Should Jeff Angel resign along with Michael Costa, NSW Treasurer?
Mood:
quizzical
Topic: nsw govt
#1
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:12:59 +1000
To: letters@smh.com.au
From: harriett swift
Subject: If that's an achievement, I'd hate to see a failure
So Jeff Angel (SMH 3 September 08) is claiming “stopping woodchipping of south-east forests” as number 3 of his “top five” achievements.
I have news for him. Nobody, not even Jeff Angel has stopped the woodchipping of the south east forests. It’s booming.
Last year the Eden chipmill boasted that it had exported a record 1 million tonnes of woodchips.
NSW taxpayers subsidise this industry to the tune of $3.5 million a year.
CO2 emissions from the logging to supply the chipmill are massive, the most recent estimate more than 18 million tonnes per year. If Jeff Angel thinks he stopped this, I would like to invite him to the far south coast. I can show him 160 log trucks a day taking loads to the chipmill. I can show him clearfelled forests that once stored over 640 tonnes of carbon per hectare, providing shelter and nurture to forest dwelling animals. I can show him rivers silted up with sand after their catchments have been logged. And I show him a pile of woodchips at the Eden chipmill as high as a 7 storey building. All you need to do is open your eyes, Jeff. If that’s an “achievement”, I’d hate to see a failure.
Yours sincerely
Harriett Swift
Bega
Harriett Swift PO Box 915 Bega NSW 2550 Australia 02 64923267 0414908997
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#2
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 6:06 AM
Subject: Angel needs to consider his position Re: [chipstop] stop press: Jeff Angel has stopped the woodchipping of SE forests
Dear folks,
The back story to this moderate and flattering profile piece with picture story airbrushing the 20 year logging guarrantees and record levels of woodchipping in the south east (I am regularly adding to the crikey.com.au comment strings these days given the 1,500 arrests more than Franklin Dam campaign, mainly run by TWS 1988-91and some by SEFA) is about this:
- Angel collaborated with the Unsworth Inquiry into privatisation of public energy. He was repudiated by Dr John Kaye of the Greens and Green Party mid 2008 over failure to address climate change political economy implications of that. Just as Michael Costa will surely resign there is a fair argument Angel should also resign for having fatally compromised his position and TEC over independent analysis of energy privatisation (?).
- Suffice to say the right wing editorialists at SMH and owners, not least former federal Liberal Party treasurer Ron Walker on their board etc, are aggressively in favour of privatisation of the energy generators - a natural monopoly in large part.
- So this profile piece with book sales and fundraising potential is about propping up Jeff and his 700 membership to effectively sideline the far bigger and more democratic Green Party, and admittedly far more left wing, and similarly anyone else (e.g. ChipStop, EEG). As the ALP Right do ask as per Fiona McCrossin when I was house sharing in 2006 (Fiona being Jeff's proxy on SEFA and successor SERCA) "What is the green movement going to do after Jeff retires?". In other words, like Peter Garrett, who can they make deals with.
Take note all young activists - as Jason Bourne would say - "this is real". It is really happening and it's how real politics is done in NSW as per Lake Cowal, Timbara, SE Forests, Catherine Bay, Biodiversity 'Banking'. Etc.
- The other subtext by reference to his volunteering from 1973 - ordinarily an impressive commitment over a career and lifetime - is to air brush the actual founder, leader up until 1996 and fiesty, passionately independent Milo Dunphy , son of famous Miles Dunphy, teetotal visionary. Now Milo was hardly a perfect person, but he was the real deal and alot better than most. Like so many company founders he found "the business" taken over from under him and that's what TEC is today, an ALP satellite - greenish ALP I concede - like Peter Garrett.
PS I helped [seek accountability for] Coca Cola's ....in the Land & Environment Court hearings in the last 2 days. .......judgement reserved. Commissers Tim Moore and Taylor presiding. ....
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#3 To: chipstop@green.net.au
Date: Tuesday, 2 September, 2008, 4:18 PM
Hi campaigners
This is interesting news. Jeff Angel claims to have stopped the woodchipping of the south east forests. How could we have not noticed that it's stopped? He obviously has a much better perspective on these things from Macquarie street.
See bits in red.
regards
harriett
SMH TODAY
Angel's top five
- Introduction of lead-free petrol
- Saving the rainforests
- Stopping woodchipping of south-east forests
- Recycling instead of sending to landfill
- Debating climate change and emissions trading
Reaching for the environmental tipping point
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# 4
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 9:34 AM
Subject: Re: [chipstop] stop press: Jeff Angel has stopped the woodchipping of SE forests
Bizarre...surely its a typo?! Has anyone asked him?
Shelly.
IT'S DANGEROUS TO BE RIGHT WHEN THE GOVERNMENT IS WRONG !
.....VIC., Australia , 3888.
Mob: 0439559814 |
Posted by editor
at 8:09 AM NZT
Updated: Friday, 5 September 2008 9:44 AM NZT
