A fine example of Non-Parliamentary Political Communication

From the Burnie Advocate, Tasmania, Australia

In response to the Advocate’s editorial (15 January 2004) may I send my hearty support to those brave and courageous young activists in Sydney who against all odds, risked their own physical (and legal) safety to send a message to the broader Australian public about what is happening in the Tasmanian forests. It was a cunning and brilliant tactical media stunt by individuals who actually care about the world in which we live. Far from being a ‘minority’ as many people assert, the Green movement in Australia is on the rebound and the Tasmanian establishment again finds itself out-of-step with mainstream Australian public opinion.

Tasmania had the first Green party anywhere in the world and Bob Brown is arguably the state’s most successful political leader in history. These are things that we should be proud of, not destroying our old growth forests and letting Tasmania again become a national pariah. Tasmania has moved forward tremendously in the past decade but the minority elements of the Tasmanian establishment, who still make hunderds of millions of dollars from irresponsible ‘third world’ economic practices, want to take Tasmania back to its dark past.