Provocateur…

January 25, 2020

Once upon a different place in time, the town of Triabunna lived and breathed an industry that clear-felled our native forests. The highways would thrum from before dawn till dusk with semi-trailers and B-doubles bringing their loads of huge specimens to be processed into woodchips and shipped to Japan and the island became split apart by those who supported the industry and those who wanted are more sustainable future. Aggression ran high in many towns across the state. In fact, the creation of the world’s first environmental political party began in Tasmania at this time and the Greens were born.

Japanese ships would arrive and pump their bilge into our bays and from them, we acquired unwanted marine pests like sea stars, weed and a voracious sea urchin. And yet the government paid no attention because the woodchips floated Tasmania.

But then a hole exploded in the market and places like Brazil began to market trees far more cheaply to the pulp industry and Tasmania’s market collapsed.

Counselling the Council…

May 22, 2017

To the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Councillors,

I realise that you are required to consider these applications in terms of Planning legislation, however I argue that you must also take a wider perspective on Tassal’s plan for the East Coast. That view should be more than jobs, but also public amenity, security of other industries such as tourism and Tassal’s lack of social licence for their plan.

Voter Backlash…

April 21, 2017

This is my bay.

It also belongs to many other people – the people of Tasmania. These are State waters, a beautiful sea that has provided occupation, recreation and ambience for many lifetimes of both indigenous people and newcomers.

When I talk of occupation, I talk of professions. I talk of fishermen – generations who have caught wild fish for a living. I had an uncle who was a professional fisherman. He would take his boat out and fish between the continental shelf and the shore of Tasmania, catching all manner of fish for the markets. But he fished sustainably and treated the ocean and what lived in it with respect, knowing that to over-fish would be cutting his nose to spite his face.

Today, a young family friend is also a professional fisherman, but thanks to climate change and an ecology altering by the day, his catch is sporadic and difficult.

Times have changed…

Licence to party!

June 5, 2016

Social Licence. It sounds like approval to have a good old knees-up with friends, doesn’t it? A bit of a bash with those you know are likely to make you feel good. A party. And it’s not that not far off the mark…