THANK your lucky stars Premier Lara Giddings was not on the phone issuing instructions to a nuclear missile crew this week.
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This week, Ms Giddings has been about as clear as mud.
According to Ms Giddings there can be a forest agreement on the pulp mill without green groups backing the project. But the pulp mill will have to be part of the agreement.
She was clarifying confusion caused by reported pulp mill comments by forestry peace talks facilitator Bill Kelty.
"There can be an agreement without those (green) organisations agreeing to the pulp mill; they don't have to. They are not being asked to suddenly change their position opposing this piece of the industry, to suddenly support it," Ms Giddings said on Wednesday.
In the same sentence she went on to say: "but certainly, for an agreement to be reached on putting any further freeze on to high-conservation-value reserve there has to be the pulp mill as part of it - you won't get the trees without the industry - in fact the current forest industry needs the pulp mill; they need their woodchips to go somewhere and we should be producing paper here in Tasmania. Ultimately that is what we would like to see."
What's it to be Premier? That the pulp mill must be part of the deal, or are you saying green groups don't have to support the pulp mill for there to be an agreement, and if so, does that mean the conservation movement has just won about 600,000 hectares of native forests without a pulp mill trade?
Who wouldn't be a conservationist popping a champagne cork today, if that is the case?
They just grabbed 600,000 hectares from logging without having to give an inch.
With great understatement, the Premier said the talks are subtle and delicate.
She tried to clarify Bill Kelty's comments but really she is having it both ways. She is saying the green groups don't have to agree with something they must agree to for there to be an agreement.
Premier, you can't excuse people from agreeing to a proposition, and then say this particular proposition is essential for an agreement.
It is nothing but mutually exclusive jargon. Ms Giddings needs to do better than such convoluted logic.
- BARRY PRISMALL, deputy editor
