Issue No.10 July 2003


Please, let her stay ...


An unfolding human tragedy can be averted with a simple YES from the Minister for Immigration Philip Ruddock ...
Send your message:
RUTH CRUZ
Please, let her stay

http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/contact/index.htm

PLUS: What Ruth would face on the streets of El Salvador:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,837018,00.html

Earlier refugee-related articles:
From Nothing to Zero
An evening in hell
Dear Mr Costello ...
Human rights in flames ...

Bacon-Lennon Labor and the big, big end of town ...
An expert queries that deal THE MERCURY

Rock of ages...
This is the rock of Tasmanians. It’s the rock we get homesick for – the icon that has put the State on the “natural landscape” map. A big read TANIA ASHWORTH

If you're in Melbourne ...
If, perchance, you are going to be in Melbourne between now and August 2, I urge you to go to the Melbourne Theatre Company's production of 'The Visit', starring the incomparable Zoe Caldwell ... MARGARETTA POS

The forestry wars ...
Tasmania's never-ending forestry wars have moved to the home of the world's tallest flowering plants. Here's the Mercury report ...
Thousands in Styx stand
PLUS:
What the world thinks
"Here lies the paradox of Tasmania, which markets itself as the clean, green land but appears hellbent on destroying its most precious natural resources..." and the forestry industry replies...
PLUS:
Letters

Donnybrook at Dynnyrne ...
My Irish blood is up and I’m joining in, donning the gloves in the hope of seeing some justice achieved for those Dynnyrne people hit night after night by the sounds of truck traffic, notably the log carters. THE OLD BEAR

The Agora ...
Incredible as it may seem at a time when Tasmania is approaching its bicentennial, all of these heritage sites are currently under threat ... International interest in these French sites is at an all time high. Real tourist potential lies in their preservation ... those LOG TRUCKS ... and HELP! LETTERS

Journalism ... fourth estate of crisis?
We have to convince news organisations that there is more to journalism than just profits and share price. Slick accountancy and cost-cutting are not going to win an editor or a proprietor a place in the history books. PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY (Required reading)

Feeding on the world...
There is an obscene and naive arrogance in the idea that GM crops will "feed the world", or that the poor need to be fed by us ... GYORGY SCRINIS.

Keep on truckin' ...
You pick up some strange mates shambling around the Pale Ale fountains of Tasmania. Hag last night encountered a bellicose creature who wanted only to be known as The Roving Eye (!?) and who is obsessed with trucks. Mind you Hag doesn't blame him ... recently in one stagger from the Town Hall to the Southern Outlet turnoff in Macquarie St Hag counted 17 (seventeen) fully-laden sustainable old-growth log trucks (tho' Hag is an unreliable drunk and may have been seeing double (B-doubles)) ... THE HAG

Human rights in flames ...
What is noteworthy here among the customary discrediting of the refugee in question by a beleaguered minister is that he does not name the person who has died. Shahraz Kiane is simply "the man who set himself alight". And by imputation the man responsible for "extreme threats" and "duress". Perhaps the Minister is afraid of acknowledging that person's humanity. PDF file. GERARD GOGGIN, CHRISTOPHER NEWELL
From Nothing to Zero
An evening in hell

Tasmania Together? ...
Rather than a step forward in democracy, the process seeks to remove the democratic rights of people, especially those who are disadvantaged. The Tasmania Together social futures plan is critically examined ... PDF file. CHRISTOPHER NEWELL, ROBIN WILKINSON

Bring 'Em On ... ?
... This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance. STAN GOFF

Oh, ruck-it...
It’s been a long time between drinks for Tassie rugger fans when it comes to international rugby ... LOOSE-HEAD LARRY.

A mere truffle ...
It was a cold winter's night in Grove ... and ... THE PLATE

Still wrong, Mr Premier ...
I have not seen an outcry about this. Shouldn’t the Oppositions, both the Liberals and the Greens, be doing something, given that the Premier was leading both of them astray during this debate? ... THE OLD BEAR

Dear Mr Costello ...
It is our view that nothing could demonstrate Australia's tolerance more clearly than a belated birthday present for Vida: her release from detention. CHRIS GODDARD and MAX LIDDELL

Part-time life ...
“It’s like you could be working for 2 months and then all of a sudden there’s no work. It’s like what do you do? Every bit of money you saved all of a sudden goes ..." KELLY MADDEN

Another major world newspaper reports on Tasmania...
"Here lies the paradox of Tasmania, which markets itself as the clean, green land but appears hellbent on destroying its most precious natural resources..."
Letters
And the forestry industry replies...

The making of Michael Tate ...
... “when all that is taken away, you fall into a deep hole – Gareth Evans called it Relevancy Deficiency Syndrome. I know what that means.” DAMIAN McIVER

Staying virgin ...
Hag's mate The Old Bear has a message for the Premier ... THE OLD BEAR

Eating England ...
It's mid-winter ... get a little Pommie tucker inya ... ELAINE REEVES

Overland ... capping is not the answer ...
Capping hiker numbers on the Overland Track is not the answer... (or is it? Letters) TAYLOR BILDSTEIN

Here we go again
It is hard to grasp how a majority of Government Ministers, committed personally and publicly to a principled course of action, can be over-ridden. But that is exactly what happened. The implications for political decision-making in Tasmania are dire. Our future is in the hands of a small number of men whose motives and machinations are completely hidden from public scrutiny. The collegiality of Cabinet, admittedly often a dream but nonetheless important for less irrational policy-making, has dissolved in a mess of deals and threats. Of course this is only one implication of the Bacon Government's adoption compromise ... RODNEY CROOME Letters

Eric Abetz and the Franklin ...
...Abetz went on: He and a friend had recently rafted the Franklin and the beauty revealed in the documentary "was only beaten by the actual experience." By MARGARETTA POS

LINKS ...
Cross-media ownership: what Paul Keating reckons ...
AND Phillip Knightley on the death of investigative reporting.
AND Martin Flanagan on reportage.
AND Wokka Hadfield takes us to the rugby... LINKS

Wrong, it was a failure of the Greens...
This was the great failure of 1998 - the Greens' inability to learn from the blunders of the 1989-91 Labor-Green Accord and hung Parliaments ... Barry Prismall. LETTERS

Remembering Franklin ... ...
The Midwinter Festival has been marvellous ... but a recent polar event at the other end of the globe appears mostly to have escaped attention ... yet it was one which also had significant Tasmanian historical linkage. THE OLD BEAR

Reggie's bikini and the devil ...
From his pulpit Peter Joyce ponders Reggie's little black bikini, footy, intellectual snobbery and supping with the devil... PETER JOYCE

Monty, Monty ... wherefore art thou, Monty? ...
A reader's desperate plea... LETTERS

Quite right, Mr Premier ...
Mr JIM BACON - If I were you I would just check everything I said before I said it out loud, after your experience the last few days. Not too good to shoot from the lip ... Hansard, Thursday, March 13. Quite right, Mr Premier, one should check everything before saying it out loud ... HAG

Poetry, glorious poetry ...
CHRISTIANE BOSTOCK's de-wogged poem. STEPHEN OLIVER and war... STEPHEN EDGAR on Gwen Harwood, ANNE KELLAS on war, TIM THORNE reviews James Charlton and Andrew Sant

US LIBERATION GOING TO PLAN ...
Report from the Axis Campaign Headquarters, Tehran, 8 March, 2003. RICHARD UPTON

Change is urgently needed...
Change is urgently needed if Tasmania is to withstand the often subtle pressures chipping away at what were once fiercely defended democratic processes ... BRIAN AUSTEN

We expect more from the Commonwealth...
Tasmania’s job-seekers are being kept in the dark about key changes to the Commonwealth Government’s Job Network, according to the State’s peak welfare body. By MARK PEGG

That letter...
The Examiner splashed with it (Page 1), The Mercury put it on Page 13, the Advocate Page 37 (or thereabouts, somewhere near births and deaths) ... the letter on Forestry Tasmania finances which has caused not a little angst in Government circles. Deputy Premier Paul Lennon has confirmed that the letter - which appears undated - was written in May this year. THE POSTMASTER

The Agora ...
Played for suckers ... Does size matter? LETTERS

Media, Hare-Clark ... and does size matter...?
Has Tasmania - and Tasmanian media - suffered from a smaller House ...? MICHAEL LESTER

From Nothing to Zero
How can we, in a time of great prosperity, take a tiny fragment of damaged humanity and drive them to the point that they need to remind us that they, too, are humans? ... a group so vilified, so demonised by the forces of government, that their humanity disappears from the moral equation. JULIAN BURNSIDE

Rescuing Hare-Clark
How Tasmania’s media has suffered from a smaller House ... RUSSELL KELLY
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