Mood:
mischieviousTopic: big media
Picture: Alec Marr, Director of The Wilderness Society 3rd from left, taken off a collage in the TWS Sydney office wall display.
We briefed colleagues yesterday on a page 3 story rudely interrupting our Easter Monday holiday (doing the ironing actually). It refers to Alec Marr so called out of the loop in Canberra, pictured above next to Albanese, Garrett etc in the lead up to the federal election. The politicians know where the weight is, as we do.
We wrote before about the central role Lyndon Schneiders has played as a rival for Marr's job, an ambition missing from the Age stories in February. The SMH have to that extent updated. But they also failed to get to the history of perverse manipulations by one Judy Lambert, a senior figure in TWS with in our view some terrible impacts on forest policy in Australia, not least as former policy fixer for discredited ALP Enviro Minister of yesteryear Ros Kelly.
We believe J Lambert has some major conflicts to explain, and accountability for past job review fraud cutting a swathe through the national organisation of TWS in the 1990ies. We understand J Lambert is involved again in the rebel group in 2010, having requisitioned a town hall meeting in Melbourne.
Here is our update to colleagues given the beat up by the SMH yesterday:
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 4:29 PMSubject: TWS will be fine, 45K members etcI have no private interest or connection with any of the stakeholders which becomes important given many undeclared conflicts in this dispute.I had a call from a member of the national executive regarding Lyndon Schneiders resigning early last week. From what I can see there is nothing really new in the story in the SMH from the coverage in The Age over a month ago other than Lyndon spitting the dummy. That earlier story is hereI spoke to that Age journalist for half an hour last month after the story about a common sense approach needed regarding democratic empowerment of the 45,000 membership which often is not the same as the admin functionary cliques that develop in branches of TWS (read below 1994 primary doc with figure involved in 2010) sometimes with no understanding of campaigning imperatives (like current death struggle with Gunns Ltd).In my time it was functionaries thinking TWS was a shallow PR factory existing to employ them while activists out on the line put their lives at risk. Marr on the other hand has been on the front line many times. #1 defendent in the Gunns Case.The recent New Matilda story #1and #2and comment string covers the situation.What the SMH story today and Lyndon's quotes don't reveal is that he apparently is the long time ambitious rival candidate for the director's job, with alleged destabilisation campaign to achieve that. Also the national campaign committee attack on Marr was after an IR dispute involving the attempted sacking of a talented, dedicated individual arguably implicated indirectly in breach of intranet privacy obligations of national management team.(I consulted the IT manager for ACF who is an old school friend of mine and he noted there are legal consequences of hacking private email, let alone national management. That sacking was overturned in the Tas IR Commission, but is itself being appealed by the national body. I read the lengthy judgement at first instance and there are some problems with the decision - failure to make a glaring finding of fact regarding burnout of the individual, somewhat perverse finding about the attitude of Alec Marr arguably lacking evidence.)Also in the SMH today the notion that AGMs of the national meeting of TWS are held in a national conference plenary is not what I recall back in the early 90ies. They are held at the same event in parallel but always a very small private affair for security of the organisation. The idea that 150 or 200 would be at a national AGM of TWS during the national conference sounds like fantasy to me. For instance anyone who pays their dues might stack the AGM - infamous redneck Jennifer Marohasy being the most extreme case (in print quoting Wilderness News via subscription one assumes).Also significant in the ructions is the conflicted role of an old fixer exposed herewith a degree of fraud to her record from way back in 1994 (again in 2010?) when she effectively helped remove the previous national campaign team. Advisedly. The primary documents are there and a long time coming out 15 years later. The fact this person was previously a fixer for ALP federal environment minister Ros Kelly (who was sacked in a funding scandal) before returning to TWS machinations is not lost on this writer.It may be this posting with hard evidence of fraud national management job review process in 1994 has scattered the rebellion in 2010 given the implications. Same person requisitioned the rebel meeting in Melbourne in February.Lyndon while achieving great things in Qld is a marked man over the Qld Wild Rivers controversy so the notion he could take up the national directorship is fairly fraught, with fierce critic Pearson likey to meet Obama later this year in Australia, and Garrett refusing to progress world heritage without such as Pearson's approval. That's a snooker.The best thing for Lyndon in my view would be to get involved in the NSW state election campaigning not least Eden deal koala power plant. This would empower TWS locally and help everyone to move on including his spouse Felicity Wade as NSW campaign co-ordinator for TWS.All in all, the most significant news is that Lyndon has resigned which indicates he is no longer a rival candidate within the main national organisation, but possibly remains so outside. The best way forward is mediation with an expert wilderness supporter like former federal court judge Murray Wilcox who is available apparently.Meanwhile Gunns Ltd is on the skids and the share market is calling for the head of the CEO for alleged insider trading before the share price crashed. Alec Marr was #1 defendant against Gunns Ltd for good reason.Regards, Tom McLoughlin (state campaigner TWS 1993-94)
Meanwhile here some nice pictures of the koala forest campaigners, also supported by The Wilderness Society here in NSW, as per the large laminate Koala poster (their materials from the 2003 state election if memory serves):
