Punishing TasmaniaBy RODNEY CROOMETasmania has a big voice for a tiny population Judith Brett (Age, October 6th) complains that Tasmania is the most "represented" state in the federation, that this allows it to defy the majority of Australians too often, particularly on environmental issues, and that "a few mild threats" about reducing the island's national representation should be "directed Tasmania's way to make it a little more reasonable in its consideration of the environmental concerns of the majority of Australians". There are several responses to this unreflective, arrogant and enraging example of unashamed Tassie-bashing. First, existing levels of state representation are part of the federal compact. Change them to conform more closely with population if you wish but at least be honest enough to admit that this means an end to federalism and the birth of a unitary state. I suspect this is what Brett is getting at because it's been the wrong-headed agenda of too many Australian progressives for decades. If I'm incorrect and Brett is a supporter of the federal principle then she needs to look to the US, Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Russia, Germany and a host of other federations where tiny internal jurisdictions co-exist in relative harmony with their much larger brethren. I concede that the disparity between Tasmania, the ACT and the NT is a problem, but that problem is caused by the second class status of Australia's territories, not federalism. The next response is that Tasmania has led the country in environmental protection for years, both at a state and national level. If Tasmania did not have its current level of federal representation, Greens leader Bob Brown, may not have been the first Green elected to Federal Parliament in 1996. The chances of Tasmania being the only state with two Green Senators thanks to the likely election of Christine Milne would also be greatly reduced. Before anyone complains about Tasmania holding the country to ransom remember that the environmental legislators and activists Australians admire are mostly Tasmanians. This brings us to the third response. The percentage of Tasmanians who support an end to old growth logging is at least as great, and possibly greater, in Tasmania than in the country as a whole. This is partly why we elect so many Green MPs to state and national parliaments. The snag in ending old growth logging is not Tasmania's federal representation but its state government. The reason this government is not responding to majority opinion is that it is beholden to big business (and to small numbers of loggers whose influence is heightened by the extremely democratic Tasmanian Hare Clarke voting system). How "threatening" Tasmania with a reduced status in the federation is supposed to change a state government's policy is not explained. But far worse than the clumsiness of this idea is the dangerous precedent it sets of punishing jurisdictions which don't conform. A majority of Australians don't support same sex marriage. Should Tasmania also be punished for introducing for what many people see as a marriage-like registration scheme for same sex couples? So why did Brett ignore all these facts and implications and decide to allocate blame to an entire society? Is it simply intellectual laziness to say all Tasmanians should be made suffer for the crimes of a few, or is there something more sinister happening here? The key to understanding Brett's agenda is in my word "punish". I've seen all this kind of thing before, particularly ten years ago when many continentals were embarrassed by the UN decision against Tasmania's anti-gay laws and took their anger out on the entire state. "Tasmania needs to be punished" was the cry I heard too often then. What this Tassie-bashing mentality required was a backward, failed, Tasmania upon which to pin blame. During the gay law reform debate the national media created this false image by only broadcasting images of hateful anti-gay rallies, not their larger pro-gay equivalents. Brett is doing the same today; trying to re-invent a mythical loser-land with rhetorical questions like "how far does Tasmania's population have to fall before this (federal representation) is revisited?" What she ignores is that the Tasmanian population is rising faster now than most other states. But facts like this are irrelevant because what people like Brett really need is a scapegoat, a convenient way to ignore Australia's real environmental and social problems by blaming everything on a distant, relatively unknown and therefore easily manufactured people, those stupid, benighted Tasmanians. Punish Tasmania and the country will be redeemed of all its sins. It's a psychological trick that's simple, easy and entirely corrupt. It allows Australia's and Tasmania's elites to go on fooling ordinary people with claims that the problem is Hobart or Canberra but never them. It disempowers the very people who most need to feel more in control of their own destiny, ordinary Tasmanians. It leads the nation down the dangerous path of believing that everything wrong with it blows in on brisk southerly winds. Block that wind and the nation can be warm, sunny and happy again. How people like Judith Brett get to be politics academics is amazing. How they get their reprehensible views published in the Age is beyond me. What I do know is that opinions like hers, expressed regularly over decades without shame or regret, drive me ever further from feeling that I share anything with continentals ... beyond a passport, a tax form and the coins in my pocket.
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RAPID RESPONSE EMAIL: What do you think? Saturday, October 23, 2004 |