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No democracy in the Tamar Valley

By Peter Henning - posted Tuesday, 16 December 2008


Turning more and more agricultural land into water-thirsty plantations downstream at the same time as water catchments are being progressively destroyed is not only patently absurd and irresponsible. It is political incompetence of a high order.

Perhaps most extraordinary of all, the bipartisan Senate was agreeing to this madness at exactly the time that all the MIS plantation schemes are facing huge problems. John Lawrence has shown in detail what is happening at Great Southern Plantations, Timbercorp has just announced plans to sell 40,000 ha of plantations, Enviroinvest has gone into receivership with a reported debt of $100 million, and Gunns has just sold $175 million of plantation timber to pay off debt.

Unfortunately, the inane MIS policy has not been formulated within an assessment framework which examined the socio-economic and environmental costs. That is also very interesting and very informative from a Tasmanian perspective, because it shows the bipartisan political mindset surrounding the MIS policy are eerily reminiscent of that in Tasmania, in the way the pulp mill legislation was passed.

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This should act as an important reminder to Tasmanians opposed to the pulp mill, and to the current forestry “management practices” in Tasmania, and to the extension of plantations on agricultural land, that they can expect no support from the Rudd Government or the Turnbull Opposition in their quest to save the Tamar Valley, its people and its industry and business and its future prosperity and health.

There are also important signs that the Rudd Government, like the Tasmanian governments in the last 20 years, of whatever political party, but especially Paul Lennon’s, is looking to PPP arrangements to prop up ailing dinosaurs in the corporate rust-belt, a kind of backward-looking corporate welfare, strong on short-term populist appeal, but lacking in any visionary initiative, especially in confronting the essential challenge of sustainability. It is instructive to compare Rudd’s massive funding of the car industry with the grudging encouragement to alternative energy development, especially urban-based solar power, or to urban-based water saving measures.

So what does all this mean for Tasmanians in 2009, especially those in the firing line in the Tamar Valley?

The mill saga has demanded of most residents in the Tamar Valley that they ask themselves, and that they discuss within their communities there, why they live there, why they have chosen to build lives for themselves and their families there, to build or buy homes there, or to work there and develop and own businesses there. That will continue in 2009, and it will further strengthen residents’ understanding and knowledge of what they are fighting for and who they fighting beside, in reciprocal support.

It means another step in people sharpening their interest in the broader Tasmania polity, from governance (the way the whole Tasmanian political system is devoid of the essential elements for effective and responsible representative democracy) to the use of resources (including the degradation and destruction of the island’s ecology which supports all life), and from policy development across the whole spectrum of essential social services (for example, the abysmal public health and education infrastructure) to public-private partnerships for the benefit of corporate interests.

It means a reinforced understanding for many Tasmanians that democracy cannot be found in a political system which puts party and personal loyalties above representative responsibilities by enshrining caucus conformity above individual conscience.

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It means additional encouragement for many Tasmanians throughout the state to become more actively engaged in political discourse in ways that they have not done before, to be part of the development of grassroots democratic involvement in ways that have not been seen in quite the same form since responsible self-government was introduced in Tasmania in 1856, and probably since the Anti-Transportation movement of the 1840s and early 1850s.

It means a growing political literacy which enables an informed focus and examination by many Tasmanians about the future of Tasmania, a matter increasingly released from the shackles of deference, reliance or trust on party-political spin, and a realisation that the decisions of a backward (and probably incompetent) parliament bear little or no relationship to a sustainable future in the short term, and most certainly not for those who inherit the legacy from the present in the long term.

It means an increased awareness among people of the vital importance of localised activism as a precondition for democracy.

It means a continuation of the fight against the Pulp Mill Assessment Act 2007, a fight which will continue now until the legislation is repealed. This in its turn means a fight for real political representation of the people in the Tasmanian parliament, to replace the aridity of the “tinsel democracy” now in the hands of the two main political parties.

In the final analysis, for the people of the Tamar Valley, 2009 is a year in which they will be forced to continue the fight for their future. It is ironic, but true, that the current Prime Minister was seen as a beacon of hope a little more than 12 months ago, partly because of his professed commitment “to forge a new coalition of political forces across the Australian community, uniting those who are disturbed by market fundamentalism in all its dimensions, and who believe this country is entitled to a greater vision than one which merely aggregates individual greed and self-interest”.

How hollow and deceptive that now seems. Bartlett and Rudd are as one in relation to matters of sand.

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First published in the Tasmanian Times on December 8, 2008.



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About the Author

Peter Henning is a former teacher and historian. He is a former Tasmanian olive grower, living in Melbourne.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Peter Henning

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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