of Tasmanians going to jail to stop the mill then we will go to jail, and we will keep going to jail until this mill is stopped. Because only then will this shameful period of our history be ended and Tasmania finally be able to move forward.
Steve Biddulph, comment: Get ready, Lara Antoinette, to lock up hundreds of respectable, hard working law abiding, thoughtful, angry, determined Tasmanians, old, young and in between, mothers fathers, grandfathers, teenagers, professionals, farmers, fishermen, doctors, teachers and nurses. Lock us up because we won’t let this rape of our island happen, not in the 21st century when clean water, air and soil are so precious on a blighted and endangered earth.
Lock us up because we believe in the rule of law, we believe in justice, and are willing to put our bodies on the line to stand up for it. You and every other moral cripple …
Sue Neales, Mercury: TAMAR Valley residents are ready to “man the barricades” to stop the Gunns pulp mill amid claims they have been betrayed by mainstream environmental groups. Anti-pulp mill group leaders Lucy Landon-Lane and Bob McMahon confirmed yesterday the battlelines were being drawn for a community campaign “bigger than the Franklin Dam”. Protest action may start as soon as this weekend against Gunns’ plans for a $2.5 billion mill at Long Reach near Launceston. The pulp mill’s likely start this year also threatens the stability of the State Government. The Tasmanian Greens delivered an ultimatum yesterday to its Labor minority government partners, threatening to “bring down” the Government over the pulp mill. Greens MP Kim Booth vowed to withdraw his support for the Labor-Greens government alliance if any public money was used to fund the mill ...
Matt Smith, Mercury: THE Tasmanian Greens yesterday launched a dramatic retreat from threats by Kim Booth to move a no-confidence motion in the Government or block the State Budget over the Gunns pulp mill proposal.
Monday: Karen, comment: It was interesting listening to Premier Lara Giddings on the ABC radio here in Launceston this morning (7 March 2011) when she reminded us that the Tamar Valley pulp mill is located in an area with “other heavy indutries”, after all, and because of this, implied that this makes Longreach an acceptable location for it as far as the government’s concerned. This seems an astonishing reason to sign off on Longreach: because other polluters are already there, it is a good enough reason to add another one! Oh, and another one next year. And another one after that ... BUT has any mention been made by any of our politicians of the COMBINED polluting effects of the growing “industrial cluster” occurring at Bell Bay? Who is measuring (or has measured) the combined, not singular, pollution in the area? Has anyone even defined what the combined pollution limits will be in such a cluster?
Scary new world’s uncertain Borders
Richard Flanagan
21.02.11 3:53 am
Ugly as all this was and hubristic as it has proved, there is no comfort for anyone in the failure of the two chains. Together they are believed to represent about 20 per cent of Australian book retailing. The independent bookstores account for about another 20 per cent. Combined, they were the segment of book retailing in which many of the books that matter most to an Australian identity and culture were sold. It was also here that the books we think important to a larger idea of our world and ourselves - novels, essays, poetry and histories - were sold.
Publishers needed that critical mass to push many books that otherwise might have been dubious commercially over the red line into a small profit. It meant a first novel, a history, a book of essays might just be able to sell 3000 copies. But with Borders and Angus & Robertson in voluntary administration, with the independents struggling and more and more closing, those days are perhaps gone. Many small publishers we have come to see as vital - Text, Black Inc, MUP to name a few - must be looking today at their future publishing schedules with very heavy hearts, wondering how on earth they can continue to make it all work.
Richard Flanagan
20.12.10 3:45 am
The myth that we must be protected from hordes of refugees is a weeping sore at the heart of my country’s public life If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast, it is a political question. Not that Australia has a refugee problem. Last year just 5,500 people sought asylum – less than 2% of the migrant intake. Yet Australia does have a dismal public life largely bereft of courage or humanity, and it has created a national myth that now poisons all sides of politics. The myth is that of the boat people. It is the idea that hordes of refugees will overrun Australia unless harsh policies of dissuasion and internment are employed.
Dr Kevin Bonham, comment: I agree with the main thrust of this article, but the views Richard expresses about the Tampa’s electoral impact are widely held, but not strongly supported by evidence.
Monday: Andrew Wilkie: Abbott offered to double refugee intake
Boat People: Peter Adams, Windgrove
MR: Mr Wilkie called on Australia to: • double its humanitarian refugee intake, an offer made by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, in exchange for Mr Wilkie’s support to form Government;
• greatly increase its intelligence collection efforts against people smugglers and corrupt officials, especially in Indonesia; • Re-energise disruption efforts, which played a key role in derailing people smugglers in 2002; • launch a public information campaign in first asylum and transit countries to highlight to people considering relying on people smugglers the dangers and perils of travelling to Australia by boat.
Mark Poynter’s Devine defence breached
Alfred Deakin. Picture: of Mark Poynter
23.08.10 9:15 am
All of which means Eric Abetz is about as reliable a guide to the forest industry as Miranda Devine.
Richard Flanagan (written first on ABC's The Drum)
20.08.10 3:05 pm
Miranda paints a picture of us and them, of working class heroes destroyed by ‘greens in suits’. But the story of Tasmania wasn’t any of those things: it was how greed poisoned and then split a society, made it foul with hate and violence, rancid with lies and corruption. And now that society is trying to bring itself back together. It’s far from easy. It may fail. But it is a source of hope, whereas Miranda’s melodrama is just a lie. An old, divisive lie, pregnant only with despair.
Tasmania’s lesson: when Labor attacks the Greens, it threatens itself
Richard Flanagan, writing HERE
27.03.10 6:00 am
Tanner is right to argue the ALP treats the rise of the Greens in Tasmania seriously as a national portent. But, in suggesting the ALP sees the Greens as a new enemy, he is repeating the terrible mistake made by the Tasmanian ALP that left it politically gangrenous and led it to its drubbing in the election. The conservative forces in this country have rarely been so foolish.
Richard Flanagan, published also today in Mercury
19.03.10 1:30 am
They sought to divide us with hate and fill us with fear. Who were they who did this to us? In the end it wasn’t a party or a movement, but a small clique of cronies and bully boys and bully girls, the members and their families and their mates and even their mates’ children, the spinners and the standover men with their large salaries in government agencies. They treated parliament and its perks and positions as their own magic pudding. They lied, they deceived, they sold our soul for a mess of pottage, all in order that they could keep themselves in privilege.
Richard Flanagan
01.03.10 5:00 am
No-one asked Dr Amos if these policies were about keeping the jobs of forestry workers, or about keeping the jobs of Dr Amos and Premier Bartlett, of John Gay and Bob Gordon, of a hundred other hacks and cronies. No-one asked Julian Amos to explain how—while the amount of forest being logged had drastically declined, and employment in the industry plummeted— on his own organisation’s figures 735 new jobs were created in old growth logging. No-one asked if we might see the Symetrics report recycled for a third time in 2016 with even more preposterous claims. No-one asked if we should now get ready for the eco-vandalism story, the unsigned letter/ e-mail story, the police raid on dirty feral camp story, the story that Greens are anti-jobs.
Anthony John
04.02.10 4:55 am
We would do well to reflect on Richard’s view on truth: “power and money can intimidate, can awe, can destroy and even rule. But it cannot prevail against the force of the truth.” The lesson of history is that truth is inexorable and will ultimately triumph. He is right on this and most other things touched on in his speech including the recognition that Gunns isnt “the” problem in Tasmania; poor governance is!!
Zombie politics, the self-perpetuating mediocracy
Richard Flanagan, Speech , Friday, January 29
03.02.10 6:00 am
Ultimately the problem we have in Tasmania is not Gunns. It is the complete failure of our government over the last eleven years. At our centre we have not governance by people with ideals and values, with ideas, with a desire to make a better world. What we have instead is zombie politics, a government run by people without heart, head, or direction—zombies. Zombie politics is what you get when a party ceases to represent anything other than the ambition of its own miniscule clique and its cronies. They are a self perpetuating mediocracy of people without character, without ability, without integrity, and less than surprisingly, now also without credibility.
A subtle weaving of passion and despair
Eileen Battersby, Irish Times, Review of Wanting , By Richard Flanagan, Atlantic, 252pp, £14.99
19.10.09 6:21 am
HISTORY HAS many stories; the huge ones absorbed into the communal consciousness and those tiny human tales that splinter into pieces of memory all too often lost. Sometimes though, these small stories are retrieved through a diary or a chance image, a half–remembered connection that leads on to another, or to several. Writers scan history and recorded fact, a chance remark, ever on the alert for the missing face, the life that holds an untold story. The gifted Tasmanian Richard Flanagan has followed one such face, one such life and created in Wanting a novel of singular beauty and so vivid a grace it inspires strange elation as well as pity for the lost.
And the lost are a brutalised Tasmanian tribe rounded up like cattle. The history of the slaughter is documented as it is the work of George Augustus Robinson, one time London “carpenter cum preacher” turned colonial official who was entrusted with the Crown’s dirty work, that of removing the remaining Aboriginal people from Tasmania. Most of them had already been butchered.
Richard Flanagan, first published in The Monthly
21.08.09 9:00 am
Tasmanians will be condemned to endure the final humiliation: bearing dumb witness to the great lie that delivers wealth to a handful elsewhere, poverty to many of them, and death to their future as the last of these extraordinary places is sacrificed to the woodchippers greed. Beautiful places, holy places, lost not only to them, but to the world, forever.
Today
• Travels around Tasmania with some latte sippers • Bobby-z ... and the Miners of Potosi • MIS growers felled again • Ancanthe ... all that will be lost • Writers, artists, journalists ... how to foment a (peaceful) revolution
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