Marian Wilkinson
April 24, 2007
A bruising showdown between Labor's environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, and the head of the forestry union, Michael O'Connor, over logging in Tasmania is threatening to overshadow the uranium debate as the most fraught dispute at this weekend's Labor Party conference.
Yesterday Mr Garrett made it clear he would fight plans by Mr O'Connor, who heads the forestry division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and the logging industry to water down the party's draft forestry policy. The union boss wants to remove a crucial clause giving a future Labor Government the option of protecting more of the state's old-growth forests.
Mr Garrett said the policy was a clear balance between job security and conservation and should not be weakened.
Mr O'Connor's plans have angered his opponents inside and outside the party. They have released scores of documents and tape recordings revealing the union's heavy-handed tactics and ties to the logging industry.
Mr O'Connor's opponents are still smarting over his actions in the final days of the 2004 election when the union swung its support behind John Howard after the then Labor leader, Mark Latham, supported a pro-conservation policy in Tasmania.
Images of Tasmania's forestry workers cheering Mr Howard sent shock waves through Labor and helped the Liberals pick up two seats in the state. The current draft policy was subsequently born out of painful compromise.
After Mr O'Connor reopened the debate over the new draft policy two weeks ago, the Herald was given material showing his union had produced a ferocious television ad against Labor in the final days of the 2004 campaign. Party figures confirmed the damaging ad, designed to run in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, forced Labor's national secretary, Tim Gartrell, to take legal action to block its release.
Then last year Mr O'Connor threatened the NSW Labor Party secretary, Mark Arbib, with legal action to shut down the entire state party conference on the eve of Morris Iemma's first appearance as the new leader. Leaked letters from Mr O'Connor's lawyers show the dispute was over the number of his union delegates and warned Mr Arbib "proceedings will, among other things, seek an interlocutory injunction restraining the holding of the conference in the absence of the delegates concerned".
Mr O'Connor would not comment on the legal disputes with the party secretaries or on tape recordings of his union colleagues discussing financial help from the timber industry lobby group, the National Association of Forest Industries.
In the taped interviews with a University of NSW law student last year, the union's former national secretary Trevor Smith and its Tasmanian secretary, Scott McLean, conceded the union accepted a "very little" financial contribution from the forestry lobby in a legal case with green activists.
The case, which is still before the courts, stemmed from a confrontation in which forestry workers encircled a conservationists' campsite in Victoria for five days.
The tapes are problematic for the union, which has long fought claims by its ALP and green critics that it is too close to the industry. More embarrassing for the union is that the law student who interviewed the officials for his thesis was a prominent green activist, Neal Funnell, who masterminded a spectacular anti-logging stunt for the maiden voyage of the Spirit of Tasmania in 2004.
Mr Smith denied speaking to Mr Funnell despite his voice being on the tapes. Mr McLean did not comment on the tapes.
Kate Carnell, the former executive director of the forest industries association, said it had contributed to the union's legal case but she believed it was less than $10,000. "It wasn't a lot. It was more a sign that we were one; that we were working together on this," she said. Mr O'Connor's efforts to weaken Labor's draft forest policy at the conference have been strongly supported by the association.
This week senior Labor figures were trying to find a compromise to avert a showdown at the conference. The negotiations have been complicated by Mr O'Connor's allies lobbying for him to get a seat on the ALP's governing body, the national executive.
Original article
Showing posts with label Peter Garrett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Garrett. Show all posts
24 April, 2007
19 December, 2006
ARTICLE: Rudd shuts out green groups on Tasmanian forest plans
Andrew Darby, St Helens, Tasmania
The Age, December 19, 2006
KEVIN Rudd has infuriated green groups by shutting them out of a key national environment debate, the formation of Labor's Tasmanian forest policy, and pledging strong support for the island state's forest industry.
In one of his biggest policy moves since assuming the Labor leadership, Mr Rudd has rejected the party's previous position on Tasmanian forests and backed existing deals between the Howard Government and the pro-logging Lennon Government.
Stopping in Tasmania on his national "listening" tour, Mr Rudd declared that former Labor leader Mark Latham had got it wrong with his pledge on forestry conservation before the 2004 election — which was blamed for Labor losing two seats.
In rejecting the Latham policy, Mr Rudd confirmed that there was no place for the conservation movement in shaping Labor's new policy on Tasmania's forests.
Green groups reacted angrily, with the Wilderness Society saying Mr Rudd had paved the way for a sell-out on forests.
Mr Rudd also came under fire from Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown and conservationists for not taking new Labor environment spokesman Peter Garrett with him on his trip to Tasmania.
But the local forest industry warmly welcomed Mr Rudd's pledge to support the existing Regional Forests Agreement and Community Forests Agreement, negotiated between the state and the Howard Government.
Mr Rudd's statement on forests came days after he pledged to push for relaxation of Labor's restrictive policy on uranium mining — a move that has put him at odds with Mr Garrett.
On Tasmanian forests, Mr Rudd said Labor's guiding principle was that it wanted to see a long-term sustainable industry, based on three pillars:
Mr Rudd said he was in Tasmania to listen carefully to local communities, but confirmed that he had spoken to no-one in the forest industry on his visit. He said he would talk to the conservation movement from time to time. "But when it comes to the architecture of our forests policy here in Tasmania, it is as I've described before, based on those three principles and two sets of agreements which we support."
Labor's loss of two seats in Tasmania at the last election, Bass and Braddon, was attributed to Mr Latham's $800 million package that would have secured nearly all remaining contested old growth areas.
Industry and unions instead backed the more modest Howard conservation package in what was widely portrayed as a poll-eve political coup by the Prime Minister.
Mr Rudd followed his predecessor, Kim Beazley, in distancing himself from the Latham policy. "Labor got it wrong. Part of the reason it got it wrong was that it didn't listen to the local community," he said.
His statement yesterday was welcomed by the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania. "We support and endorse the approach that Kevin Rudd has outlined," said executive director Terry Edwards.
The conservation movement, which has fought for more than 20 years for the protection of the state's old growth forests, came out swinging.
"The policy Kevin Rudd is set to adopt is the one endorsed by the Lennon Labor Government which is destroying our forests," said the Wilderness Society's campaigns manager, Geoff Law.
"It is desperately ironic that it comes almost 20 years to the day after Peter Garrett came to the Lemonthyme forest in Tasmania, and stood beside Bob Brown and said these forests must be saved."
The Australian Conservation Foundation said it was surprised that Mr Rudd was closing doors during a "listening" tour.
"I think he should be certainly talking to the wide range of environmental stakeholders to get a full picture of issues as complex as these," said Matt Ruchel, Manager of Land and Water for the ACF.
Mr Rudd deflected questions about Mr Garrett, the former rock star and ACF head who now holds the Climate Change and Environment portfolio on Labor's front bench.
In 2004, Mr Garrett described the Tasmanian timber industry as logging gone mad and carnage in the forests.
Mr Rudd said that he was now leader of the party, and Mr Garrett had a job to do on climate change.
Mr Rudd was speaking on a visit to bushfire-ravaged areas of Tasmania's east coast, where he said he had seen no indication of any gaps in the federal response to the fires. The main east coast fire has burned more than 20 homes and 25,000 hectares of land.
With AAP
Original article
The Age, December 19, 2006
KEVIN Rudd has infuriated green groups by shutting them out of a key national environment debate, the formation of Labor's Tasmanian forest policy, and pledging strong support for the island state's forest industry.
In one of his biggest policy moves since assuming the Labor leadership, Mr Rudd has rejected the party's previous position on Tasmanian forests and backed existing deals between the Howard Government and the pro-logging Lennon Government.
Stopping in Tasmania on his national "listening" tour, Mr Rudd declared that former Labor leader Mark Latham had got it wrong with his pledge on forestry conservation before the 2004 election — which was blamed for Labor losing two seats.
In rejecting the Latham policy, Mr Rudd confirmed that there was no place for the conservation movement in shaping Labor's new policy on Tasmania's forests.
Green groups reacted angrily, with the Wilderness Society saying Mr Rudd had paved the way for a sell-out on forests.
Mr Rudd also came under fire from Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown and conservationists for not taking new Labor environment spokesman Peter Garrett with him on his trip to Tasmania.
But the local forest industry warmly welcomed Mr Rudd's pledge to support the existing Regional Forests Agreement and Community Forests Agreement, negotiated between the state and the Howard Government.
Mr Rudd's statement on forests came days after he pledged to push for relaxation of Labor's restrictive policy on uranium mining — a move that has put him at odds with Mr Garrett.
On Tasmanian forests, Mr Rudd said Labor's guiding principle was that it wanted to see a long-term sustainable industry, based on three pillars:
- Close consultation with the State Government, unions and forest industries.
- No overall loss of jobs.
- Consultation with the State Government over conservation and protection of old growth forest areas.
Mr Rudd said he was in Tasmania to listen carefully to local communities, but confirmed that he had spoken to no-one in the forest industry on his visit. He said he would talk to the conservation movement from time to time. "But when it comes to the architecture of our forests policy here in Tasmania, it is as I've described before, based on those three principles and two sets of agreements which we support."
Labor's loss of two seats in Tasmania at the last election, Bass and Braddon, was attributed to Mr Latham's $800 million package that would have secured nearly all remaining contested old growth areas.
Industry and unions instead backed the more modest Howard conservation package in what was widely portrayed as a poll-eve political coup by the Prime Minister.
Mr Rudd followed his predecessor, Kim Beazley, in distancing himself from the Latham policy. "Labor got it wrong. Part of the reason it got it wrong was that it didn't listen to the local community," he said.
His statement yesterday was welcomed by the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania. "We support and endorse the approach that Kevin Rudd has outlined," said executive director Terry Edwards.
The conservation movement, which has fought for more than 20 years for the protection of the state's old growth forests, came out swinging.
"The policy Kevin Rudd is set to adopt is the one endorsed by the Lennon Labor Government which is destroying our forests," said the Wilderness Society's campaigns manager, Geoff Law.
"It is desperately ironic that it comes almost 20 years to the day after Peter Garrett came to the Lemonthyme forest in Tasmania, and stood beside Bob Brown and said these forests must be saved."
The Australian Conservation Foundation said it was surprised that Mr Rudd was closing doors during a "listening" tour.
"I think he should be certainly talking to the wide range of environmental stakeholders to get a full picture of issues as complex as these," said Matt Ruchel, Manager of Land and Water for the ACF.
Mr Rudd deflected questions about Mr Garrett, the former rock star and ACF head who now holds the Climate Change and Environment portfolio on Labor's front bench.
In 2004, Mr Garrett described the Tasmanian timber industry as logging gone mad and carnage in the forests.
Mr Rudd said that he was now leader of the party, and Mr Garrett had a job to do on climate change.
Mr Rudd was speaking on a visit to bushfire-ravaged areas of Tasmania's east coast, where he said he had seen no indication of any gaps in the federal response to the fires. The main east coast fire has burned more than 20 homes and 25,000 hectares of land.
With AAP
Original article
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