By Sarah Stephen
HOBART — Tasmania's new environment minister, Peter Hodgman, was guest speaker at a Wilderness Society campaign dinner and slide show here on May 13, attended by 50 people.
Slides were shown of some of the sites proposed by the Liberal state government for protection in national parks — South Bruny Island and part of Mole Creek in the north-west. The government has also promised to protect around 50% of the 180 areas considered by TWS to be important stepping stones to larger forest reserves.
Geoff Law, TWS coordinator, told the crowd how good it was to see a Liberal government elected with a promise to establish new national parks. "The Wilderness Society has had daggers drawn with the state government in the past. But there are politicians from all parties who have concern for the environment ... Malcolm Fraser was instrumental to the successful World Heritage listing of the Franklin River in the heady '80s."
Law explained that Hodgman had been walking in all of the national parks in Tasmania and knew what wilderness was about. He was also the first in Australia to move against CFCs, and the first minister to start cracking down on pollution exemptions, said Law.
In his speech, Hodgman talked about the need to focus more on the significant areas of agreement between his government and TWS, and of a new era of reconciliation with the environment movement.
Hodgman said that he saw TWS's mission as asking for far more than can ever be achieved. As a member of government, he had to reconcile environmental concerns with jobs and economic growth. He urged TWS to continue its campaigns and to brief him on any issue at any time.
During question time, Hodgman's pro-environment veneer wore thin. The gap between rhetoric and practice was exposed when Native Forest Network coordinator Tim Cadman pointed out that the area set aside for protection by the government was in fact already largely set aside as state reserve. The government's proposal was merely to amalgamate them into one national park.
Hodgman was unable to answer many other points raised in discussion, referring them to his adviser in true Yes, Minister style. This caused ripples of laughter through the crowd.