IN the south east of Tasmania, there was once a thriving timber town known as Wielangata. In its heyday it had a general store, bakery, blacksmiths’ shops, school and of course several saw mills. Wielangta was ravaged by bushfires in the 1920s and abandoned in 1928.
Australian Greens’ Senator Bob Brown has been claiming the area as pristine forest and suing those with permission to log it: Not log it to destroy it, but log it as part of a sustainable rotation.
Anyway, the outspoken activist lost his last round in the courts and is short $240,000 after costs were awarded against him. All up the fight has cost him nearly $1 million with most paid for by his supporters.
But he is now short a couple of hundred thousand and a couple of days ago he launched a media campaign claiming he will be throw out of parliament if he can’t raise the money.
Of course offers of financial support are pouring in from Australia’s elite because he is so fashionable – gay, green, and a martyr.
But, in my opinion, his key arguments concerning Tasmania’s forests have been morally bankrupt for some time.
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Notes and Links
Photograph of Wielangata forest taken by Jennifer Marohasy in November 2006.
Browns going red beat-up, by Barry Chipman, Timber Communities Australia:
By now every one would have heard of Senator Brown self imposed $240,000 legal bill, with out doubt it is just about the worlds biggest media beat-up ever. Following yesterdays mass media coverage (or perhaps fund raising campaign) we sort some background information to what was being claimed and it is very interesting indeed to find what Brown and sections of the media didn’t say.
One very telling admission we learnt yesterday regarding the awarding of costs is that the Federal Court process is for a draft bill to be sent in to the Registrar, who assesses it, and provides a gross figure – this is called a taxation. The other side has time to lodge objections to specific items; if not, the bill is confirmed (by certificate) as payable at the taxed amount (ie, the Registrar’s assessment).
And guess what Brown’s lawyers failed to object to the taxation by the Federal Court Registrar. So then on 21st April the costs bill was then taxed at $239,368.63,. So if Brown was so worried about going red why didn’t he lodge an objection? Was he happy to pay the cost or is it all about he creating as a self imposed stage for him self to be seen as the all mighty martyr.
Also:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25612811-25209,00.html
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/brown_lacks_green_stuff/
And some other posts on Senator Brown at this blog:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2007/06/tall-stories-about-tasmanian-forestry-a-note-from-ken-jeffreys/
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2006/12/win-for-bob-brown-loss-for-forests/
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2005/10/mark-latham-on-green-forests-brown-bob/
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2005/08/the-price-of-woodchip/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The good thing about Brown soaking his supporters for this bill is it means $240,000 that they can’t spend on some other stupid campaign. In fact, one can’t help suspecting that nature/God invented recessions to curb the excesses of boofheads with more money than brains. The irony is that due to there being such a low vote quota for Tasmanian Senate positions, the bill works out to be only $10 from each person who voted for him. But he won’t get it from his grass roots (sic), it will all come from some sad collection of poncing metroscum.
I heard Bob Brown say yesterday that they had already raised $600,000 for the fight fund. So the “I can’t pay” line is a lie. It’s an obvious publicity stunt as if Dickie jumping in isn’t a giveaway 🙂
Unfortunately he’ll get away with it.
Greens Senator Brown’s latest assault on Forestry Tasmania is nothing more than using the media to promote fund raising to pay his legal costs of his failed Federal Court action.
Despite having a web site http://www.on-trial.info that has been begging for funds since 2005 the greens have failed to raise the cash.
Brown has known for more than a year since 23 May 2008 when the High Court supported the Full Federal Court’s finding that the Wielangta judgment was wrong, that he must pay up.
Its one rule for rich green senators (total salary is more than $181,000, plus entitlements and allowances) and another for ordinary people.
Good photo Jen. Love those blue gums. Mine look like that but they’re salignas. When I want a Jackson Pollock experience I go down to the back yard. Can’t see the forest for the blue poles. A few good logs there!
Sooner or later they’ll get a fire so the best solution is selective logging. If the forest was pristine they would be twice that size.
Brown; the name suits him, he’s full of it.
What a wonderfully redneck view of the world. The bottom line is that Howard’s federal government in cahoots with the Tasmanian government changed the laws which in applying the new laws Brown lost.
I am not sure of the dollars and the stunt by Brown. I think it would be more something that the governments responsible should hang their heads in shame and a decent bunch of quality minds would find this farcical.
Lennon was pure Gunns Boy as the premier of Tasmania. An absolute disgrace. How do these lumber guys get to destroy such pristine parts of a state that is booming in eco tourism and is renowned for its world class produce on land and sea.
Stick with the commercial forests and leave the good stuff alone.
Unfortunately spangled if Pollock’s painting is depicting Blue Poles, as you say, they have sadly been cut down as they aren’t standing up vertically as Jen’s are.
But I do agree that they are only youngsters. – if only we could have a moratorium on logging until these trees at least reach some kind of maturity – yes – I know – what’s maturity and really does it matter.
I think it matters for the wildlife, like how many black Saturdays can the wildlife of Kinglake survive?
Janama, it’s hard to select the best time, but mainly before they get hollow. I’ve got some monsters that are 2m dia for the first 30m but they are pipes and the birds love ’em.
It’s academic now, anyway. Can’t mill ’em.
Janama why do you seem to think all wildlife lives only in and on old trees? Also the Victorian fires have absolutley nothing to do with sustatinabel forestry but more to do with land development and management choices made over many years.
IMHO Brown should just go to the bank and borrow the required amount. I’m sure that with his salary he should be able to afford the repayments. The man has made a career out of grandstanding so I’ve no sympathy for where he has put himself.
If his fellow green senator, Christine Milne, wanted an opportunity to demonstrate he commitment she could assist in the payment of Browns legal fees. Perhaps they could take out a loan together!
“Perhaps they could take out a loan together!”
do you think they are that close?
If Bob is declared bankrupt for failure to pay his legal bill for the action he started, and is booted out of the Senate, then Christine is likely to take over as leader.
This means a 42.5% loading on her paltry salary of $127,000 or a pay rise of $54,000. This suggests that she will not be taking out a loan to help, but buying a new plasma so she can watch herself getting all the media attention on TV.
“…launched a media campaign claiming he will be throw out of parliament if he can’t raise the money.”
I’m reminded of when evangelist Oral Roberts claimed god spoke to him and said he would take him “home” if he didn’t raise 8 million dollars.
Betcha Bob Brown could pay but he’s got his personal finances locked away and protected so he can’t be collected from.
I used to support Dick Smith in his aviation reforms and still do but after his support of David Hicks and now this, I’ve got to say Dick has lost the plot completely.
I have decided that Jennifer Marohasy is obviously out for the Exxon payment of $10.000 for anti Climate change articles and drags the fruitcakes and pro corporate sycophants onto her site with this rubbish.
I wonder what they will be saying and thinking in ten years time?
“Of course offers of financial support are pouring in from Australia’s elite because he is so fashionable – gay, green, and a martyr.”
A nasty, ignorant and particularly small minded effort Jen. No wonder they let you in at the IPA. You’ll be drafted to the Heartland Institute next.
Oh and I note that your beloved Senator Fielding is on a mission to discover the real cause of climate change. Presumably it’s pretty easy, he’ll get the Hillsong crowd to do a pray-a-thon and the allmighty do his bidding and reveal unto him the true cause. Amen.
“I’ve got to say Dick has lost the plot completely”
Dick Smith: highly successful business man, record breaking pilot, receiver of nations highest honours. Eyrie: blogging nonentity. Your hubris is massive. Oh and I doubt he’ll miss your support.
“I wonder what they will be saying and thinking in ten years time?”
Robert, I presume you use the term “thinking” loosely?
OK. Back to core issues:
Can we get agreement that Wielangata, a forest Bob Brown claims to be pristine, has been harvested for about 100 years for timber and was the site of a small timber town in the early 1900s?
I saw the remains of the old mill now overgrown with forest when I visited a few years ago.
Patrick, Robert:
Have you visited the forest? Your comment on Senator Brown’s claims that Wielangata is pristine?
A waste of time, Jen. These green bogans couldn’t spot a regrowth forest if it was dry humping their leg. And if they had a rudimentary grasp of forest ecology they would know that leaf, flower, seed and sap production, the basis for the entire forest food chain, is maximised in early mature trees and is least prevalent in old trees and very young trees.
But when they are presented with evidence that contradicts their ignorant perceptions they fall back on the old “red neck” chestnut.
And lets not forget that it was the green movement that was championing the now thoroughly discredited plantation ponzi schemes as the alternate source of wood supply to that sourced from long rotation native regrowth forests. The price of this abject green policy failure was more than $6 billion in ordinary investor’s savings tempered by a $2 to $3 billion raid on the tax pie.
And where does it leave us? With a whole mess of grossly neglected national park fire traps that no longer pay their own way and absolutely jack $hit in “eco-tourism” revenue. Oh, and a whole $hit load of third rate plantation wood that has never got within cooee of their growth projections and which provides only a fraction of the habitat value of a below average regrowth forest.
But did you notice how Sen. Milne was distancing herself from all this on ABC TV last night? Yep, she is even claiming she was warning about these schemes years ago. Yeah, right, so how come she didn’t tell Peter Beattie or Aila Keeto? Or Jeff Angel and Bob Carr?
Jen,
I’m still waiting for some evidence for Bob Brown’s sexual orientation being fashionable. To the contrary, I’d say that there is a considerable historical evidence that being gay is rather less fashionable than you assert. As to the forest itself, no I haven’t been there although I don’t see how that strengthens your criticisms of Senator Brown.
Ian – do you just make things up as you go along?
http://fw.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/finance/is-great-southern-collapse-the-death-of-mis/1521322.aspx?storypage=0
comment from: Patrick B June 11th, 2009 at 9:50 am
“I’ve got to say Dick has lost the plot completely”
Dick Smith: highly successful business man, record breaking pilot, receiver of nations highest honours. Eyrie: blogging nonentity. Your hubris is massive. Oh and I doubt he’ll miss your support.
So who are you Patrick B to call anybody a blogging non entity?
I’ve held an aviation record, won a sport aviation National Championships against the best and been in business for over 30 years. Maybe I ought to tell Dick I think he’s lost the plot. I still have his phone number from the last time I called him.
Greens mistaking rehabilitated forest is not a new development – Alcoa decades ago mined part of the bauxite deposits and did the regulatory rehabilitation. I understand a TV documentary was also involved but the laugh we in the industry had was the Greens pointing to yet to be mined forest as the result of rehabilitation, while the rehabilitated block was pointed to as un-mined forest. The Alcoa people had a quiet chuckle and went about their business.
In light of this fact I would probably conclude that Senator Brown might not recognise forest that has been managed or subject to regrowth, and forest left in it’s “pristine” wilderness state. The Green’s couldn’t last century, so this instance is probably of the same type.
Sad isn’t it.
“I’m still waiting for some evidence for Bob Brown’s sexual orientation being fashionable.”
Who are you kidding!
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/people/miss-california-loses-her-crown-20090611-c3xo.html
Jennifer,
Lovely green photo of Tasmanian forest. It reminds me of an area of our karri forest that regrew in an old paddock, which was abandoned in the 1880s. The forest was so nice, it was a tourist attraction. I believe it was later classified as ‘old growth forest’. Roger Underwood would know more about it than me, since he was in charge of that area in the 1970s.
Davey, the magnificent Karri [E. diversicolor] looks very like some of the East coast Blue Gums though probably bigger than most. Tassie Blue Gum is apparrently so named because of the colour of the immature foliage but the bark is also blue[ish].
I’m thinking of starting a retirement village at my place. I thought about calling it “Receding Gums”.
I thought about calling it “Receding Gums”.
🙂 🙂
bronson – I was refering to the destruction of habitat on wildlife. Clear felling and Black Saturday both share the total destruction of habitat, hence my linking them.
Spanglo,
A few years ago my dentist told me my teeth were fine, but he would have to take out my gums. I got an electric toothbrush, and my gums are now calloused and healthy. A bit of rough treatment is sometimes a good idea.
Similarly, some of the best karri I have seen are in formerly logged over areas. A burn after the logging produced a wheatfield of karri seedlings, and they then thinned themselves out. A dendrometer trial done in the Forests Department of the 1970s showed that recently burnt karri grew faster than long unburnt. Unfortunately, the design was crook, without enough replicates, so could not be published. I expect it would be politically incorrect for the Department of Environment and Conservation to repeat it now.
A visiting forestry consultant, Sir David Hutchins, said in 1916 that karri was a ‘cut and come again’ forest. That same consultant had some weird ideas on fire, which translated into attempted fire exclusion, followed by disastrous fires. However, I think he was right on karri logging. We are failing to exploit a valuable resource. Meanwhile, we can see the results of the environmentalists’ dream of relying totally on plantation timber. An ‘entrepreneurs’ picnic. Ditto for carbon trading.
If I sound like a grumpy old bugger, it’s because I am.
“Meanwhile, we can see the results of the environmentalists’ dream of relying totally on plantation timber. An ‘entrepreneurs’ picnic. Ditto for carbon trading.”
Honest business people offering value for money won’t succeed but sadly, villains and rogues will do handsomely.
Jennifer,
You are an evil piece of work. You are going to be a liability one day for your brother Jim Turnour.
The spew that comes from this blog displays an arrogance that I cannot believe. I’m afraid my children will one day be exposed to people like you and this upsets me greatly.
Shame.
Steven
Janama, yes Howard and the Libs maintained the 2020 program but I was there, as a forest owners rep and the evidence is absolutely clear that the greens were promoting plantations in the hope of depriving native forest wood of their markets.
I was at the formation meeting of the Northern Rivers Regional Forestry Committee, held at Casino RSM Club, and THE major issue at that meeting was whether it should promote general forestry activities or plantation forestry only. They remained as “Regional Plantation Committees” for a few years untill some sense was bashed into the appropriate heads.
But all this was a carry over from the Hawke/Keating years when native forestry was not even included in the definition of “Farm Forestry”, despite the fact that plantation area was minescule and the area of managed private native forest was in the millions of hectares.
I was there, fella, I heard it all. And all you can come up with is a convenient bit of google-bumph. The ACF, WWF and all the sorry followers were big time promoters of plantation forestry as the alternative to sustainable management of regrowth forests in perpetuity.
You guys made your bed, now sleep in it.
Back to Senator Brown’s legal folly and just how much charity has this well paid Senator received for his publicity stunt, sorry legal challenge?
according to the Herald Sun today his register for pecuniary interests shows Senator
Brown had raised $739,425 for the case over four years. Add the $240,000 raised this week, and thats a lot of charity.
It is now being claimed that the Full Court only overturned the decision on a legal technicality. The Full court’s judgement shows this is not the case, they found the primary judge was wrong and overturned his injunction and finding that the forestry operation threatened the beetle, eagle and parrot.
Perhaps a judge making a mistake is considered a “legal technicality”. He apparently took 36 days of court time to make that mistake; now who pays for that!
“I’m afraid my children will one day be exposed to people like you and this upsets me greatly.”
Don’t worry Steven, just take them out into the bush, release them and let them run FREEeee!
And don’t worry about Jennifer; we have the exorcism arranged.
Sad about poor old Bob,
but we should start to question why anybody should be giving $240,000 to the legal profession! Time has come for magistrates to start throwing these silly litigations out of court before they start.
The best and brightest should be focussing their energies on building a better civilization not screwing fellow Australians no matter how misguided they may be!
Steven, the truth often appears arrogant to the woefully ignorant, for the simple reason that the truth has no need to suffer fools. But I can understand how an ideology ridden bogan like you could actually live in fear of the day when your kids can research issues for themselves and make up their own minds. I suppose we could refer to it as the green/left nutter’s version of “wake in fright”.
What we need to check, or send a memo to the tax office to check for us, is to ensure that funds that go to pay Brown’s legal bills do not get diverted through charitable entities to gain a tax deduction for the donors. Funding the disproportionate responses and vexatious litigation of planet plodders does not qualify as charity.
It is also most regretable, if not a touch ironic, that the term “faggot” is derived from an important product of the woodsmans arts in days lang syne. As a past long term resident of Surry Hills, I can confirm that the gay community has numerous folk who would in no way demean, by association, this time steeped forest product. But one cannot help suspecting that the Bob Brown chapter of this community might be more aptly named by vernacular reference to the night soil carriers trade.
Steven my fear is one day I’ll be exposed to people like you ignorant and arrogant in their own self rightous holier than thou morality. Get up out of the gutter and have a decent look around man you’ve been smelling the sewer gasses down there too long.
Janama,
neither clear fell or fire are cause for total destruction unless the site is converted permantently to something other than forest. Fires (and clear fells) allow forests to regrow. Its a renewal process, all things die and change is the norm not some artifical stasis humans seem to want maintained. Besides if it was cause for total destruction don’t you think there would be no forests around by now at all – Black Saturday is not the first tragic and destructive fire to ever hit Victoria, most of the forests it burn were 1939 regrowth another severe fire you might recall.
From http://www.illegal-logging.info in realtion to the 2006 decision re: Weilangta State Forest:
“Senator Abetz, echoing Mr Chipman, pointed to the “irony” that forestry coupes central to the long-running case had been burnt in the Kellevie bushfire.
However, Senator Brown said stag beetles could survive fire, but not logging.”
Can anyone explain Senator Brown’s statement?
Just filing this here:
Brown’s bankruptcy debacle ‘not a fundraising ploy’
The Greens deputy leader says Bob Brown’s claims of bankruptcy were not a fund-raising strategy. (AAP)
Greens Senator Christine Milne has denied that party leader Bob Brown’s public claims of possible bankruptcy were a fundraising strategy.
Senator Brown faced losing his seat in the Upper House if he failed to pay Forestry Tasmania’s legal fees resulting from court action to stop logging in the Wielangta forest.
But Senator Brown says he will now be able to meet the legal fees after more than 1,000 people, including businessman Dick Smith, donated money to cover his costs.
Senator Milne has told ABC 1’s Insiders her colleague was forced into a corner by Forestry Tasmania.
“It was not simply a fundraising ploy, and it wasn’t Bob who raised the spectre of bankruptcy,” she said.
“It was Forestry Tasmania’s legal letter to Senator Brown, saying that he had to pay by the end of the month and threatening the bankruptcy procedures.
“It was a matter of getting the money in a very short period of time.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/14/2597576.htm?section=justin
Don’t you just admire “their ABC’s” dedication to clarify this fine point of the discussion? Yeah, right. After more than two decades of the sloppiest reportage on forestry issues, including at least two comprehensive retractions forced upon them by the broadcasting authority, they felt the need to split some hairs over Brown’s fund raising scam. Two decades of abject deriliction of their duty as a medium of public record in respect of landuse, forestry and environmental reporting, they just couldn’t help but give Brown another publicly funded blow job.
Greg Barns counters the ABC’s broadcast of Milne’s views at raised at http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/06/14/79065_opinion.html. In this article “Bitter Brown aftertaste” Barns concludes that the manipulation of the media by Brown was a cynical exercise in the art of politics.
Why did Milne choose the ABC to defend her leader, did the ABC ask the hard questions like “Why wasn’t Senator Brown aware of Section 44 of the Constitution that prevents a bankrupt from holding a semate seat. “What happened to the $739,425 raised for the case over four years to pay for the case?”
These should have been questions normally asked by our ‘fearless’ ABC Journalists.
for the record Barrie Cassidy’s Questions were:
“Bob Brown during the week raised the prospect of bankruptcy because he owed $240,000 as a legal debt. Why would somebody as well paid as a senator need to declare themselves bankrupt over a $240,000 bill? Why couldn’t he take out a loan?”
and
“Yes, but you see the point though, that by raising this prospect of bankruptcy he then got a very good community response and found the money in no time. But was that just simply a fund raising ploy?”
Imagine the ABC questions if it had been Penny Wong or Eric Abetz doing the fund raising!!!