#11.  The Greens, the ENGO's, and the Bob Brown Foundation all want and expect yet more extension of the TWWHA, (Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area), and they have been trying to raise it as part of the election campaign. They are specifying the area as being all of the 477,000 hectares listed in the rescinded Tasmanian Forest Agreement as possible future reserve lands, and which includes areas known as the Tarkine.

Well, sorry, but it does not work like that.

An election does not give a mandate for such a thing, and nor should it.

If anything further is to be added to the already extensive TWWHA, then there are a series of steps that must be gone through. The area was previously suggested by the green groups, but it was comprehensively rejected.

The only election result that would help their cause would be if there was a hung parliament, and one where Labor could form government, but only with the support of the Greens and possibly others, and they would also need the Greens to have the balance of power in the Senate. They would then have to wait for the outcome of the next Tasmanian state election, which is not due until 2018, where they would also need a Labor minority government, but with Greens support helping them to 13 seats, or more. They would then be able to again fiddle the requirements, causing the area to fist be placed on the Register of the National Estate, and then be nominated for World Heritage assessment.
That was what they talked Labor into last time, and they would be looking to try it on again.

However, it is unlikely to happen again, even if the election scenario came about as described. This is the case for a number of reasons. Firstly, state Labor lost in the biggest landslide in its history as a result of the previous stunt, having lost support of not only timber workers in the regions, but many others in the community. Tasmanian Labor has since done a major re-write of policy, and has come out strongly in support of the timber industry, and the Special Timbers sector in particular. The Tasmanian Legislative Council remains extremely annoyed at how it was treated, how it was misled, and how it was lied to. It is not going to fall for the same tricks again. Federal Labor also lost seats in Tasmania, and as of the time of writing, only has one in the House of Reps., Julie Collins. Tasmanian Labor is unlikely to agree to handing over powers to the federal government, and that would only be to a federal Labor government, on matters dealing with the environment, and land use. The Tasmanian Legislative Council is extremely unlikely to agree to such a move, as would the current Tasmanian Liberal government.

Given that the polls are suggesting a narrow coalition victory, there is unlikely to be another TWWHA extension proposal being considered any time soon.

That is as it should be, as the area has had extensive degradation, and is subject to many active mineral leases. It is one of the most complex and highly mineralogical areas in the country, and any reserve proposal that would automatically exclude any mineral exploration or development would be highly contested. As well as minerals, it remains an area of crucial interest to the Special Timbers sector, although Forestry Tasmania is not interested in managing much of it for timber production, especially as it is seeking FSC Certification.

Those proposing further TWWHA extensions need to be conscious of the fact that if they trigger community backlash, they are not doing the concept of World Heritage any favours, and if they are trying to use World Heritage as a weapon against the timber industry, they are risking that industry organising against them, and criticising the way their work is conducted. There certainly is a case for examining the suggestions of scandal, corruption, influence and deceit that pervade the 2013 decision. I believe wrong-doing and inappropriate behaviour can be traced all the way to the top of the World Heritage Committee and the World Heritage Centre in Paris, as well as all through the federal Department of the Environment, and through the behaviour and performance of a significant number of academics, as well as among consultants in the private sector.

I remain incredibly disappointed at how difficult it has been to get the mainstream media to look closely at the allegations myself and my colleagues have been making about the 2013 stunt, and how much it disadvantaged Tasmania, and how dishonest and corrupt it was. We have a growing mountain of evidence, and an almost-complete picture from FOI requests, interviews, phone calls, and public document searches. So many journalists are so useless, and so many of them are running here and there like black ants, and are still not producing quality journalism and frequently what they are producing is poorly researched, half-arsed rubbish. That might be about to change, the latest guy seems a bit more promising. It really is something that the ABC's Four Corners program should spend a few months researching. The result would be up there with their blockbusters, as some of it is more strange than fiction, and has all the ingredients... The following graphic seems an apt way to conclude...

#10.  Has Vica Bayley still got his Magic Pencil?

Who is Vica Bayley?  He is the Tasmanian Campaign Director for The Wilderness Society.

We were all led to believe that the process for determining Areas of High Conservation Value Forest was a highly scientific and technical process, and best left to qualified experts who have widely established credibility and experience. Apparently not so!

During the negotiations surrounding the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, a lot of arguing and not much compromise was all we got from the ENGO's, especially from Environment Tasmania and The Wilderness Society. For TWS, Vica was joined by his national counterpart, Lindon Schneiders, (see #3).  They dragged things out as long as they could, and while it suited them, but when it started to turn against them, and it appeared there might not be enough time to legislation or a World Heritage extension nomination sorted in time, they started applying pressure. One of the industry negotiators described to me how one day Vica Bayley grabbed a pencil, and started re-drawing lines on some of the maps on the negotiating table... apparently that is how scientific the process was! All this talk of polygons, score charts, criteria, what happened to that...???

And what about those Contingency Coupes? Remember them? They were supposed to be the areas the ENGO's were prepared to give back to help make up on-going sustainable supply of our unique and valuable Special Timbers, and up to at least the level of supply promised in the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.... But wait...!!! Some of them didn't even have any trees in them! Some of them had been harvested in recent years, some as recently as 2010, and re-sown with Eucalypt! Even if some of them did have ST in them, they sure don't now! In fact, even if there was ST seed in the soil, there wouldn't be any trees (apart from Blackwood, if any are present), mature to saw log size for at least 200 years! Celery-top Pine would take at least 400 years, and other species even longer. Some of those Contingency Coupes featured Buttongrass Plain, rocky outcrops, mine tailing dams, and low level scrub, but certainly not viable Special Timbers forests. Some, as I said, had neat lines drawn around existing coupes that had already been harvested. Initially the maps provided were no use, but eventually we were able to get better GIS data, and we were able to overlay them on Google Earth imagery. Here is one such Contingency Coupe, WE25S, out near Lake Gordon:

Here is a video clip we made of a site visit to that coupe:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRKbOSlT24E&feature=youtu.be

Further images and information can be seen here:  https://www.facebook.com/TasmanianSpecialTimbersAlliance/?fref=ts

And by the way, as my Facebook Memories feed reminded me, Vica and others were in Bonn exactly one year ago today, probably telling some of the massive lies the have become famous for telling at venues all around the planet... It was the meeting of the World Heritage Committee, at which the Reactive Monitoring Mission was established, which visited Tasmania in November, 2015, and for which the report was issued in March, 2016, bearing yet more evidence of corruption and undue influence that pervades the WHC, IUCN and other UN bodies.

How must it feel to be regarded by some as belonging to organisations that are deliberately dishonest, and to be peddling dubious and corrupt information and influence?

#9.  Did Greens Senator Nick McKim mislead the Tasmanian parliament in his former role? Is he
fit to continue in public office?

These are questions that are exercising my mind. I have my own opinions, and those are what I am expressing here...

Nick McKim is a former member of the House of Assembly in the parliament of Tasmania. He left his seat in the Tasmanian parliament last year in order to contest the casual vacancy in the Senate created by the retirement of Tasmanian senator and Greens leader Christine Milne. After 10.5 months in that seat, he now faces the double-dissolution election. He is second on the Greens ticket, and I am hoping they don't get two quotas, even after preferences, or however the new senate system works...

I reckon he is a petulant little upstart, and I would love to see him out on his arse.

So what did I mean, did he mislead the Tasmanian parliament?

I'm having a look back through the records, but I reckon Nick knew all about the push to lock up as much of Tasmania's production forests as possible, through all the means the activists took, all of whom were known to him. Many of Nick's colleagues and associates were involved in the activities of The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and the Greens organise and promote the extension of the TWWHA, (Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area), and to use it as a weapon against the timber industry.

He knew the role his former leaders Brown and Milne played in the 2007 and 2008 actions to extend the TWWHA, and how it was rejected, with the Reactive Monitoring Mission of 2008 claiming the forestry areas to the east were being well managed, and there was no need to extend the area. He knew Christine Milne was an International Vice-President of the IUCN, one of the principle advoisory bodies to the World Heritage Committee, and how susceptible it was (and still is) to the influence and pressure from ENGO's. He knew the opportunities that the round of elections in 2010 presented, and how the Greens and ENGO's were keen to take advantage of them. He knew the details of the "deal" that had been done between Brown, Milne, and Prime Minister Gillard, even more than the rest of us know, despite our attempts to get access to the documents through FOI requests. He knew about the Statement of Principles activities as it unfolded, and I reckon he knew all about the manoeuvrings that set up the Independent Verification Group, and how loaded it was with heavily conflicted people, but strangely none of them declared a conflict of interest!

The term "Independent" was bandied around, and was even in the name, and it was certainly in the Terms of Reference. I reckon Nick Mckim was certainly aware of the background of Professor Jonathan West, and that before going off to Harvard for 17 years, he was a one-time National Director of The Wilderness Society.  See link:  http://welovetasmania.com/Is_Jonathan_West_Independent.html

I reckon he was probably aware of several of the other academics that West brought into the IVG team, as well as other subsequent contractors and their backgrounds and past activities. He would have been aware of the work some of them did under contract and under joint funding arrangements with such organisations as The Wilderness Society. He was certainly aware of The Green Carbon Report, and how it was being used. For Nick McKim to then sit in the Tasmanian parliament and maintain the charade that the work of the IVG and the ENGO's was fair, unbiased and not conflicted,
and that the process for advancing the TWWHA extension nomination was fair and proper for me amounts to misleading the Tasmanian parliament, even if by omission, or failing to speak up. He allowed deception to occur, while knowing it was wrong.

The dubious Tasmanian Forest Agreement was rushed through the Tasmanian House of Assembly in November, 2012, but the Tasmanian Legislative Council (Upper House) refused to accept it, and in December 2012 convened a Select Committee of Inquiry, which unusually sat during January of 2013. Unknown to most, but probably not to McKim, his old friend Geoff Law was working away in the downstairs office from Brown and Milne's senate office in Hobart during December and January, feverishly preparing the TWWHA extension proposal.

Tony Burke was stalking the corridors of the Tasmanian parliament on the last sitting day of the Select Committee on Friday, January 25, 2013, and when asked by Legislative Councillors what he was going to do with respect to the TWWHA extension idea, he said he didn't know, it was a difficult decision, etc etc, but a short time later a media release indicated he had agreed to a massive extension! It wasn't clear exactly what was in the proposal, and useful scale maps were not provided. Subsequent attempts to get better maps and more information were refused, and ultimately took the intervention of the state Ombudsman. Only a few weeks before the TFA bill came before the Tasmanian parliament we discovered that much of what had previously been though available to the timber industry under the TFA was actually in the TWWHA extension proposal, and it was too late to change it under the way the World Heritage Committee agenda works. It reduced our Special Timbers Zone to 35,000 hectares from 98,000 hectares, and reduced the sustainable annual harvest, as defined by the Special Timbers Strategy of 2010, to well below that promised in the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, and Nick McKim was well aware of that consequence by the time the Bill returned from the Legislative Council to the House of Assembly in late April, 2013.

Nick McKim has gone back on positions he supported in the TFA, and does so on the basis that the TFA legislation has been torn up. Sure, it has been replaced by different legislation brought in by the Liberals and the change of government, but the TFA was technically dead before that. It was dead because it could not meet its "Durability" requirements on timber supply. It did not meet it's first durability Report, but was waved through in order to get Commonwealth compensation funds flowing, and it was on track to fail its second when the state election intervened. He has gone back on his word because he said the proposed future reserves are not going to be delivered. Well, you cannot take one half of a deal without giving over the commitments in the other half!

McKim claims to support Special Timbers, and the artists and craftspeople who depend upon them, but he clearly does not, and his party certainly does not, as Victorian Greens Senator Janet Rice pointed out, (see #7).

Now McKim and his cronies are pushing for political endorsement of World Heritage listing for the so-called Tarkine, and claiming 447,000 hectares. This is not on! It did not pass scrutiny last time, and it will fail again, especially if it is subjected to the regular and proper process of assessment. Besides, the area has far too much highly prospective mineral leases, and areas of Special Timbers proposed for sensitive light-touch harvesting under the new Special Timbers Management Plan, which is still in the course of preparation.

So what do you reckon? Am I right in my opinion of believing Nick McKim is unfit for office, and should not be returned to the Senate?

#8.

Can we use the Brexit example as a way of extracting ourselves from that dishonest, deceitful, corrupt, tax-sucking monster that goes under the name of the World Heritage Committee, when really all it happens to be is a travelling cocktail party that meets once a year, and votes on things it's delegates have no idea about, and which follows advisory bodies that are riven with corruption and political and ENGO influence to surreal dimensions, ... and...

can we get our forests back...??? 

#7.  A message to Greens senator Janet Rice, and some links to read...

... as well as being poorly advised, and extremely unhelpful. It is a good thing you will not be able to implement them.

Here is a link to a video of a debate held in Canberra on Wednesday, June 1, 2016, staged by AFPA, the Australian Forest Products Association:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do9UCXzCgAE

Others on the panel included current Parliamentary Secretary for Forests, Liberal Senator Anne Ruston, and Labor's Shadow Minister for Forests, Joel Fitzgibbon.

Janet, what you said on that occasion would wreck the Australian timber industry, which has a turnover of around $20 billion annually, and which employs over 120,000 people directly in full-time equivalent positions, and which contributes many more jobs in downstream processing and manufacturing. You should also note that this country still has a trade deficit in timber of around $2 billion annually, and some of that timber coming in is probably stained with the blood of the Orang Utan.... it certainly wouldn't come from forests as well managed as ours!

Does the term perverse environmental outcome mean anything to you?

You are also pushing for a Great Forest National Park in Victoria, and are party to the claim that the timber in that region would be worth more standing, and included in carbon accounting. What rubbish!  In fact, here is a claim that counters that, and it is much more credible:

http://ausfpa.com.au/media-releases/report-reveals-the-true-value-of-the-sustainable-native-forest-industry/

For pity's sake, electorate of Australia, spare us from this nonsense...!

#6. Hi Jacqui Lambie, can you remind us of how you support the timber industry, and jobs in regional Tasmania and other states, and what you think of the Greens and their policies?

cheers,
George

#5.  Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten should both re-allocate their candidates for Environment Minister. 

It is too late to do this before the election now, but both should do it soon after, no matter who wins, or can form a government.

The reason both leaders should do this is that the current candidates for Environment Minister are unsuitable for the role, and both have compromised themselves, in my opinion.

Greg Hunt, Liberal, Member for Flinders, Victoria              Mark Butler, Labor, Member for Port       current Minister for the Environment                                    Adelaide, Shadow Minister, Environment

I reckon both are too soft, and both have been captured by the environment movement, and the selfish fundamentalist parasites that manipulate the myriad groups under that banner.

They should cease to regard that cabal as their primary constituents. In fact, the portfolio should be re-named, and the member nominated should be known as the Minister for Environmental Management. From that point forward, the portfolio should be managed differently, and the federal department re-arranged to ensure the primacy of properly conducted science and genuinely peer-reviewed assessment, and to removed conflicted individuals from critical areas of influence.

Greg Hunt is the current Environment Minister, and Mark Butler is his immediate predecessor under the last days of the Gillard-Rudd former Labor government.

Both Greg Hunt and Mark Butler have caved in to pressure from the Greens and the ENGO's, (environment non-government organisations). Greg Hunt and his Tasmanian counterpart recently and hastily agreed to accept all the recommendations of the report (March, 2016) of the UN's World Heritage Reactive Monitoring Mission to Tasmania that took place in November, 2016, without consulting with affected stakeholders in the Tasmanian timber industry, nor even with some of his colleagues in the Tasmanian Legislative Council, (Upper House), whose electorates were affected.  I believe this was done in response to a larger game that was in play. I believe the federal government was so worried about the Great Barrier Reef being declared "World Heritage in Danger" that they offered to buckle on their earlier position on access to Special Timbers for limited single-stem selective logging in appropriate areas within the 2013 extension of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in exchange for them going a bit easier on Australia over the reef. They were backing away from their earlier position on their own Draft Management Plan, even though it was for areas where the underlying land tenure had not changed, and where it appeared to satisfy even the strict provisions of the IUCN and World Heritage Centre's own guidelines on managing World Heritage and managing resources and tourism. If this is the case, it is a disgraceful way to treat an industry and it's people, and especially an arts-based activity that has such iconic social, cultural and heritage status, and such status within the tourism and visitor experience as the Special Timbers product design and manufacturing sector. We believe this sector would qualify for recognition under another UN Convention, and that is the one on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Mark Butler took over from Tony Burke, who is one that well and truly sold the Tasmanian timber industry down the river, and caused a massive portion of the remaining Special Timbers Zone to be locked up. Tony Burke has been a member of The Wilderness Society since his mid teens, well before becoming a member of the Labor party. His partisanship and past form and behaviour has made him a hated figure throughout the timber industry, and I believe was a significant contributing factor to why the Tasmanian Labor government lost office in 2014 in the biggest landslide in its history. It seems as though Tony has continued as a mentor to Mark, and they have been seen and photographed in Tasmania's expropriated forests, and seemed warmly regarded by their new and old friends from the anti-forestry brigade. The following image is in the Styx forest, around the time the subsequent government was trying to get some of our forests back. Apart from Burke and Butler, those present included the national and state directors of The Wilderness Society, Lyndon Schneiders and Vica Bayley respectively, as well as other well-known activists, including Warwick Jordan. Jenny McAllister, formerly of LEAN, now a senator, was with them in the front row. How do you think this went down with timber industry people?

 

Vica Bayley, TWS Tasmania in foreground, WHA proposal writer Geoff Law in red jacket.

Labor in Tasmania currently has seven seats in a 25-seat lower house, when prior to 2010 it had a majority. There are five members in five electorates making up the house. The Liberals currently have 15 and the Greens three. The far north west seat of Braddon currently has four Liberals, one Labor, (Opposition Leader Bryan Green), and no Greens. This is an unnatural result for that seat, as the timber industry has a major presence there, and strong worker support. Tasmania now has only one member in the House of Representatives, Julie Collins, (Franklin), as support for Labor federally collapsed as well in 2013.

As I have said elsewhere, Labor has become an urban party. Sadly, though, the urban political landscape has become one where Labor is battling to hold its traditional seats against strong campaigns by the Greens, and this is dragging campaigning resources away from fighting for marginal LNP-held seats in the regions. If Labor were to make a decent pitch to regain the support of workers from the timber industry and other resource-based industries in the regions, such as mining, fishing, agriculture, it could pinch seats off the coalition, but it would have to stand up strongly against the greens to do so, and it would have to sound convincing. AFPA (Australian Forest Products Association) has identified 12 marginal seats (ie. held by less than 5%) around the regions where the timber industry is significant, and the majority are held by the coalition. Hello...???

I believe a robust stand of support for a decent, well-managed timber industry would reward Labor, and it would not necessarily drive voters towards the Liberals or Nationals....

They've done it...! The Greens have come out with a pressure point for the election campaign, and it deserves to be strenuously resisted.... See the following link:

http://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/greens-want-tarkine-to-join-tasmanias-wilderness-world-heritage-area/news-story/ab05be889826500e3b3d5a8c670a5de8

This area has already been assessed (2013) for inclusion on the Register of the National Estate, and apart from a narrow strip along the coast, it did not stack up. It is diabolical now for the Greens to be pushing political pressure over appropriate process.

We saw how the 2013 TWWHA extension was characterised by bullying, dishonesty, misrepresentation, academic fraud, bodged peer review, failure to declare conflict of interest, transgression of existing statutes by political manipulation, denial of consultation, denial of natural justice, and flagrant abuse of proper process and protocol, and we don't want to go through any of that again! In that instance we saw many areas added to the TWWHA that do not have the validity to be there. They devalue its currency.

It is completely inappropriate to propose that all 447,000 hectares become added to WHA, and to attempt to use that stunt as a weapon against the mining and timber industries. There are some areas of the so-called Tarkine that will never be touched, and conventional timber harvesting involving CBS will not be applied. Instead, some areas will be available for low-impact single-stem selection for Special Timbers, with low annual volumes and no regeneration burning. This will be completely within the requirements of the EPBC Act, and the new Special Timbers Management Plan.

It is important for Tasmania and the taxpayers of Australia that this area is spared from the tax-sucking monster that dubious World Heritage Areas have become.