Tasmanian Logging Yields World Record Green Vote

By Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Australia, July 22, 2002 (ENS) - Environmentalists are celebrating the election of four members of the Tasmanian Greens to state parliament in the election held on Saturday. They view the victory as an important milestone in the campaign to protect old growth and wilderness forests.

The four Greens were elected after the party polled 18.2 percent statewide - described as the highest Green vote in state or national elections anywhere in the world.

Re-elected Premier Jim Bacon on the campaign trail in Hobart. (Photo courtesy Office of the Premier)

However, the Greens, widely described as the real opposition in the state, won three new seats at the expense of the divided conservative Liberal Party to add to its one existing seat. The Liberal Party now survives with only a rump of six members of parliament.

Underlying the surge in the Tasmanian green vote, up from 10 percent in the 1998 election, was a groundswell of opposition to the increasing level of logging of old-growth forests. In the four years to 2000, the logging industry cleared over 60,000 hectares (148,266 acres) of native forest.

According to Alec Marr, campaign director for The Wilderness Society, the level of logging has deeply antagonized the Tasmanian community. “There was already a massive build up of pressure in the community to protect the forests before the election," he said. "I don’t think Bacon can take any comfort from the result at this stage of the game not on this issue.” The Wilderness Society in Australia is unrelated to its U.S. namesake.

Tasmanian old-growth forest (Photo courtesy Jerome Hutin)

Tasmania, which has a proportional representation electoral system in the lower house, spawned one of the first green political parties in the world. In the 1989 state election - in the wake of a controversy over a proposal for a polluting pulp mill - the Greens attracted 17 percent of the vote. The five seats they won gave them the balance of power, which they used to ensure major extensions of the Western Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage area and the declaration of new national parks.

But the parliamentary longevity of the Tasmanian Greens antagonized the existing political parties and major industry lobby groups. In 1996 both the Labor and Liberal parties combined to change the electoral system, without a referendum, by reducing the number of seats in the lower house from 35 to 25. It was expected that by increasing the vote needed to win a seat in the five member electorates from 12.5 percent to 16.7 percent, the Greens would be eliminated.

Still, on the back of the growing controversy over the increased logging of old-growth and wilderness forests, support for the Greens has surged once more. Throughout the election campaign, the Tasmanian Community Alliance, a coalition of community groups and individuals, ran television ads promoting the protection of the old-growth forests.

The high profile of the forest issue prompted Gunns to lash out. Gunns is Tasmania’s largest forestry company and accounts for 85 percent of the over 5.5 million tonnes of woodchips exported from the state. Gunns chief executive John Gay, attacked the Greens as a “selfish minority” determined to “destroy Tasmanian jobs.”

“Protect our jobs within forest industries - vote for majority government,” one Gunns ad urged, tacitly endorsing the incumbent Labor Government.

Logs from the old growth forests in the Styx Valley, Tasmania (Photo © Bob Burton)

However, Australian Prime Minister John Howard strongly supported upholding an agreement he negotiated with the state government and the timber industry. “You don’t make good forest policy on the run,” Howard said last Wednesday in the Tasmanian state capital of Hobart.

Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon is not prepared at this stage to concede any changes to his forest policy. “Clearly there is a significant percentage of people in the electorate who are concerned," about old-growth logging, he acknowledged. "We are going to try and turn the perception around,” he told a media conference on Sunday.

Marr believes Premier Bacon will be forced to moderate his policies by the ongoing campaign. “It is the start of a massive resurgence in the old-growth forests campaign. Certainly things won’t stop as a result of the election,” he said.

Marr says the election results have national implications too. “What you are seeing is that right across the country politicians are really paying a heavy penalty when they don’t do something about the protection of old growth forests."

"What we are seeing with NSW Premier Bob Carr, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and Bacon is a growing level of frustration about their failure to address the fact they have got woodchipping industries that are all out of control,” Marr said.