Paul Harriss
Claims that our workplace protection laws somehow impinge on free speech are absolute rubbish according to an article in The Mercury by Paul Harriss, Tasmanian State Resources Minister. Source: The Mercury
Mr Harriss said that what the laws actually do is protect free speech, while also protecting workers who want to earn a legitimate living.
Former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown held a protest rally on Parliament lawns recently and was able to make his point about Lapoinya without allegedly breaking the law.
About 70 anti-forestry protesters, as well as a pro-forestry group, were able to protest and make their point at the Lapoinya logging coupe without breaching any laws or hindering operations.
He said that these alleged invasions have resulted in harvesting operations at Lapoinya being suspended, affecting 11 workers and contractors, and costing an estimated $12,500.
Tasmania Police also incurred 413 man hours, including 33 hours of overtime, policing the site — costing taxpayers more than $25,000. When police are tied-up there, they can’t help others elsewhere.
With the right to free speech comes responsibilities he said, I’m sure most Tasmanians agree that when you invade a workplace and stop people earning a legitimate living, you have crossed the line.
He said State Parliament agreed when it passed workplace protection laws which, contrary to claims, do not provide for mandatory penalties, but rather for fines up to $10,000 and up to four years’ jail for repeat offenders.
The irony is, until recently, the Lapoinya coupe was not contentious at all.
It is regrowth forest that has been harvested before.
Mr Harriss claimed that under that disastrous so-called peace deal, peak environmental organisations including The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and the Australian Conservation Foundation put forward about 600,000ha of what they called “high conservation value” forest they wanted protected, in return for allowing harvesting in other forests.
Lapoinya was not in that claim, rather it was in the bit that the environmental movement and the Greens, who ultimately voted for the deal, were happy to see harvested.
He said that it was true that on coming to office we tore up that job-destroying deal, as we said we would. But how did that suddenly make regrowth trees that were OK to harvest somehow the most precious forest in Tasmania? Of course it didn’t, he said but the fact is whether or not we tore up the deal would not have mattered, the greens were always going to dishonour the deal and protest down the track.
Mr Harriss said the greens are world champions at moving the goalposts and Lapoinya is the latest case in point. They work by incrementalism, promising peace, but then going back to the trenches.
He said that for example, although we have torn up the deal, about another 120,000ha had already been permanently locked up in the World Heritage Area by Labor and the Greens. Still, the greens want more, even regrowth forest — even though more than half of the state is already in reserves.
Mr Harriss said that as the green movement reverts to its tired, old playbook, Tasmanians can be assured that his government will stand up for the forest industry, free speech and the rights of workers.
