Issue No.22 July 2004
How great was the much lauded Tasmanian Labor triumvirate of Jim Bacon, Paul Lennon and David Crean and for what will history remember them? MARK TEMBY
On Participatory Democracy
In the same way that a finch on a summer's day with no natural enemy will sing to its heart's content - but in the presence of a goshawk will mute its appreciation of life - so too a full-throated and confident disquiet represents an optimistic democracy ... GWYNN MacCARRICK
What more could you ask for
Roaming around the eateries of Hobart and delivering an occasional salivation report is ... AGATHA ARTICHOKE
Enemy at the gates
I note that Herr has not advised us of the legislation that Mr Butler has infringed by modernizing the office and employing a professional executive assistant skilled in the management of the role of the figurehead of a state of a federation ... phill PARSONS
At least under Jim there was a charming personality ...
... that forced you to drop your guard. I think he had the ability to make a weak team look better than it really was ... LETTERS ... Jim Williamson, R.D. Roos, Michael Daly, Gordon Craven, Andrew Davison, Amelia Stockhouse etc, etc, etc
The horror of foxes
Over the years I have visited many places on the mainland to learn about foxes. Be assured, these beautiful animals are ‘food-hoovers’, their omnivorous habits enabling them to reach unbelievable densities. Without doubt, Tasmania has the potential to hold 300,000 foxes, making cats a mere sideshow ... NICK MOONEY
Mr Lennon has some explaining to do (2)
Investigative journalists working for the Australian Financial Review and the ABC do not seem to have had much luck in getting any answers except stalling tactics and silence from Forestry Tasmania and the Labor Government. I would like to see Minister Bryan Green smirk his way around this one while Paul Lennon contemplates exactly who to threaten ... EDDIE STORACE
Mr Lennon has some explaining to do (1)
The government had absolutely no justification for its (workers' comp) changes in the year 2000 ... What Mr Lennon said on 23rd November 2000 clearly did not correlate with the figures which have now been provided by Trowbridge Deloittes. If Mr Lennon knew about those figures in 2000 then he has some explaining to do. Mr Lennon should now come clean with the Tasmanian people. Did he know about the decrease in the Risk Premium from 1994 to June 2000 when he made the speech in November 2000? If he didn’t know, why didn’t he know? Why does he still continue to refuse to release the actuarial report which was given to him by Bendzulla Actuarial during 2000. Does that report contain the same information that is now contained in the Trowbridge Deloitte report? BRIAN HILLIARD
Is this what the 'New Tasmania' has to offer
The sledge-hammer-method, following the motto 'attack is the best defence,' instead of debating with a sense of proportion and integrity, seems now to have entered on stage openly and thus attack seems to have become indeed the only defence there is. I hope still, to be proven wrong in this regard. But so far, I must say, the latest example of public bullying by the Premier of the State of Tasmania, Mr. Lennon would, in my home country, lead to the immediate disappearance from the public arena for such a politician. It is so completely out of proportion and makes an international observer simply wonder: what's next? DAGMAR NORDBERG
The Lennon attack ... what it means
... Of course, the Bacon/Lennon intolerance of dissent stands within a long tradition of godfatherist state ALP politics ... PETE HAY
Just plain silly
... Little as this Government wants to know it, there are far too many Tasmanians for whom the "new" Tasmania means nothing more than a further push into poverty, less likelihood of finding a decent house to rent (or of ever owning their own home), less chance of getting their dental and medical needs seen to, less hope of access to decent aged care or help with mental health issues and less chance of meeting the needs of our young people ... YULIA ONSMAN
The real New Tasmania
... The sorry situation is change has to be forced when the almighty dollar is the common denominator. What is hard for people like Amelia and Kev to deal with is that changing the way in which we do almost everything entails making a lot of noise but it is equally important as those who do their bit quietly in the lavatory with the equivalent of sand paper for bog roll and a brick in the cistern (a poor man's half flush) ... EDDIE STORACE
Lennon v Flanagan - Round 1
... Our state’s political system is supposedly based on the model of liberal democracy, the last time I checked, dissent is not just permitted, but should be encouraged in order for the greater good to arise through public debate. But Mr Lennon and his party are not interested in the greater good of the majority of the public. As long as those with the big money are satisfied, so is the Tasmanian Labor government … MIKE KIDD
The good mate
Mr. Bacon may have been "a good mate" to his friends, for all I know, but that does not absolve him from history's desultory interrogation. The frenzy of eulogising in the local press was more appropriate to a despot than a democratically-elected leader. We all expected Mr. Lennon to be fulsome in his praise of an old mate, but to hear E.G. Whitlam's comments suggest that he was either having a senior moment or, more likely, was characteristically tongue-in-cheek ... DAVID HALSE ROGERS, LETTERS
Dissent surviving (1)
The shuffling line of public dental patients waiting outrageously long periods for the most basic dental care can now speak of their anger at Labor’s 20 million dollars of corporate welfare for the racing industry at the last state budget, not to mention the millions in taxpayer equity lost by Forestry Tasmania, as it hands over our forests to the woodchip cartels ... NEIL CREMASCO
Dissent surviving (2)
Bacon allowed dissenting opinions, such as Flanagan's, to be expressed ... KEVIN BONHAM
Is it the black and white replacement religion zealous dogma ..?
... call me a cynic, call me misguided, foolish, dead-wrong or an idiot, call me a sadistic chicken molester for all I care – but never, never call me a Green. I have more of a conscience than that ... AMELIA STOCKHOUSE
Hang him, Paul
It must be unprecedented ... at least in recent Australian history. The Premier of a State effectively invites its most famous award-winning writer - a Rhodes Scholar with an enviable world reputation, the best ambassador a State could have - to leave ... LINDSAY TUFFIN
The Emperor's New Clothes
Bacon's legacy was to hand Tasmania's economy and future direction over to a handful of big businesses with too much influence, too much power and too little concern for ordinary Tasmanians ...
Under Bacon, forests disappeared, rivers began drying up, hundreds of thousands of protected native animals were killed with 1080, drinking water catchments poisoned, and Gunns shares increased in value over 700% ... RICHARD FLANAGAN
The dangerous cocktail
The volunteer firefighter who attended was also exposed and actually touched and sniffed the chemical cocktail to determine that it was not flammable fuel. He has been rewarded with the anonymous suggestion that a breach in his farm dam caused the oyster contamination ... JASON LOVELL
Misuse and abuse ... Tassie's other destiny
Bill is correct, just a little understated. The regulatory supervision regime is toothless in the face of a government mesmerized by the idea of jobs, jobs, jobs. Where are they, after 7 years of the 20 year RFA ... they have failed to eventuate in the forest industries ... When is this forest-based jobs cargo due, the cultists are edgy with an election coming up ... Any social and economic benefits that were promised must have gone into a Gay circle leaving the community bearing the cost; roads, water yield, biodiversity loss, tourism experience degraded, community divided, jobs exported, profit outflow. Government faces a looming crisis similar to hospital or school closures ... phill PARSONS
The selling-out of Tasmania ...
Bacon's legacy was to hand Tasmania's economy and future direction over to a handful of big businesses with too much influence, too much power and too little concern for ordinary Tasmanians ... RICHARD FLANAGAN
Butler: the criticism is misconceived...
get the debate off the man and onto the position ... Richard Butler is a man with experience, understanding and an ability to communicate both ... Bacon may have been able to cope with the liberalising zeal and harness the very real standing our Governor has into a benefit for the state. Unfortunately our new Premier has reacted in a manner which has condemned an international mover and shaker into a Dame Edna opening fetes ... JAMES CROTTY
Such desperate slur tactics ...
The Government handover of $200 to 300 million of taxpayer dollars to four wealthy individuals in this context cannot be defended by name calling ... If the Government disputes De Vries' and Owen’s analyses it should do so with the figures of its own, or renegotiate this disgraceful deal and, in the process, end the (unmonitored, unevaluated) system of industry self-regulation of patron care, set a socially and economically responsible cap based on social research, not Federal’s posturing, and get the best possible market price for these to invest in sorely needed health services ... JAMES BOYCE
Plus: Letters
Hag's been scooped ...
Hag regrets ... HAG
Dear Crikey ...
Did John De Vries declare himself the partner of well known anti-gambling activist Liz De Vries and former TasCoss head in his column in the totally unreliable TasmanianTimes rag. This outfit's lifes (sic) work is to attack anything the Tasmanian government does ...
Lastly, I notice that great sacred cow the "Precautionary Principle" being given its usual run around the yard. Simplistic invocations of this principle are so unhelpful to public debate ...
The definition that Dr Apiolaza has given, that "we should stop doing anything that carries a risk attached" is clearly not an acceptable definition and his rebuttal of the principle on that basis is meaningless ...
Oysters, like a canary in a mine, are great filters of their environment ...
There certainly is "fear, uncertainty and doubt" when I drink a glass of Tasmanian water, which I am sure are feelings shared by many others in the community, whether they be residents or visitors ... LETTERS
A Bill of Rights ... debate: Bring it on
The debate should it arise (and I hope it does) will have to run the gauntlet of many interest groups wishing to have their peace of mind cemented in ... EDDIE STORACE
Dear Forestry Tasmania ...
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt ...
Time, Paul, to apply the precautionary principle like a good lad and abstain from poisoning to mass extinction ... BRENDA ROSSER, LUIS APIOLAZA, phill PARSONS ... LETTERS
Down on home
To suggest as Conrad does that his hated Tasmania suddenly and inexplicably dropped dead to be replaced by an entirely new one that sprang from nowhere is to ignore the links between Old and New Tasmania, and the possibility that Tasmania, like every human concept, can be many things at once. Conrad's cardboard cut-out history presents the Tasmanian experience as a parody of itself. Worse, it elevates Tasmania to a ridiculous mystical status beyond human understanding and agency. By continuing to belittle Tasmania's past, Conrad has made any substantially different present unbelievable. As for the future, any future, that becomes inconceivable and unachievable ... RODNEY CROOME
How much the mates' pokies deal is costing Tasmanian taxpayers
... if a market price had been sought for the public licence to operate the number of poker machines allowed under the current deed a price of $200 to $300 million could reasonably have been expected to have been achieved by the Government. As Federal Hotels is receiving the licence for free, $200 to $300 million is being transferred under the current Deed from the Government to Federal Hotels. ... JOHN De VRIES
Gay, Tasmanian and proud of both
My problem isn't with the presenters themselves not talking about their homosexuality. They're here because of their achievements not their sexual orientation. My problem is with the fact that no-one else is willing to talk about it, let alone celebrate it ... RODNEY CROOME
Rene switched off
... On the responsible side are the Greens, notably MHAs Nick McKim and Kim Booth. On the other hand, I have often wondered at the attitude of the Opposition Liberals Leader Rene Hidding. I go to Hansard to show what I mean ... THE ROVING EYE
A cry from the heart ... my environmental depression
... It is a deliberate, consistent, unchecked attack on the health and wellbeing of Tasmanians by governent and industry and they continue to infect us with disease which kills the body, mind and spirit of the people and the natural world ... OPINION, Victoria Woollcott
SPRAYED ... Environmental Problems Georges Bay, Tasmania
The aerial spraying (using helicopters) of plantation timbers appears to be responsible for large-scale losses of commercial oyster following heavy rainfall events. The normal environmental protection methods do not appear to be in place and no policing of the State’s own Forestry Code of Practice appears to be occurring. More disturbingly, the problems associated with oysters also correlate with tumours and mortality in Tasmanian Devils. Further there appears to be a risk to human health as contamination of local drinking water supplies is also possible ...
The Tasmanian issue appears to be a symptom of a general breakdown in environmental protection and human health protection processes at every level of government ... Dr MARCUS SCAMMELL
The Fox Report
... Police again investigated (including phone tapping) and came up with no evidence! In the meantime there had been more sightings of foxes than Elvis at an Elvis convention ... I would suggest the State Labor Government jumped on a giant roller coaster and doesn’t know how to get off ... IAN C. RIST
We cannot let it happen here ...
I am a child of the infamous Bjelke Petersen era, grew up in south-east Queensland where under his authoritarian government’s corrupted eye, the white shoe brigade was spawned and flourished. They unleashed concrete cancer on sandy white expanses of a tropical paradise now lost forever. Every time I go home, it hurts the heart to behold the scars. And it continues to spread. From Tweed Heads to Coolum, the threat to Tasmania is manifest. We cannot let it happen here ...
We are still not clear why the legal guardian of our pristine coastline - the Lennon Government - would want to be associated with a type of development which is banned in NSW and on the nose in Queensland, Victoria and WA ...
Despite a number of requests to the Premier for a meeting, we – unlike Walker and its emissaries – have not been invited up to the eleventh floor ...
We shall fight them on the mudflats if it comes to it. We shall stand between the bulldozers and the birds. We are saying to Lang Walker, Graham Richardson, Kevin Hunt, Paul Lennon, Judy Jackson and Lara Giddings that we shall not surrender Ralphs Bay ... CASSY O'CONNOR
The real cost of log trucks
Whichever way you look at it, Tasmanians are being robbed blind by the current regime that cares not for the community it terrifies and divides. Nobody asked me to support log trucks via my taxes, but that is exactly what happens in this state. On a massive scale ... JASON LOVELL
A Bill of Rights for Tasmania
I believe a Bill of Rights both Federal and State, is essential as a means of promoting democratic freedoms, collectively in terms of social justice issues and individually in terms of personal rights and freedoms. Without such a charter there is insufficient entrenched protection for the basic civil liberties and human rights of citizens from the will of the government of the day ... YULIA ONSMAN
Where have the white goshawks gone?
Have these daily visitors become another victim of 1080 poisoning, specifically that at a new plantation at Weetah ... LETTERS
I just want to get a bloody full-time job - here - in Tasmania
However when I have been searching for full-time graduate type employment (as I have been this year) I am stymied at every turn ... GEOFF ROLLINS
Not Bill's peak achievement
I previously wrote of a literary miscue by ex-US President Bill Clinton when he managed to get an ancient Greek saying wrong during a book-promoting television interview with the BBC ... ALFIE BETS
When the Job is Done: A Cautionary Tale of Two Dubyas
... Generally it is good advice "to finish what you start" but sometimes this is trumped by the even better advice "to cut your losses" ... RICHARD HERR
Stream of Consciousness ... unarmed, unorganised, mostly penniless, men, women and children a long way from family and traumatised by war ...
... each and every liberal politician has a say in ending the detention of children. They don't have to lay in front of gates. They need only raise their hand when the vote is taken. It is that blindingly simple. Now tell me why they can't do it ... JAMES CROTTY
Stream of Consciousness ... Why I left Tasmania
... These are the reasons why young people leave Tasmania. The dreadful attitudes shown in Tasmania to anyone who is an achiever and is young and ambitious are just appalling ... GREG PRICE
Stream of Consciousness ... The coarsening of Australia
... Here is the man who wants it to be fairer, yet allows an Australian to be rushed, incognito, to Egypt and, allegedly, tortured. There is a message here John. When you make money the focus of life ... phill PARSONS
Stream of Consciousness ... how I reacted to a TCA leaflet
I wrote this article because this morning I choked on my breakfast ... MOSES ITEN
The politics of character
... Inside the politics of dirt ... GREG BARNS
James Boyce replies to Peter Joyce
... in a small community with so many low income people, we can not afford multi-million dollar publicly-funded racecourses, subsidies to AFL clubs to play Tasmanian games, an ever-growing media unit when Eric Reece got by with one officer, a rapidly expanding Senior Executive Service and upper management including bosses that can get paid more than the Prime Minister, new sporting stadiums in the north and south, expensive refurbishment of government offices, an ever growing proliferation of ministerial advisers doing the job once done by a (smaller) public service, large pools of unallocated monies in ‘infrastructure’ funds, the purchase and associated promotion of an expensive ferry in an untested market and the risking of public money in Basslink ...
In David Crean’s last Budget, there was a positive indication that the second term might be different, but Lennon’s recent ‘heart of gold’ returned to accelerated debt repayment and delayed social spending despite there being even less justification, and ever greater costs, associated with this ...
... all talk of a ‘new Tasmania’ will ring hollow for me. The question we should all be asking is ‘new’ for who? ... JAMES BOYCE
A response to ... Debt reduction and the poor in the "New Tasmania"
... Please, don’t just be another academic and say spend more – put some real effort in and say where and how much and how you would pay for it. ... PETER JOYCE
Debt reduction and the poor in the "New Tasmania" ...
... Yet it has been the Bacon-Crean-Lennon obsession with accelerating the state’s long term debt reduction programme that has meant that, at the time when there was a historic opportunity to lay the foundation for a new Tasmania, the chance was, largely, squandered ...
There continue to be significantly more Tasmanians in poverty than any other state, and the services for a range of disadvantaged groups lag well behind acceptable minimums, and yet the Government’s response, while generally sympathetic to particular issues presented to them, has been limited and reactive.
Budget spending choices, not PR from the media unit or even genuine good will, are the true reflection of a government’s values and priorities ...
If there is to be a ‘new ‘ Tasmania for the 40% or so of Tasmanians who live on incomes around or below the Henderson Poverty Line, his aim should not be to fulfil the Bacon Government’s agenda, but to radically change it ... JAMES BOYCE
Saving Ralphs Bay history ...
The controversy over Ralphs Bay is not just about saving the coastline ... it's about saving significant Tasmanian history ... The proposed development at Ralphs Bay (if successful) will destroy not only a unique migratory bird habitat, but could also destroy a series of historical sites on the Neck and foreshore ... PETER MacFIE
Burning on the engine of its own growth ...
Shortsighted and thoughtless policies designed solely to cross an election hurdle ... phill PARSONS
My friend Jim ...
The energy of the leader fuels Government - and, sadly, it sometimes consumes them ...
There is no doubt that Jim hated criticism - who doesn't? But, the things that irked Jim most was to be accused of insincerity, to be distracted by trivia when there were bigger and more serious issues about, to have opponents attack something that was of obvious benefit to the State purely for percieved political gain, for people in high office to fail to do the decent and proper thing regardless of their personal belief and for anyone to attack his family and friends ... MICHAEL LESTER
Woe to you, plagiarists ...
... May you all be relegated to a scrolling newsbar on a long cancelled but oft-repeated late night reality TV program ... WARREN PERSO
No more bigots' island
It's a satisfying irony that Brits are now looking to Tasmania for guidance on how to make their laws as progressive and inclusive as possible ... RODNEY CROOME
A cry from the heart ... the Blue Tier
We are disappointed that the State Government made this decision without visiting the area or meeting face to face with the local community ... Five months later – after letters, emails and phone calls – we are still unable to meet with the Environment Minister to express our fears over the future of the water supply ... LESLEY NICKLASON
It's a disgrace ... it's mournful ... a (potential) long-term disaster ...
"It's a disgrace," Heffernan told me. "They could end clear-felling of old-growth forests tomorrow. And they should. They are over-committing Tasmania's forest resources in a way they will regret in a hundred years ... And in their haste to clear the timber they waste and burn and haven't even done any work on the impact on the water system. Places like Launceston are having a dramatic change in the stream pattern. It could be a long-term disaster ...
"In Tasmania, they burn everything that's there and 1080 [poison] them, it's just a mournful operation and the process of pushing down old-growth forests is a huge waste. They recover only about 10 per cent of the old growth as saw logs, the rest just goes to the chip mill." SENATOR BILL HEFFERNAN, Paul Sheehan, SMH, Links
Enough to drive you mad ...
The interviewer had touched on the matter of personal anger when Clinton made a startling remark : “The Greeks said once – ‘Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make angry’. ’’ ... It sparked a “surely not?” ... ALFIE BETS
Energetic to the last gasp...
Driven by ideology and greed, Bush's little mate, the man of steel, fails to see that the development of this equivalent of a new steel industry can give manufacturing, the workplace of his battler constituency and of the regional development his National Party partners desire, the kick starts they need ... phill PARSONS
Pren, National, wontok, kissim ear belong you, me belheavie long Ceasar ...
Premier Bacon may have had his own plan of transformation, unannounced, and distorted by deals on the achievable, we cannot know this now ... We are yet to see if the good Catholic who replaces a popular Premier is able to rise to the occasion or if the secret deals among mates ... GUBBA
Jim Bacon's funeral ... the uncomfortable message
The tragic refrain of Tasmanian and modern history is that freedom and tyranny are born at exactly the same moment, in the same place, in the same hearts. And that as high as one ascends the other eventually grows to strangle and destroy it ... RODNEY CROOME
Forgive me ... Goodbye leatherwood ...
I was wrong about Iraq ... the leatherwood industry goes up in smoke ... LINKS
Piffle, present and past ...
Our journalist hero, David Meredith, a tortured soul, is totally disillusioned by what he has to churn out for his editors and the rapacious maws of the printing press ... LEXIE KON
Don't miss these ...
Two great social justice events ... AN INVITATION
Vale Jim Bacon ...
Jim Bacon was the best Premier lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Tasmanians have ever had ... RODNEY CROOME
CRIKEY:
The Crikey view ...
A reality check ...
Whatever the reason for Garrett's choice this does not mean for one minute that some of us should smash collections of Midnight Oil albums or tear down Midnight Oil wonder walls ... EDDIE STORACE
I don't like columnists ...
The acerbic Mr Perso takes aim ... WARREN PERSO
How the world sees us ... Le Monde
Tasmania is reducing its giant eucalypts into woodchips ... A TRANSLATION
Saving Nemo's estuarine friends...
Putting aside my amazement that a designated Conservation Area can even be considered for handing over to private enterprise my major concern is for the Derwent Estuary as a recreational fishery. ... BRIAN ELDRIDGE
Bob and Peter ...
Is it just me, or has Bob Brown has been comprehensively out-manoeuvered since the arrival of Mark Latham? JASON LOVELL
Pokie Scandal II: A mates' deal costs more than money ...
This deal, and especially the process that led up to it, treated problem gamblers and their families with contempt. The Government did not even bother to find out how extensive problem gambling was before locking in something worse than the status quo for another generation ...
The removal of betting limits was the first major policy decision on poker machines by Mr Lennon when he became Minister for Gaming after the 1998 election. This harmful, unnecessary and grossly irresponsible action would never have been possible without the comfortable trifecta that had developed between industry, government and the Commission ...
... The Labor Party has thus ensured that it will be thirty years under which Tasmanians have been systematically locked out of our democratic right to have a say on this important public issue. Until 2023, their plan is to ensure that the "anti status quo" majority will be denied our democratic rights, while, in the name of "sovereign risk", the "rights" of one private company will be vigorously upheld. Even Mr Hidding, who has expressed his concerns about the new deal, says the Liberal Party will now do nothing about it because they are the "champions of sovereign risk" ... JAMES BOYCE
Hey big road spender ...
You don’t need to be Fast-Fingered Fred to tap out the figures that in Lennonland quite a bit of bread is being provided to get things through on the Glen Huon Road! A better outlet for lots of logs ... THE OLD BEAR
A salty tale ... can this really be true ...?
Hag stumbled across the most astonishing tale in a late evening trawl the other night ... and it concerns the Hydro ... THE HAG
Plus, ABC News links
The extravagant truth ...
"Anyway, the craziest thing happened.
"I asked him what his name was and he said 'Eric'.
"Whadya do Eric?
"'I'm the Premier of Tasmania.'
"Bullsh*t, you bloody liar ... RODNEY CROOME
The Great Earth Auction ...
The Latham-Garrett deal makes Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon look like a homeless shag, slumming it naked on a small rock ... JANE PURCELL
The Clearfell State ... or the Triumph of the Philistines ...
... due to a resurgence in my health, I commenced undertaking many of the great day walks in Tasmania. During that time I have become increasingly alarmed at the level of ‘clearfelling’ of native forests in areas adjacent to National Parks and in particular, adjacent to roadsides along the major tourist highway routes ...
This whole area is a gem. The local community is being deprived of a very fine asset at the hands of a bullying few ... GERRY DUKE
That pokies deal ... Crawford spins the dice ...
Tasmananian taxpayers seem to have lost out badly from the poker machine deal ... THE EMINENT COLUMNIST
That pokies deal ... Crikey picks up the dice ...
The most erudite and well written commentary to date on the long-running scandal has been penned by social service crusader James Boyce on the cheeky Tasmanian Times web site (every hack in the country should read this article - if for no other reason than to see how an articulate, well researched, well argued piece is written) ... CRIKEY
Pulp fiction ... so that's what it's all about ...
Corporate memories of defeat are always long and their pockets amazingly shallow, so we are to be offered the dumb solution, a kraft bleach pulpmill ...
Making dumb pulp isn’t the answer for the high value market as the requirements for paper in the developed world will include sustainability. So we are to supply the emerging giant of China, who won’t ask, at least for a little while ... pHILL PARSONS
Twin exhausts ...
... get rid of one of the multitude of ministerial minders and that pay packet would probably cover the cost ... THE ROVING EYE
A mates' deal: The cost of the Tasmanian Government’s special relationship with Federal Hotels
On Thursday, June 10, 2004, Mercury reporter Ellen Whinnett wrote: GREENS MHA Kim Booth has been accused of deliberately damaging the reputation of gaming giant Federal Hotels by using incorrect figures in a Budget estimate hearing. Premier Paul Lennon yesterday attacked Mr Booth, saying his suggestion that Federal would reap $3.1 billion after-tax profit from the 20-year pokies deal was false. Mr Booth was unrepentant, saying he would not back away from asking questions.
Booth pokies stand blast
On Monday, April 5, 2004, tasmaniantimes published this analysis:
The Parliamentary Accounts Committee Report makes painful reading. Look for yourself and see what democracy in this state has sunk to. If this is our elected representatives' idea of accountability, then something has gone horribly wrong. There is no research, no analysis, no judgment, and no scrutiny ...
However the Hansard record survives to shed significant light on the corrosion of public policy-making processes that resulted from the Government’s "special relationship" with a large corporation ...
The Tasmanian Government has pulled off the worst of both worlds, a low tax return and little regulation. None of us knows how much money has been lost, how many urgent social, health, educational issues could have been addressed if standard government tendering guidelines had been followed. Nor do any of us know how many human victims there have been from the proliferation of poker machines and how much harm could have been prevented with tough regulation, because the research has not been done ... JAMES BOYCE ... The full article
Aldermanic idiocy and developer greed ...
Pru should get out more. May I suggest a visit to Prague, Riga or Stockholm where she may come to understand something about scale and quality that make certain historic cities unique and universally appealing, as Hobart might have been had its masters not been hell-bent on pursuit of the chimera of "innovation". Would she describe these as toy towns? LEO SCHOFIELD, Letters
Blue Tier ... and the assault on democracy
Democracy is about maximizing the involvement of citizens with the decisions which will affect their future. Democracy is under threat because the major parties depend on huge donations from corporations in order to maintain their power base. This leads them to privilege the interests of the rich over those of ordinary citizens. This is exemplified in Tasmania by Gunns, the logging giant whose shareholders hold more sway than the combined voices of the local people who have to live with the damage to their natural heritage ... CHRIS HAAS
Two heads are better than one ...
Christine (Milne) is my third cousin and Judy (Jackson) my fourth. They are also related directly to each other as fourth cousins. What's more I'm related to them both through both of my parents ... RODNEY CROOME
Unsound on camera ...
... that sounds like a job for Bryan Green ... THE ROVING EYE
You can save the great wild forests of Tasmania, as 21 years ago Australians saved the Franklin River ... but in this election year you must act ...
Mark Latham is strong on platitudes and absent on detail. Both he and John Howard need to be compelled by public anger to stop swallowing the lie that this is about jobs and recognise it is their role to act against the unchecked greed of Gunns and the curious complicity of the Tasmanian government.
Latham and Howard have to be asked whose interest they represent: Australian people or the Gunns board? This is not about jobs versus trees. This about the people’s will versus corporate profit. It is about truth versus power.
The overwhelming majority of Tasmanians want the logging of Tasmania’s old growth forests ended. But with both major parties in Tasmania as one in their rigid support of Gunns and old growth logging, Tasmanians cannot stop this coalition of greed and power from within their island. Change can only be brought about by the Australian government, and it will only act when the issue becomes one of mounting national shame and inescapable national urgency. RICHARD FLANAGAN
The Tarnished Crown ...
The situation is indeed dire, a cultural precinct potentially the envy of the world is now all but lost courtesy of the architecturally bankrupt vision of a chosen few ...
Shame on you aldermen to allow this travesty to unravel ...
The current destruction of the waterfront should be enough cause to wield a very big broom through the Hobart City Council to once and for all put paid to the stale, blinkered and mediocre decision-making that we are all paying for ... WARREN PERSO
Forestry and science ...
... therefore, most of the forestland will continue as forest cover... LUIS APIOLAZA
AND:
A response: Dr Apiolaza, it really hurts me to say, but the next "El Grande" scenario is now unfolding ... LETTERS
Heart of God ... Nah! ... Heart of Spin
However, I do agree with Mr Duhig's call about the Tasmanian Government's funding priorities. Lights at Bellerive would be a waste of taxpayers' money, as is the taxpayers' support of AFL in Launceston, lights and roofs at York Park, AFL youth "development" in southern Tasmania, motorsport at Symmons Plains and a new racing venue at Elwick that the industry does not want. These listed items total over $30 million ...
Given the state of mental health, roads, respite services for disabled children, radiation oncology and class sizes for kids older than Paula Wriedt's offspring, I think this government has got its priorities absolutely arse about ...
Public interest in issues feeds heavily off the media and the media feed heavily (mainly out of laziness) off the so-called newsmakers ... LETTERS
Christine Milne ... you heard it here first ...
APHRODRITE DRINKWATER can this morning reveal Tasmanian politics' worst kept secret... ... APHRODITE DRINKWATER
Not so sleepy ...
... just lying wide awake after this noisy log truck went flying through I decided to do a count of the peace disturbance and for the next hour my tally of log trucks was 21 - that was 11 loaded to the hilt heading north and 10 empty heading south. Holy mackerel! They sure must be under a lot of pressure from the contractors ... THE ROVING EYE
Forestry and science ...
There is a growing body of literature examining this important area of research, but sadly, very little of it seems to filter down to Tasmanian policy ... ... LETTERS
Redneck theology ... ?
Coincidentally, after seeking a partnership with the Trust a few months ago, Gunns Limited is now "no longer interested in a partnership with the National Trust to run Entally". So the new exclusive lessee has been identified and is waiting for Ken Bacon, who represented log truck drivers prior to entering parliament, to force the Trust out ... JASON LOVELL
Blue Tier Day ...
Opposition Leader Rene Hidding has moved the state's most divisive issue - forestry - one incremental step forward ... OUR FORESTS CORRESPONDENT
Hobart ... oh, the shock ...
It has been some time since I have returned to Hobart to visit .... What a shock I received ... LETTERS
Stop the Rot
The industry at the time was not dissimilar to where the forestry industry is in Tasmania now. Secretive, reactive and fearing and fighting change ...
In a cut-throat blue-collar industry, you have to work the figures, which are guarded fiercely ... ERIKA FORD
Lessons from Launi ...
Woe, woe is Hunter St ... Launceston is far more enlightened ... HAG, Aphrodite Drinkwater