The "Labor" Party
By HAGThis is going to be one of the most fascinating state Labor conferences in years. Shame the public's not invited to the really interesting bits.
Hag's got a long memory of state Labor conferences ... she was at the Launceston conference in the early 70s at which Electric Eric finally got his marching orders. Hag would have remembered more but unfortunately she was all tangled up in the beer lines which snaked from the barrel which always stood sentry in those far-off days at the entrance to every conference...
How times have changed ...
Now state Labor meets as the least Labor Party in Hag's long and unreliable memory.
This Labor Party is more like a a bizarre reincarnation of the British Conservative Party ... firmly shackled in lock-step to the Establishment.
You may recall - as the Grim Reaper stomped the UK countryside in the 90s - a brave British Minister of the Crown (the Hon. Gummer wasn’t it?) stepped forward and eat a big slice of beef, then fed it to his child ... to show his defiance of Mad Cow Disease which was to kill and stalk dozens of Britons and denude the British landscape of almost all its cattle and sheep.
And, then incredibly, we had Minister Steve Kons march bravely to the front of Parliament House and declare that he would happily drink the water contaminated with atrazine from a property oversprayed by a chopper contracted to Gunns Ltd.
Then he did, happily posing for a photo.
Bizarre.
But, it seems, this Labor government will go to any lengths to demonstrate its paradoxical and very specific allegiances.
Particularly to its rich and powerful mates at the Big End of Town.
Which inevitably leads to Gunns Ltd … and the just announced plans for a pulp mill … which Premier Lennon describes as World’s Best Practice.
World’s Best Practice … do you believe a politician?
As the bruvvers troop to Launceston - where leader Paul must feel particularly at home - Hag wants to ask them a few questions, with the help of a few stories which have run on this admirable website (why thank you, Hag: TT):
1. Is this Tasmania's most care-less government?
Remember Brenda (1997)... aerial spraying ...
And,
Stop the spraying ...
And, as a late addition, a little observation from Crikey’s Sealed Section (Oct 27):
The norm in Tasmania shocks elsewhere An exasperated ethicist from Tasmania writes: Breathtaking defiance of ethical norms, such as with Entally House, is not news in Tasmania. The Mercury last week carried the announcement of the European Union banning the endocrine-disrupting and carcinogenic herbicides Atrazine and Simazine.
No such problems in Tassie, where, in the same article, the Environment Minister Steve Kons dismissed as a "scare campaign" the public alarm over the aerial spraying of these chemicals in virtually all Tasmanian municipal water catchments by Forestry Tasmania.
The dauntless Lennon government braves, on behalf of its citizens, a water-borne Atrazine concentrations of 20 parts per billion, 200 times the levels permitted in the EU before it was banned altogether. Admittedly, it doesn't actually test for them without evidence that they are already there. It has also granted to Gunns Ltd the intellectual property rights on water sample test results from its operations. Gunns claim that no chemical has been detected, ever.
A 1994 Inland Fisheries report on these chemicals in water found levels of Atrazine in streams in and around plantations at levels well above the generous ceiling, in one instance at more than 2,500 times this limit. The spraying would have trebled since then.
Same goes for air pollution, where the lingering haze from annually burning 15-20 million tonnes of logging slash and craftwood trees is not measured at all. The Tasmanian government somehow does not possess the $29,000 portable air particulate meter that could measure this pollution, despite strong evidence of its role in asthma, and other respiratory ailments.
Tasmania is not corrupt in the conventional sense. It is just that the concept has supplanted the norm of integrity.
2. Is it Tasmania's most nepotistic government?
The latest prime example of jobs for the boys is the appointment of
David Crean to head up the Hydro. The much lauded former treasurer is
just the latest in a long line of Labor mates elevated to positions of
power and influence. The Libs reckon
there are approaching 70 Labor mates with their shiny bottoms occupying
the plush armchairs of executive power, a figure that's probably not far
off the mark.
What the Libs reckon
Hag is too polite to mention another job for a fine Labor boy, one R. Butler ...
But speaking of the venerable Dr Crean ... reminds Hag that it was on the watch of the good doctor that that astonishing deal with Federal Hotels was signed off ... leading to Question No...
3. Has there ever been a Labor government so firmly snuggled up to the Big end of Town?
In case you've forgotten here's a link primer:
Such desperate slur tactics
Hag would not be so impolite as to mention Paul and Labor's special-buddy relationship with Gunns Ltd further celebrated with that nice Entally House agreement (foreshadowed incidentally months ago by a prescient tasmaniantimes writer who now escapes Hag's befuddled brain):
Another grubby Gunns deal, Crikey
And although it's been done to death Hag still can't quite believe the sight of a Labor Premier and unionists snuggling up to Little Johnnie and all but calling on all Tasmanians to vote Liberal, presumably to protect The Good Name of Tasmania ...
How dumb (or Machiavellian) can you be ... those poor manipulated workers - whose jobs will probably soon be machanised out of existence (or the trees will have been shipped off to Korea) - cheering for a Liberal forest policy which was all smoke and mirrors while an $800m chance at re-examination was summarily dismissed. Incredible (or instructive).
4. Is it Tasmania's most thuggish government?
Well you can't get much more thuggish than to invite one of the nation's most famous writers to leave,
simply for disagreeing with One (Toe the Line or you don't work in Tasmania):
Hang Him Paul
And,
The Lennon attack ... what it means
Then there was the Lennon boys’ demolition of new MLC Kerry for daring to
question the wisdom of the ferry deals (and Hag thought we lived in a democracy (stilly Hag)):
When a government starts to stifle debate by attacking those who ask questions, it is
the first sign of a government starting to lose the plot
5. Is it Tasmania's most spun-government? (with its army of embedded and Media Office spinners).
Well probably, intimates respected columnist Wayne Crawford ....
Crawford spins the dice
6.Is it Tasmania's most redneck government?
Dig it up, chop it down, spray it, poison it, Say no more. It also spreads its kindly ear to fellow travellers only ... there would be no public land use examination for
Friends of Blue Tier,
A cry from the heart ... the Blue Tier
but
Friends of Hunter Island, well that's another matter.
Which reminds Hag of the Taj Mahal as the Libs have so unkindly dubbed it; $20-$30 million to be spent on a combined racing, greyhounds, pacing complex at Elwick - announced in the Heart of Gold (!) budget.
Why is this happening, you ask. Well Paul loves racing and he's great mates with Michael. But no complex anywhere in Australia that has combined all three or two codes has ever properly worked, according to eminent observers such as that wondrous encyclopedia of all things racing, David Lonergan. For an example of failed marriages look no further than Moonee Valley where harness racing is agitating to be shot of the marriage to the gallops. So, why at Elwick?
7. Is it Tasmania's most Big-End-of-Town-Stuff-The-Workers-While-Appearing-to-be-their-Friend Government?
Well, you've only got to look at workers' comp haven't you ...
Mr Lennon has some explaining to do
Then there’s,
Working class traitors
And as Hag signs off … amid all the spun-glory of the great
Tasmanian resurgence comes this dose of reality…
Tassie in worst rating
There are many more questions but Hag can't go on ... she's going off to vomit ... and it's not the beer....
AND,
The pulp mill plan:
What the Libs reckon
What the Greens are about to reckon
RAPID RESPONSE EMAIL: What do you think?
If you bounce,
tuffinlindsay@hotmail.com
Thursday, October 27, 2004