October 31 will be known BLACK WEDNESDAY in the logging industry for a long time to come. To think that Ivan Dean could possibly be voted out of office as Launceston’s Mayor is a disgraceful situation. He has been a champion for our jobs and clearly Launceston’s voters have totally misread the situation.
The thought of Ivan Dean spending time with his grandchild when he could have been out there fighting for the logging industry’s future, and to save jobs in the industry, well it is very disappointing and it is an enormous loss. Ivan himself does not blame “the pulp mill” for his demise and all we can do is to hope that it wasn’t.
Ivan Dean has come out and said (paraphrased) the system is all wrong when mayors only have a two year tenure. He is right, when you get someone in such a position, and someone like Ald. Dean who has worked so hard for the pulp mill ... and other right minded issues. It is so wrong to allow people like Ivan Dean to be removed by a fickle, and wrong thinking, electorate. He is so right and it is so, so wrong that he has no longer there.
In the meantime, the industry has a lot of work to do in winning more subsidies to help many workers leave the logging industry as the resource becomes more plantation based ... and Tasmania is increasingly cleaned up. Thankfully Ivan Dean will still be a member of the Legislative Council and Launceston’s Council. So he will be able to keep on fighting for more subsidies and for loggers to continue to have access to Tasmania's resources.
Nonetheless, none of this makes this day any the less BLACK. In fact it is a BLACK RIBBON DAY and a sorry day for Tasmania.
2 comments:
FOREST NOW TASMANIA is a genuine attempt to put the logging industry’s perspective. When we move around the industry we hear what its members are saying but they hardly ever seem to get out there and into the public debate. What is being aimed for here is to put this to right. In Tasmania the logging industry represents a broad cross section of the community and for the most part Premier Lennon is working for us and is in accord with all that the industry does.
However there are some gaps between Premier Lennon’s public position and that which he shares with members of the industry out there working in the forests. If you think that what we say is “stupid” may I invite you to visit Tasmania and go and talk to working loggers. In the real world there are real issues to be faced and jobs to be secured.
All I can say take all that’s put up in this BLOG at face value. Be assured the logging industry is working hard to ensure that Tasmania is cleaned up and that its members get all they deserve for the part they are playing in this heroic effort.
A sad day indeed.
A few tears shed with others who took the black armbands to the streets.
Ivan was a champion of the loggers, a visionary who saw how tens of thousands of Tasmanians are so misguided and ill informed that even with his baby smile and ever youthful looks he was not able to make them see how the pulp mill and the money machine that is the pulp wood industry would be their saviour.
Ivan, we are as one brother!
Keep those precious subsidies coming so we can have more jobs cleaning up Tasmania's shame, our messy forests.
Out of respect, my arm band stays for a month and next week I get my "Ivan" tat on my chest just above my heart.
He would have wanted that.....
Kingo the road.
Post a Comment