“Timber” – The fall of an ALP preference deal?

Opposition leader Kevin Rudd is walking a precariously placed tight-rope heading into a hotly contested federal election.

An election in which Prime Minister John Howard has so far failed to manufacture a suitably devious platform to launch his government’s signatory tirade of pre-election propaganda.

“Children Overboard” proved an election winning distraction six years ago, and was later revealed to be as genuine as Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and as logical as the “Coalition of the Willing”.

However, as the Green Left Weekly online article “Tas forests, pulp mill: Another Rudd betrayal” alludes, Mr Rudd may yet provide his own grisly demise.

Rudd has strategically placed his support behind a $2 billion proposal by Gunns Ltd for the establishment of a pulp mill project in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston, abandoning ALP policy established under Mark Latham in the build up to the 2004 election.

A policy which pledged to suspend the logging of Tasmania’s native forests, in conjunction with an $800 million commitment towards developing a sustainable timber industry.

Rudd has placed a preference deal with the Greens in serious jeopardy.

Greens spokesperson, Peg Putt, and Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, have both voiced their disapproval and concern over Rudd’s latest policy shift.

“Kevin Rudd has proved to be a dud on forest protection in Tasmania and… (has failed) to look after our outstanding forests for future generations,” Ms Putt said.

“$8 million to protect the forest industry from climate change, fostered by an industry which logs and burns forests and puts massive tonnages of greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere each year, is illogical and perverse”, said Senator Brown.

Senator Brown’s scathing remarks towards Rudd’s token environmental pledge clearly demonstrates the ALP’s struggle to please both sides of politics.

Wilderness Society spokesperson Geoff Law further highlighted the ALP’s policy shift as a disaster for environmental politics in Australia.

“Rudd has condemned 320,000 hectares of pristine forests in Tasmania that his policy should have protected”.

However, Tasmania’s logging industry has been quick to applaud Mr Rudd, pressing for the ALP to place its support behind future endeavours.

National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI) CEO, Catherine Murphy, welcomed the move, suggesting that previous ALP forestry conservation plans for Tasmania had been ill-thought out.

“After the disastrous Mark Latham Tasmanian forest policy of 2004, NAFI welcomes the new approach Mr Rudd says he will take to forest industry issues,” said Ms Murphy.

Rudd and Howard both cite job security as the primary reason for their support of Tasmanian logging companies. However, the simultaneous neglect of the inevitable environmental impacts and eventual depletion of forest regions will prove the biggest threat to economy and employment.

Rudd must develop some “clear cut” policy that sharply separates the ALP from the Howard government, provides long term solutions to pressing environmental and economic issues, and does not simply attempt to appease all but win concrete support from none.

Furthermore, should Rudd’s vacillating policy making fail to continue to conciliate both sides of Australian politics, the ALP could revert to the political wilderness on a more permanent basis.