Will the last federal member of the National Party of Australia turn the lights out on forestry?
The decision by Ross Cadell, NSW Nationals Senator, to go after Michael O’Connor and the Timber, Furnishing and Textiles Union (TFTU) over Anthony Albanese and Murray Watt’s ‘dirty EPBC deal’ with the Greens is puzzling to say the least.
“Last time I checked, the union existed for its members, not to run a protection racket for the dirty deal done between Labor and The Greens,” Senator Cadell, the Shadow Minister for Fisheries and Forestry, Water, and Emergency Management, said in Canberra today. “The claim that we’re ‘mimicking Green talking points’ is complete hypocrisy from the TFTU, who have been non-existent in the lead up to last week’s vote.”
Whether it’s petty politics or poor policy, Cadell, the Nationals (and, by extension, the Coalition) have missed the trick (again) – and now risk being left without a musical chair for the second time in weeks. Instead of slagging off the unions – now the industry’s best hope at salvaging timber jobs – it should be locking its crosshairs squarely at the Greens.
Last week, Wood Central reported that Michael O’Connor, the National Secretary of the TFTU – Australia’s only timber union – warned that the media, the Coalition, and (select) members should be careful with how they frame EPBC reforms and the future of the industry: “The Greens are way off the mark by claiming this is the death of native forestry,” O’Connor said, cautioning that “some Liberal and National Party MPs and industry bodies should be cautious about mimicking Green talking points.”
“I’m not sure what they are thinking,” an ex-liberal staffer told Jack Rodden Green today. “It’s clear they are not thinking along policy lines or constructively; they are lashing out. They’d do well to recall what John Howard (the Liberals’ second-longest serving leader) did in opposition, who worked constructively with the Hawke government to find national solutions.
I have written extensively about the challenge for forestry (and for all land-based activities impacted by this reform) is to establish a new bilateral process – similar to an RFA – between the states and the federal government, which in many ways is an equivalent to an RFA.
As for Senator Cadell, who today warned that the festive season always brings out the turkey…it also shows who is the goose too.
