Look, Forestry has been doing a smashing job at self regulation.
One look at the countryside, our catchments, our autumn air and our waterways will prove beyond doubt that Forestry has all the bases covered……..
Except one….that cursed thorn EPA.
We now have them “in house” and under control.
“Emaciated Pandering Acquiescers” have signed themselves over to our expert team.
After all, why burden the EPA with stuff they know nothing about……
Forestry (For Optimum Redistribution of Environment Sold To Rapists Yes please) has and always will lose money as it is more about science that money making, so a million dollar a week loss is perfectly acceptable in the new framework.

EPA is more about a smokey car exhaust or someone hooking their storm water pipes into the sewer, it’s not about a sustainable, clever and kind operation that is legal, already over regulated and working with science to create jobs and a better more pristine world that you would find in Alice in Wonderland.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Good on them. The fact that they are talking to each other, and co-operating, is good, in fact, much better than if they were not talking, or being disrutive towards each other. Clause 3.5 addresses the issues most would have a concern with, unless you are totally unrealistic by nature. Have a look at some real issues….

At least, when the revolution comes, they will all be in one place!

Dave this is how it is in Tasmania. Just as Woodworker replies, they see this as no problem at all. No conflict of interest; no lack of independence; no lack of compliance; no lack of responsibility; no moral or ethical disjunct….just THE WAY IT IS DONE in Tasmania.

It is an entrenched culture Davo; born of familiarity and the need for total control. Play them at their own game and this is the only game in town!

Once people are in well-paid bureaucratic jobs with status, the stilettoes have already been made and discreetly hidden; no one plays any other game than THE WAY IT IS DONE in Tasmania…...ask some whistleblowers and maverricks that tried expose corruption or tried to be ethical in this Tasmanian PS.

For the record, last week Victorian Premier, John Brumby issued a media release on the need for a blitz on ‘bent public servants’. Under pressure to establish a CJC or ICAC he is considering a Victorian Ombudsman submission on concerns that suggest that collusion and corruption in the Victorian Public Service need to be stamped out. Tasmania is in the same leaky boat.

What seems conspicuous by it’s absence is any proviso for when a complainant is not satisfied with the FPA investigation.
They lodge a complaint with the EPA, the EPA refers it on to the FPA who conclude there’s no “potential non-compliance with EMPCA”. Case closed?

Yes, perfectly reasonable! The EPA get a complaint and before investigating and gathering evidence tip off thd FPA (Section 3.4) about the complaint. It could only happen in Tasmania.

Last year I complained and asked the FPA to stop certifying forest practices plans for plantations that are in areas where the chemicals will enter waterways. The Meander Dam catchment was sprayed on the day it was opened, plantations close to the Meander river and in Karst areas were sprayed. The FPA said it wasn’t their job to do anything about it as spraying was a “maintenance activity”.
I hope that now the MUO will mean a change of plans and that they will now prevent spraying next to rivers such as the Mersey which was oversprayed in late January

Goodbye to another attempt by Bartlett to create credibility in the wake of Lennon Labor.

Lemon Labor shows by a retinue of the same style of dumb moves denying its espoused position on almost everything that it ain’t clever, only connects with its special mates for special deals and extends kindness to its client groups excluding those who dissent.

They may be returned time and again leaving in the end a husk of Labor’s principles lying empty in an emptied land.

Tasmanians may one day wake to realise that an unelected cabal has been covertly running the Government of Tasmania through limp puppets, rag dolls and clever clowns acting as their duly elected minions at the controls of the State’s law levers.

That’s THE WAY IT IS in Tasmania….it’s worked to their advantage since European colonisation - with pastoral expansion, mining, hydro-dam building, gambling and forestry industries.

Because they have such a lot in common, the police and the criminals have decided to combine their operations. Now the crims can refer any complaints back to their mates in the police, who in turn, will then refer it back to the crims and ask them to investigate.

Saves a hell of a lot of money. All they’ve got to do now is hassle is to arrest any of the public who objects to the actions of the crims and make sure they are dragged before the courts.

That’s how we do it in Tasmania!

So, let us all look at this carefully.
Warren Jones is
      1—a member of the Forest Practices Advisory Council (there to protect forest practices)
      2==Agency Head of the Dept of Environment (responsible for overseeing and enforcement of EMPCA that does not directly oversee forestry, but is the principal act in protecting from pollution), 
      3==Director of EPA (that independant environmental watchdog that is there to protect the environment from all despoilers and polluters of the land, water and air).

How does he manage to juggle these tasks; how does he establish what his first priorities are?
Please tell, Mr Jones.
Tasmanians are waiting to hear ‘the story’.

http://www.fpa.tas.gov.au/index.php?id=88#c219

The functions of the Forest Practices Advisory Council (FPAC) are prescribed in s.37C of the Forest Practices Act as-

a) to advise the Authority on the review of the Act and the Forest Practices Code;

(b) to advise the Authority on the quality, relevance and cost effectiveness of forest practices administration, operations and research;

(c) to advise the Authority on financial matters including the self-funding of forest practices;

(d) to promote discussion within government and the forestry industry, and by land owners and land users, of forest practices issues.

The following persons have been appointed as members of the Forest Practices Advisory Council by the Minister in accordance with s.37A of the Forest Practices Act -

• a person with knowledge or expertise in sustainable forest management Chair) - GARY KING

• a person with knowledge of the State’s resource management and planning system in relation to municipal areas in which forestry is a major land use, nominated by the Local Government Association of Tasmania - ALAN GARCIA

• a person with expertise in, and operational experience of, forest harvesting or forest contracting - FERDY KROON

• a person with knowledge of the State’s resource management and planning system, nominated by the Secretary of the responsible Department in relation to the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act 1994 - WARREN JONES

• a person with knowledge of administration and legislation in relation to private forests, nominated by Private Forests Tasmania; GRAHAM SARGISON

• a person with knowledge of administration and legislation in relation to multiple use forests, nominated by the Forestry corporation - HANS DRIELSMA

• a person with expertise in, and experience of, forest issues in relation to harvesting and processing, jointly nominated by the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Country Sawmillers Federation - TERRY EDWARDS

• a person with expertise in, and experience of, forest issues in relation to forest conservation - PETER BOSWORTH

• a person with expertise in, and experience of, tree growing on private land, jointly nominated by the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association and the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania - IAN WHYTE

Curioser and curioser!

The directors of the FPA are appointed by the Minister for Infrastructure, Energy and Resources as independent experts. They are:

Vacant - to be confirmed

Independent Chair, with expertise in public administration, environmental or natural resource management and governance.

Penny Wells
A person with applied knowledge and expertise in environmental or natural resource management.

Penny Wells is a botanist and manager of special projects with the strategic policy and planning division of the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment. Before that she had been manager of conservation and environmental planning with Forestry Tasmania. She is a Tasmanian board member of Greening Australia.

Mark Leech
A person with applied knowledge and expertise in sustainable forest management on private land.

Mark Leech is a forester, a forestry consultant and a designer-maker who has worked extensively with the private forest industry. An expert in Tasmania’s special species such as Huon pine, he is a wood turner and was a director of the Australian School of Fine Furniture. He is the only member of the authority who was also a member of the Forest Practices Board.

Alan Watson
A person with applied knowledge and expertise in sustainable forest management on public land.

Alan Watson is a retired forester. He joined the then Forestry Commission in 1969 as a planner. From 1987 he worked as a Forest Practices Officer and completed his career as Forestry Tasmania’s District Forest Manager at Devonport.

Meredith Roodenrys
A person with applied knowledge and expertise in community liaison and local government, from an area in which forestry is a major land use.

Meredith Roodenrys is a local government consultant. She has also been environmental policy officer with the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers’ Association. She is the Australian Government’s representative on the Tasmanian Natural Resource Management advisory group.

Dr Peter Davies - Acting Chairman

A person with independent expertise in biological science/nature conservation.

Dr Peter Davies is a senior research fellow at the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania. He is also director of Freshwater Systems, an aquatic environmental consultancy. He holds national positions on organisations responsible for the health of rivers, including the Murray. His research work includes assessments of conservation requirements of threatened aquatic species.

Graham Wilkinson
The Chief Forest Practices Officer.

Graham Wilkinson has been the Chief Forest Practices Officer since March 1996 and, under the new legislation, joins the board for the first time. A masters graduate in forestry science, he is a specialist in forest practices with extensive national and international experience. He has over 30 years of experience covering forest operations, research, policy and regulation.

Hon David Llewellyn MP
Attorney-General
Minister for Energy and Resources
Minister for Justice
Minister for Primary Industries and Water
DIER supports the Minister in fulfilling his role as Minister for Energy and Resources.  In this capacity he has responsibility for policy and budgetary decisions affecting Energy and Resources, which takes in forestry and mining. Within the Energy and Resources portfolio, Mr Llewellyn is also has responsible for several key Government Business Enterprises (GBEs) and State-owned Companies (SOCs), including both Hydro Tasmania and Forestry Tasmania.

What? This is how we do it in Tasmania!

I immediately think of controlled burns, and of the huge amount of smoke that is released into the atmosphere.  I think of the asthma sufferers living in fear of death because of these disgusting practices.

Forestry does not acknowledge that there is anything wrong with these burns, and the EPA, by handing over to Forestry, is doing a ‘Pontius Pilate’ - delivering the citizens of this state into the hands of those who can commit arson ‘legally’.

One only has to visit Clive Stott’s Cleanair site and view the correspondence to realise that these forestry people and politicians have weighed up the pros and cons, and have decided that Clive and people like him ... are expendable.  When it comes down to it, faced with having to choose between controlled burns versus Clive having to be admitted to hospital emergency, they choose to continue the smoke-burns.

That is shameful.

Re comment number 11.Warren Jones,the man of many talents is also one of the the three members of ASCHEM which is the main body responsible for advising the Minister about all matters chemical.He therefore has the use of chemicals covered as well.All these department heads seem to be in so many crossover committees etc it must be hard for them to know which group they actually represent.

I believe that authority IS saying that ‘special’ people are expendable, as Gary Stannus alludes to in his comment. But you have to wonder if Tas health is looked on as not important, then who will be the next chosen group to be called on to give up their life/health for outdated processes?

I wrote to Dr. Roscoe Taylor,Director of Public and Environmental Health in Tasmania, on the 4/12/2008. After all, I would have thought smoke inhalation by all Tasmanian’s would be of major concern to someone in such a position?
——————————————————-

Dr Taylor,
In my letter to you dated 24/11/2008 I wrote, “The issue I am concerned with is smoke inhalation from planned burning; nothing more nothing less.”

Your largest paragraph (paragraph 2) goes on about unrelated issues such as, “…consumer product safety and injury prevention measures, many aspects of water pollution and vehicle emission standards…”?
These have no bearing on smoke inhalation from planned burning which is occurring in this state and is a huge public health issue.

You mention, “…DHHS is currently participating in a smoke management working group co-ordinated by the FPA.” It would seem to me that although DHHS’s views may be welcomed by that group, the group is under no obligation to accept any of them and likewise neither are the FPA Advisory Council or the FPA Board.

Smoke inhalation from planned burning is a public health issue and yet you refer me to the FPA for answers to legitimate concerns that I have after being affected by this environmental pollution issue.
I have contacted the FPA as you suggested in relation to some of the questions I asked in my last letter, however, as the body responsible for public and environmental health I need to know from you:-
i) Who actually is responsible for the public’s health when it comes to environmental smoke inhalation from planned burning?

and

ii) What happens with regards to members of the public who are affected by smoke inhalation from planned burning whilst strategies are being worked out?

If you do not know please say so; if you do know please give me answers.
——————————————

On the 6/1/2009 I wrote again to Dr. Taylor:-
Thank you for Dr. Chrissie Pickin’s letter of the 22/12/2008 received today.

In Dr. Pickin’s letter it was stated that DHHS have addressed the questions posed in my previous correspondence.

I am sorry but the questions I asked in my letter of the 4th December 2008 have not been addressed and I feel they are clear and concise.

Would you kindly forward answers to me within seven days, otherwise I will take it you cannot, or refuse to, answer them. A copy of my letter is attached for your convenience.
————————————————

No correspondence has been received to date because they can’t answer for one reason or another.
So there you have it. Our Department of Public and Environmental Health doesn’t have a clue about an environmental health matter of such gigantic scale in this state.

I bet their hand doesn’t even shake every fortnight when they pick up their pay cheques!

Other letters/replies I have had with departments/organisations on smoke inhalation can be found on the correspondence pages of my website.