Congratulations, Tassie

Three cheers to Tasmania's forestry industry.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, was ambivalent until the very end.  Yet the foresters have won and survived to fight another day.

After arriving home about midnight on Saturday, I saw a colleague had called the election very early in the evening on the basis of the foresters' vote.  The e-mail waiting for me read, "Bass and Braddon (Tasmanian seats in forestry areas) have gone to the Libs, election is all over, called at 6.09pm".

Surviving Tasmanian Labor parliamentarian, Dick Adams, said on Sunday television that elitist policies written out of Sydney and Canberra are to blame.

His assessment was that Labor's primary vote suffered because we "got into bed with the Greens".

Over the years Tasmania's foresters have proven a tenacious lot.

Grass-roots organisation Timber Communities Australia (TCA), has fought many government-sponsored inquiries and even taken on the British Broadcasting Commission (BBC).

In 2002, TCA lodged a complaint with the Broadcasting Standards Commission in London alleging that the BBC had misled viewers in its documentary called "Paper Tiger".

Tasmania has 40 per cent of its total land and its forests protected in reserves, with 67 per cent of its rainforest and 97 per cent of its high quality wilderness fully protected.  Yet the BBC documentary had suggested the industry was wiping out last remaining stands of trees.

The BBC was eventually forced to publicly and internationally acknowledge that it had broadcast an exaggerated and inaccurate television documentary.

This election, Tasmanian foresters appear to have had another win.  In the process they have perhaps saved us all from the Australian Greens and their vicious and narcissistic approach to conservation and environmentalism.

The environmental fundamentalists went into the election campaign focused on three issues:  "Saving" Tasmania's forests, "saving" the Murray River, and "saving" the world from climate change.

It was the forestry issue that attracted most attention, including a preference deal between the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party.

Labor lost the election, including at least two seats in Tasmania.  The Greens' preferences came at a significant cost to Labor's primary vote.

In contrast to Labor's loss, the Greens have emerged to replace the Democrats as the official third force in Australian politics.

However, the Greens are unlikely to have any real influence in the new Senate and they have lost their one seat in the House of Representatives.

I hope this outcome resonates as an issue -- that selling out a primary industry in the hope of snagging city sentimentalists with propaganda can backfire.

Both major political parties must start to realise that a more rational and meaningful approach to the environment is desperately needed.

And so Tasmanian foresters, I salute you.

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