The Vision ... and the WedgeBy JASON LOVELLTasmanian forest issues have become a big election issue during the last week of campaigning, courtesy of the extended game of bluff being played across the issue by Howard and Latham. The ALP leader finally ended the game on Monday with a courageous attempt at playing both the environment and jobs cards. John Howard has responded by focussing on jobs in an attempt to wedge Latham as a Greens' stooge, a response designed to cash in on the emotive campaign being waged against Latham by Tasmanian ALP MPs and ALP-aligned unionists. Like Warren Perso, I feel very uneasy about the prospect of Tasmanian ALP members voting Liberal at the next election. In particular I wonder whether Dick Adams will actually vote for himself, having called on ALP supporters to send a clear message over the forests. Despite the bad noise from apologists and scared workers, Mark Latham's forest statement was one of the bravest policy announcements I've seen, outdone only by John Howard's support for gun control during his first term as PM. Strangely enough both these issues pitted the leaders against their own natural constituencies, resulting in John Howard wearing a flak jacket to a right-wing rally and Mark Latham copping public criticism from unions, an ALP Premier and one of his own ALP MPs. Doing the right thing in politics is so hard, often too hard, but Latham has done his best in seizing the forestry bull by the horns and daring Howard to put up his own package or shut up. The effect of all this on mainland voters remains to
be
seen,
but the following contribution from a protesting "timber worker" outside the
Tasmanian parliament on Monday seems to indicate that predictions of a
massive Tasmanian electoral backlash may be somewhat over the top: Very interesting. Finally, there's been a lot of rhetoric about impacts on small communities in recent weeks, but the real issue for small communities - the contractors and their machinery - seems to have been ignored by all sides. Following the decades-long reduction in Tasmanian forestry jobs, those contractors who remain in operation today are the elite of an entire industry - the lesser operators were squeezed out years ago by mechanisation, leaving the best of the rest to struggle on. This is why Tasmanian forest contractors are generally family concerns - large families can spread the economic burden required to own and maintain the machinery needed to clearfell and transport forest coupes. The Crouch family of Glen Huon summed up the situation for contractors when they revealed on ABC 7ZR that all three of their homes are mortgaged for the $2 million they needed to purchase their machinery. Any compensation package that ignores these guys, the elite survivors of a downsized industry, is not worth the paper it's written on. Which brings me to the CFMEU and FIAT. Neither of these organisations has said boo about the specifics of compensation for the contractors because they both know the compensational aspects of the RFA refer only to the big companies; those employed under contract to log Tasmania's forests get nothing from the RFA if old growth logging ceases, while the big company (you know who) is slated to get billions. Just another example of the way forest workers are still being manipulated by the same organisations that shafted them while drafting the RFA. 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.
RAPID RESPONSE EMAIL: What do you think? Thursday, October 7, 2004 |