[Greens-Media] Wielangta: Commonwealth intervenes

[Oquist, Ben (Sen B. Brown)]

Tuesday, 23 August 2005

Wielangta: Commonwealth intervenes

The federal government has been granted 'limited intervention' in the
Federal Court challenge by Senator Bob Brown against Forestry Tasmania
and logging at Wielangta on Tasmania's east coast. Senator Brown says
the logging threatens federally-listed endangered species such as the
Swift parrot, Tasmanian Wedge-tailed eagle and Wielangta stag beetle.

Canberra's application to become a full respondent able to cross-examine
and subpoena was rejected by Judge Marshall. The judge reserved a
decision on state Attorney-General Judy Jackson's move to intervene,
pending argument from both sides before 5 September. The case is set
down for hearing in Hobart for 2 weeks from 17 October.

On May 31st, the Federal Minister for Forestry, Ian McDonald, called the
case 'a stunt'. However, today, the Minister's legal representative had
a very different assessment, saying that the federal government was
'seriously concerned' that its interests were 'directly and vitally
affected'.

Forestry Tasmania complained against the sweep of its documents sought
by Senator Brown, including logging plans for Wielangta for the next 80
years, and told the court that a computer record relating to a
Wedge-tailed eagle study had been inadvertently destroyed and would need
to be 'reconstructed'.

Outside the court, Senator Brown said that the state and federal
governments should be intervening on behalf of the wedge-tails, not the
chainsaws. "What is the use of a national list of rare and endangered
species if the forest can be logged from under them?", he asked.

Senator Brown said that Minister McDonald had totally misunderstood the
importance of the case. "He resorted to instant insults instead of the
intelligent appraisal one would expect of a minister doing his duty,"
Senator Brown said.



Further information: Ben Oquist 0419704095