If Nick McKim is going to become a Senator for Tasmania, he needs to be honest about his record in the Tasmanian Parliament.
Yesterday, now Labor Leader and then Forestry Minister Bryan Green confirmed the job-destroying TFA did indeed allow for special species harvesting in the area that was to become the World Heritage Area extension.
Mr Green told media yesterday1, “the legislation [the TFA] actually provided for access to the area that was adhered to the World Heritage Area on the boundary. The legislation provided for that, and we endorsed that position obviously through the Parliament.”
However Mr McKim consistently claimed during Estimates special species harvesting wasn’t allowed in the World Heritage Area2, a claim backed up by Greens Bass MP Andrea Dawkins in a press release3 earlier this month, “we saw Minister Harriss even claiming the Greens supported logging in the World Heritage Area - it more and more laughable by the day.”
What isn’t so laughable is that Nick McKim voted for the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, which Bryan Green has confirmed allowed for special species harvesting in the World Heritage Area.
Nick McKim is trying to have it both ways, and he needs to be upfront with Tasmanians and explain why he supported it then, but not now?
1 Bryan Green press conference, July 29, 2015.
2 Andrea Dawkins media release, July 10, 2015.
3 House of Assembly Estimates Committee A, June 9, 2015.