Lennon's New Tasmania

But in Lennon’s Tasmania, the attempt to exclude, by language and law, as already described, is but a narrow definition of the new form of political terra nullius being implemented.

The broader human contexts are exemplified by a decision, serendipitously only made public due to astute journalism in early March this year, that Tasmanian taxpayers could pay for Gunns’ pulp mill pipelines, to supply annually between 26,000 to 40,000 megalitres of fresh water from Launceston’s main source of supply, the Trevallyn Dam, and to carry mill effluent into Bass Strait.

In the first place, it is also public knowledge that Gunns’ water requirements represent, in current climatic conditions, 45 per cent of available flows into storage. All other annual domestic and industrial usage of water in the greater northern area, including all Launceston and some areas beyond it, is about 29,000 megalitres. Obviously, the water volume Gunns needs for the mill will require curtailing the needs of all others, domestic, agricultural and industrial.

Second, the financial cost of the pipeline infrastructure for the mill, probably in excess of $100 million, comes at a time when the Lennon Government “cannot” find adequate funds for its public responsibilities under the Australian federal system, in health, education, housing and every other state-defined area of responsibility, except forestry.

In mid-March the government was discussing how best to impose an additional tax on Tasmanians to pay for ambulance services, having reluctantly retreated from their natural inclination towards the neo-liberal notion that the “service” should be provided on the same basis as taxis, user pays, and pay at the time.

The “hunters and shepherds” of colonial Tasmania have their modern equivalents. They are now spread more widely in the socio-economic spectrum. There are those, like MIS investors, whose risk capital and tax free-incentives assists corporate acquisition of land, in much the same way as the old land grant scheme worked, and with much the same result, concentrating land ownership in a few hands without much cost to the owners.

Then there is the labour force, such as those who have been encouraged to invest heavily in machinery and vehicles, or in narrowly-based skills, and have tied themselves to a “contract” relationship which relies almost exclusively on external factors to serve their long-term interests.

There are many other examples which could be detailed to demonstrate how Cicero’s dictum from the last days of the Roman Republic, in the first century BCE, “the welfare of the people is the ultimate law”, is being breached by those holding power and influence in Tasmania.

Less than a century after Cicero was forced to commit suicide by Mark Antony, as military dictatorship ushered in the death blow to any hope for a revival of democracy in the ancient western world, a more cynical and pessimistic Roman voice, of disputed origin, said “what power has law where only money rules”.

If viewed as a statement, this kind of power is authoritarian power, where property or people who are in the way can be treated as various types of terra nullius, or simply exploited for purely personal and/or corporate material gain, using state levers for the purpose, including the law, public and private capital, coercive military or police power, propaganda, labour and interlocking government policies.

If viewed as a question - “what power has law where only money rules?” - let the answer lie with some wisdom from Julian Burnside, of our time, dealing within an Australian context, writing in 2006: “If the law is unjust, then access to the law is not access to justice”.

The Pulp Mill Assessment Act 2007 is an unjust law. It is a law which promotes dispossession. It is a law which fosters a new form of political terra nullius in Tasmania. Section 11 of the Act is abhorrent in its meaning and intent. Those who voted for it do not deserve to be, and cannot claim to be, representatives of the people.