The community’s paid representatives are the politicians from Labor and Liberal parties that “approved” the pulp mill before it was even evaluated. Once party approval was achieved, Labor and Liberal politicians took a position of ignoring community representations against more support for forestry, or opposed to a “world scale” pulp mill.
The community chant of “no pulp mill” can now be replaced with “no taxation without representation”.
The perversion of our “representative” system is complete.
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That represents the case for the community.
Key concepts and assumptions that I used:
- Most Tasmanians want to retain the unique qualities of the environment that we have, rather than degrade it to advantage a few people at the expense of many.
- An industry should contribute more to communities than it detracts.
- Communities have the moral right to establish the manner in which industries operate in their midst (e.g. pollution and noise control) and the moral right to determine how their resources and monies are used.
- In Tasmania too much “forest management” means wholesale clear felling and burning, with valued timbers along with pulp wood all going to the chipper.
- The level of concern being expressed in the community (approximately 65 per cent oppose a pulp mill) is proportional to the damage being done by forestry.
- Tasmanian Times doesn’t create anti-forestry fervour; it is the actions of forestry that lead to those views.
- The existence of forests does not itself justify the actions of forestry nor create a need for woodchips. The existence of areas reserved from logging do not justify further logging undertaken elsewhere.
- By dint of paying taxes, Tasmanians and Australians are entitled to fair and equal representation from their paid representatives.
- All Australians should be equal under the law. There exists no justification to exempt one industry from the laws and requirements under which the rest of us must live.
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About the Author
Mike Bolan is an independent complex systems and business consultant. Mike worked for the Tamar valley community and others to prepare materials for the RPDC in which he spent about a year visiting Tasmanian communities, businesses and individuals to learn the impacts of forestry operations and the implications of a pulp mill on them. The lessons learned from that period are still relevant today and are used in this story, which is told to inform not to gain income.