The News Review:
- Apple Isle’s core dilemma
- Terrors f Tasmania
- Going for the job lot
- Pulp mill critics want broader assessment
- Rural News Week ending September 15 2007
Apple Isle’s core dilemma
The Australian – Sep 15, 2007
About the same time a grandmother outside Hobart was telephoned and asked to come urgently to her organic vegetable shop. A young man (no one knows if it was the same man) had an envelope for her and insisted on delivering it in person. Similar scenes occurred across Tasmania. A man who runs an incense shop received one… He won it twice then lost it twice: by 40 votes in 1993 and 76 votes in 1998. "The long-term economic wellbeing of a small island is what people will vote for. " A road trip across Tasmania is one of life’s great pleasures. But the journey takes on a sinister edge when I visit filmmaker Brian Dimmick one of the Gunns 20 who faces intimidation not from Gunns but from pro-forestry locals. His water has been poisoned and some days locals drive along his fence spraying something towards his house. Some nights locals shine spotlights on his house. We’re nestled in the mountains but hearing some of Dimmick’s experiences it feels more like we’re in Deliverance country.
Terrors f Tasmania
ABC Regional nline – ABC Regional nline – Sep 15, 2007
Award-winning filmmakers David Parer and Liz Parer-Cook explore the way of life of this special Australian in Terrors of Tasmania. In the past Devils have had their share of bad press. They den under farmhouses and make blood-curdling screams at night scaring the occupants witless. They scavenge on dead animals such as possums and sheep and were thought to be indiscriminate killers.
Going for the job lot
The Australian – Sep 15, 2007
Industrial relations changes have proven to be a greater danger to the Coalition than the war in Iraq and a belated approach to climate change because they have managed to ripple through all the Liberals’ key support groups. lder Australians are concerned for their children and grandchildren younger Australians are worried about their immediate jobs and people living in industrial and regional areas worry about a downturn. Hence the importance of the substance and symbolism of the Tamar pulp mill: there are at least two Tasmanian seats directly affected by the proposed mill and several regional seats on the mainland in rural Victoria NSW and Western Australia. Like the forestry policy at the 2004 election when Howard outsmarted Mark Latham and went for the workers’ vote instead of Greens preferences the pulp mill represents prospects for jobs in regional areas where they are needed most and beyond Tasmania. There is another parallel where the federal Government is attempting to ensure jobs are created and protected and at the same time finding an environmentally acceptable solution even if it means committing more dollars. It also slots into the Liberal strategy – essentially a strategy of little choice – of trying to take advantage of differentials in support in seats within states and between states and to fight on a seat-by-seat basis. WA continues to be the Coalition’s best chance of an advance while some safe Liberal seats particularly in Sydney which can afford large swings look set to suffer.
Pulp mill critics want broader assessment
ABC Regional nline – ABC Regional nline – Sep 15, 2007
From Canberra Alexandra Kirk reports. ALEXANDRA KIRK: Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan successfully lobbied the Government to abandon the privatisation of the Snowy Hydro Scheme and withdraw support for auctioning water from Queensland’s Warrego River. Now he’s urging great caution on the proposed Gunns Tasmanian pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. BILL HEFFERNAN: Well obviously the process for the pulp mill has been a disgrace. It fails the pub test it fails the commonsense test. While you can have an excellent industry you can also have an industry that creates jobs creates wealth but at the same time is in tune with Mother Earth. ALEXANDRA KIRK: Senator Heffernan thinks the project can be fixed but that more work needs to be done.
Rural News Week ending September 15 2007
ABC Regional nline – ABC Regional nline – Sep 15, 2007
WATER UNDERWATERA Melbourne engineer has unveiled a plan to build three pipelines under Bass Strait that could carry seven hundred and fifty gigalitres of fresh water a year from Tasmania to the mainland. Geoff Croker is part of the consortium that’s investigating the feasibility of gravity feeding water through 450-kilometre-long pipes from Tasmania’s high rainfall West Coast to Victoria. He says if the plan is proven to have merit the company will start negotiations with the Tasmanian Government and aim to go to the market in the New Year. “Where we are at the moment we are doing some serious design work we will have that finished by the end of November and that will tell us whether it is feasible. We have to withstand 700 metres of head on that pipe we have to know if that the pipe will live for at least 100 years so we’re not talking about money in that sense. I see money as being the least of our problems” he said. LNG-TERM DAMAGE FEARED FR RACING INDUSTRYThe Keeper of the Australian Stud Book Michael Ford says the impact of horse flu could be felt in the thoroughbred industry for up to 20 years.