Daniel Hulme MP - Working for you in Franklin

[6.34 p.m.]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am becoming increasingly disturbed by some of the unlawful and increasingly dangerous behaviour that some people are engaging in in our State forests. I believe that some of this behaviour is not only putting workers and police officers at risk but is also putting the protesters themselves at risk.

In my dealings with members of Forestry Tasmania they have described to me some of this behaviour and I will give you some examples. One well-known example is the establishment of platforms, known as 'tree-sits', that are established in the canopies of trees or on cable harvesting equipment. Ropes are attached to tree-sits and sometimes these ropes have been set up across roads and have been hit by trucks at night which risks damage to vehicles and also injury to the drivers and protesters. Sometimes ropes have been attached from tree-sits to other trees which risks the tree-sit being pulled down and the protester injured.

During cold, windy nights, because the protesters sit in the tree-sits at night, they risk hypothermia. Police search and rescue personnel have actually had to lend rope to protesters and coach them down because they do not have the skills to extricate themselves from the tree-sits, but sometimes the protesters resist the police by cutting the ropes or throwing them back, which means that police have to scale the trees to bring them down which causes further risk to police. In some cases protesters have also attached cabling between trees which causes limbs to dislodge without notice during harvesting operations, and the cabling has had to be removed with machines, explosives or arborists, all of which pose additional safety risks and cost to Forestry Tasmania.

Protesters also trap their arms and make it difficult for themselves to be removed. In set-ups that are known as lockdowns, protesters set up apparatuses that trap their arms and make it difficult for them to be removed. The lockdowns are cemented into roadways or fixed into machinery and sometimes are deliberately designed so they are difficult to disassemble without causing injury to the protester. For example, sometimes lockdowns have shards of glass glued inside them or contain chemicals which increase the risk of fire being caused by cutting equipment. Often fire tankers have to be called in to wet down the area before the protesters are extricated.

Some of the other dangerous behaviour that protesters have engaged in in their interactions with Forestry Tasmania staff includes jumping on top of or under trucks, risking injury or accident and also stressing the drivers; jumping out at staff at night with balaclavas on their faces; driving at staff manning road blocks in order to break through them and attempting to provoke forest contractors with Forestry Tasmania staff having to step in to avoid further confrontation.

Mr Deputy Speaker, what also disturbs me is that some of the practices employed by these protesters are similar to those which can be found online in a guide produced by a group called Earth First on their web site called 'Eco Defence - a Field Guide to Monkey Wrenching'. The group Earth First has links to the Huon Valley Environment Centre and to Still Wild Still Threatened, who publish articles on their web site, and I sincerely hope that the sorts of practices they are engaging in do not escalate to what is advocated in this manual, because it talks about tree spiking, road spiking, burning machinery and disabling aircraft. When I see the escalation of the sort of dangerous behaviour that forest protesters are engaging in, I sincerely hope that it does not escalate to that level.

It is not enough that protests are undertaken peacefully, they must be undertaken lawfully. Exclusion zones are set up in forests for two reasons. One of those reasons is to allow workers to go about their lawful business uninterrupted and also to protect the safety of workers and the wider public. Even if it is not their intention to put safety at risk, the protesters know that with the sorts of things that they are engaging in, that is the potential.

Whatever the cause is, the principle must be that protesters uphold the law. I am not advocating that protesters do not break the law simply because I disagree with this particular group's message. Even if I agreed with their message -

Time expired.

[6.14 p.m.]

Madam Deputy Speaker, yesterday when I was talking in the adjournment debate about unlawful and dangerous protest behaviour, Mr Booth and Ms O'Connor, by way of interjection clearly indicated the Greens' position on this issue. They have shown that the Tasmanian Greens support people breaking the law, putting safety at risk, putting livelihoods at risk rather than trying to achieve their aims through the democratic processes available to all Tasmanians.

It just serves to show the extremism of the Tasmanian Greens given that 92 per cent of Tasmanians oppose protesting by unlawful means. If 92 per cent of Tasmanians oppose this behaviour then this must put the Tasmanian Greens at odds with at least half of their own supporters.

They come into this Parliament wanting to debate and vote on the laws of this State but cannot accept that it is the duty of all citizens to abide by these laws and the duty of the police to enforce the laws. If they wish to claim that there is some moral imperative that justifies breaking the law, why is it that only those they agree with can claim this moral imperative?

Can't timber workers complain that protection of their jobs is a moral issue? Are timber workers therefore justified in blockading or occupying the offices of the Tasmanian Greens or the Wilderness Society and preventing them from going about their lawful activities? It is a clear double standard to come into this place seeking to be law-makers but condone, and even lend support to, law-breaking behaviour.

It just goes to show the extremism of the Tasmanian Greens' position.