By Tom Flanagan and Peter Boyle
HOBART — The first electoral fallout from green disenchantment with the ALP may land in Tasmania, where Bob Brown and the other green independent MPs have threatened to break their alliance with the Field Labor government if it goes ahead with legislation to complement federal "resource security" measures. The government wants to open 1.1 million hectares of forest for logging. Greens and some scientists say that part of this area should be included on the World Heritage register.
Some 3000-4000 people demonstrated in the city during a rainy lunchtime on March 22 to begin a national campaign against state and federal resource security legislation. The Wilderness Society says that the campaign will include demonstrations around the country, media campaigning and forest actions.
The demonstration also opposed plans to build chlorine-bleach pulp mills in Tasmania. The crowd demanded "nature guarantee" legislation and proper public consultation before any pulp mill was given the go-ahead.
This campaign could be more than just a struggle to stop another environmentally dangerous project, according to Bob Brown, who addressed the rally along with Christine Milne and others.
"Inevitably there will be a new and cohesive green force in Australian politics", Brown told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ after the rally. "The Labor Party has shown through resource guarantee at state and federal levels that it doesn't have it within itself to become green in a world in which green is the alternative that has got to be.
"We are going to have the 'Laborals' [Labor and Liberal] on one side and the greens and Democrats on the other and, I would think, further down the line coming together to form the alternative force ...
"The Labor Party has thrown down the gauntlet with this issue and the greens have picked it up and said we aren't going to back off on this because we can't back off on this."
If the Field government goes ahead with the legislation, not even a future green government could reverse it because of the veto powers of the conservative Legislative Council.
Brown and MP Gerry Bates have said in public that the green independents would introduce a no-confidence motion, which the Liberal opposition has confirmed it would support. This would force a return to the polls. Unofficially, the word is out in the movement to be ready for a state election in June or July.
The Field government is unlikely to be re-elected because it has alienated not only the green vote but also a wide range of people hurt by its cuts to education, health, welfare and jobs.
The green independents have previously threatened to break with the Field government. It is believed that there are differences among the on this question. Some environmentalists suspect that Bates may be the most wary of forcing a new elections, perhaps preferring the security of a seat in hand. However, Brown claimed on a recent ABC Lateline program that the greens are confident of retaining their seats in a new election because recent opinion polls show no loss of support.
Labor misunderstands the green independents, said Brown. "We are not simply governed by white cars, drink cabinets and the other trappings of office. If they think that losing a seat holds any terror for us, they have not been with us in the forests, and they haven't seen how we feel about the future prospect of the planet".
Brown complained that Labor did not have to force this confrontation now. "North Broken Hill has made it absolutely clear that it will not make a decision for 18 months" on a new pulp mill. Michael Field is being inflexible, he said, because he could hold off and put it to the people in the next election. Bob Hawke's decision to press ahead with resource security legislation encouraged Field to push ahead with this "disastrous course of action".n