Tasmania Together sparks forest debate

BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE 

HOBART — Benchmark targets for Tasmania Together were released
on September 3. Tasmania Together is the state Labor government's
consultation program designed to draw up “goals” and “visions” for the
state by 2020. 

There are 212 “benchmarks” which cover a wide range of social issues. Many
incorporate specific targets; other targets are less specific. 

The Tasmania Together web site claims the benchmarks are aimed at “ensuring
our children inherit a fairer, cleaner and more prosperous Tasmania”. 

While not all targets could easily be legislated, most progressive people would
find it hard to disagree with their overall direction, even if some of the specific
goals are pitifully modest. 

Examples include: “Ensure every Tasmanian household has income above the
poverty line (currently $415 per week) by 2020”; “Reduce by one third the
incidence of family violence by 2020”; and “Improve the adequacy and cost of
public transport”. 

The benchmark that has received the most attention is the one most directly at
odds with government policy. It calls for an end to clear felling high conservation
old growth forest before 2003 and an end to all clear felling of old growth forest
by 2010. 

The forest industry says it has no problems with a vaguely defined plan to
phase-out clear felling, but claims that the time line is impossible to meet without
unacceptable job losses. 

Environmentalists are encouraged by this benchmark, which seems to offer the
best chance since the regional forest agreement was signed in 1997 for a
significant breakthrough on forest conservation. 

Doctors for the Forests organised a protest, attended by 50 people, on
September 4 to call on Premier Jim Bacon to honour his earlier promise to
implement this benchmark. 

Usually liberal columnist Wayne Crawford, writing in the September 8 Saturday
Mercury, argued against the clear felling benchmark because it risks
“discrediting” the whole Tasmania Together process. “It would be an awful
shame if the good work all came to nothing because of one issue.” 

Socialist Alliance convenor Kamala Emanuel told Green Left Weekly that this
missed the point. “Bacon is already trying to let the community down gently by
saying that the limited goals of Tasmania Together actually aim `very high' and
that they will be difficult to meet. What progressive content there is in the
benchmarks is only useful if we make them part of a platform of demands around
which we can organise. Therefore, we should fight hard to win on this
supposedly `controversial' benchmark.”

[This article first appeared in Green Left Weekly #463.]