KingmakerBy JASON LOVELLWednesday night's vision of John Howard shaking hands mawkishly with assorted union types and Timber Communities Australia reps was disturbing to say the least, raising the prospect of one sector of one industry in one state as kingmaker. The Tasmanian and National CFMEU now appear fatally split over the issue of Tasmania's forests, with the local union morons seemingly unable to see past their own potential political or "advisory" careers to actually represent the interests of their members. In many ways however, the TasCFMEU's hand has been forced in Tasmania by the eternal PR campaign run by the Tasmanian Government, Forestry Tasmania, the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania and TCA; Tasmania has had year after year after year of forestry advertisements and feelgood "news" in all media, Forestry Tas sponsored sporting clubs, Forestry Tas sponsored community events, small regional newspapers dominated by pro-forestry ads and editorials, a forest industry sponsored talkback radio show and too much more to catalogue. The point is, as the father of modern propaganda Joseph Goebbels dictated, if you repeat something often enough people will eventually believe it. And they have. So the TasCFMEU has been mesmerised and enchanted by the spin from the Tasmanian Government and its industry association mates, who all represent employers. That's right, the TasCFMEU has aligned itself with the government of the day and a host of employer groups. FIAT's members are industry players, not workers. Forestry Tasmania is apparently obligated to make its decisions on behalf of the industry, not the workers. The Tasmanian Government talks up support for the little guy but its policies support Gunns, not the workers. And While Barry Chipman continually asserts that TCA represents "timber folk," at the end of the day TCA's funding comes from the woodchipping companies, not the workers. The union servitude to employers and government explains their failure to ever question their mates' policies, despite the policy genesis in a company that made a $100 million profit last year while log truck drivers and contractors complained that they were being squeezed financially. There are hard questions to be asked about the medium to long term future of the industry, but TasCFMEU will not be asking them. Their capitulation leaves the workers adrift without any meaningful representation from their own union, which probably explains the howls of union outrage at Mark Latham's $800 million restructure package and the related endorsement of a $50 million package from John Howard. The packages themselves are so very different, yet so similar. Both fail to give concrete detail, leaving stakeholders to insert their own preferred outcomes while allowing the election winner to back away from some or all of the commitments post-election. Latham's package identified 240,000 hectares of old growth for review, out of the 390,000 hectares of old growth originally mooted via a Howard Government leak to the Financial Review. I was subsequently astounded, but not surpirsed, to hear the TasCFMEU and other employer reps alleging that Latham was going to end ALL old growth logging. This is interesting, as my calculator says 390,000 minus 240,000 equals a minimum 150,000 hectares still available to the industry. Latham has also stated quite clearly that forestry workers will not be forced into the tourism or any other industry - he will ensure that redundant forestry workers are re-employed in postions that make use of their forestry skills. Howard's package discusses 177,000 hectares to be protected immediately, with 43,000 hectares of this on private land. The forest industry has confirmed that the other 130,000 thousand odd hectares are from public areas that would never have been logged anyway and that they don't really care what happens to them. So the 43,000 hectares is the only real gain for the environment. But Mr Howard has revealed that these 43,000 hectares of private forests are to be reserved via covenanting or voluntary sale. This is identical to the current Private Forests Reserve Program, set up to promote the conservation targets of the RFA, which has comprehensively failed to meet conservation targets after years of trying. It seems to me that very few of Howard's 43,000 hectares will be reserved as those who want this outcome for their land have already signed up to the PFRP. Howard has been able to rush this most important aspect of his plan past the media and he may get away with it as the election looms large. So under the Latham plan, workers and conservationists must trust Latham, while under Howard's plan we're expected to swallow his obvious deception about the 170,000 hectares. John Howard said it best at the start of the campaign when he stated that the election will be about trust and this is doubly so in Tasmania following the release of these two forest packages. Personally I believe that Latham is still trustworthy, while its obvious that Howard has already fibbed about his package; anybody who trusts John Howard to do the right thing by anyone but himself is delusional. Coincidentally, the national CFMEU believe the same thing. tasmaniantimes.com social and political commentator Jason Lovell is a former student of Herr, Kirkpatrick and Felmingham. He also works as a contractor to the Tasmanian Government and several Government Business Enterprises and lives on 20 acres in the Derwent Valley.
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