Wilson Tuckey … you idiot
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It’s not exactly news that Wilson Tuckey habitually makes a fool of himself. In the House of Representatives he’s indulged as a sort of mad uncle who refuses to take his medication and yells garbled rants. He can almost be relied on to get himself chucked out during Thursday Question Times so he can get an earlier flight back to WA. He’s also an inveterate note-passer in Question Time, constantly offering suggestions to frontbenchers. Sometimes they read the note, turn and give him an indulgent nod and a smile, humouring the old duffer. Sometimes they fold it up and chuck it away. Yesterday, he was passing notes while Julia Gillard made her condolence speech. No class. More significantly, outside Parliament he offered his view that major political parties were to blame for the fires due to their seeking preference deals with Greens candidates. The remarks were discussed in ALP Caucus this morning, but Julia Gillard told MPs now was not the time to resume politics. Tuckey has form on this front. In 2003, the ACT fires were still burning when Tuckey decided to blame environmentalists for the conflagration that destroyed hundreds of homes and took four lives in Canberra, declaring that environmentalist-influenced forestry management practices were at fault. The subsequent inquiry revealed that appalling emergency management practices in the ACT and a failure by NSW authorities to fight the fires sufficiently early were a greater cause than fuel loads. Yesterday Clive Hamilton argued that “the bushfires and the extreme heatwave, whose death toll when tallied will probably be in the hundreds and exceed that of the fires, are global warming made manifest in the daily lives of ordinary people.” I didn’t think that argument should have been made while the fires were still burning and we were still counting the dead. But Hamilton’s position is at least backed by science and years of warnings about the impact of climate change on Australia. Any number of cranks have now emerged eager to use the fires to push their case that in fact environmentalists are to blame. Germaine Greer — a sort of anti-matter version of Tuckey — declared from the UK that the fires were caused by the failure of governments to burn bushland. In particular Germs, still stuck with a “noble savage” view of indigenous Australians, blames the failure of white Australians to manage the landscape like pre-invasion Aboriginal communities. The Australian gave space to academic David Packham, who directly blamed ”outraged extremists and latte conservationists” for “perverting public policy” and defeating the efforts of “the folk of the bush” to “live a safe life”. ABC2 Breakfast gave airtime to a retired CSIRO researcher who claimed that the fires had been caused by too much fuel and the loss of “bushcraft”. You can see their point. If there was no bush, there’d be no bushfires. But no evidence was advanced by any of them, or by Tuckey, for their claims, although the ex-CSIRO bloke said he had seen some photos from Victoria. No evidence could be advanced because there isn’t any. The damn fires are still burning. The arsonists responsible for some of them are yet to be caught. The Royal Commission is yet to commence. There’ll be time enough to establish responsibility. The ACT McLeod and coronial inquiries took considerable time to work their way through the handling of a single fire event. The Victorian inquiry will, unfortunately, be far bigger. The demands of the media cycle, however, don’t allow for the correct response that the causes of the disaster and whether it could have been handled better are unknown and will take time to establish. But evidence isn’t as important for some as reflexively pushing an anti-environmentalist agenda, and exploiting death and destruction in order to do so. It’s contemptible. Coming from a Federal politician, one who lives on the other side of the continent, it’s shameful. Tuckey degrades the Parliament every time he opens his mouth. |
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Crikey's Guide to Julia Gillard
20 Comments
Why does Harvey keep putting Dr in front of his name? Does he want us to think that he is important?
In the third last paragraph you state, “The arsonists responsible for some of them are still to be caught.” As I asked yesterday:- How do you factor arsonists into the climate change argument?
Maybe old tuckey is trying to get a job at The australian news rag. Wasnt he the minister for forestry. He is a fool and fits in with the old right wing of the coal-alition, come on W.A vote him out.
Richard - I commented about Clive’s piece in the Comments section yesterday. As I said, I disagreed with the timing of his comments and I’m not convinced there’s an evidentiary basis to directly link these specific events and climate change. But they certainly fit many models of the impact of climate change on Australia. To argue that fuel load and its management directly contributed to the catastrophe is in my view quite different. It is a specific and testable claim that can be resolved or at least considered in detail by an inquiry. To therefore declare that fuel load was responsible without any evidence suggests people are willing to use the disaster to push an agenda. If not, why not wait until the inquiry has considered the evidence, as it surely will?
If you’re suggesting that Clive was pushing an agenda as well, well if he was it’s an agenda with a stronger scientific basis for the moment than the fuel load hypothesis at this point, even if it’s not directly testable.
If the inquiry reveals that fuel load and forestry management was a direct cause, then let it be addressed. Let the cranks, as I called them, enjoy their victory, because we’ll all benefit and lives will be saved. Until that point, however, attributing blame to the Greens is disgraceful and thoroughly unwarranted.
It’s not reflexive anti-environmentalism. Country people have been saying for years that interference from govt environmental agencies (i.e. preventing land owners from managing their land as they see fit) would result in firestorms of higher intensity. It pains me to say that, for once, I agree with Germaine Greer.
Well I agree with the criticism but recall this harmless old duffer was also former Federal Forestry minister appointed by Howard. That’s his claim to credibility.
But as I demonstrated with the links in my comment on the Rundle story it’s not physically possible to hazard reduce all the millions of hectares of forested land, which are also water catchments. There are not enough safe low season days to do it. So it has to be done strategically. This is the expert evidence of Koperberg and others.
Then it’s an issue of buffers, planning, construction materials, siting at the human interface.
The taboo for Tuckey et al really is this: Loggers have patchworked what was a majority closed canopy high humidity forest estate so now barely 10% by proportion is majestic wet old growth. Not many people have actually been in a real moist wet old growth forest pumping water into the humidity. As I said there’s barely 10% of the forest estate left since 50 years of highly mechanised logging, D9, modern chainsaw, the woodchip maw sending 8 million tonnes in chips to Japan etc. per year. Even parks are usually post logging.
This patchworking has dried out our forests not just in blocks but across landscapes. My fear is there is no way back from this dry downward spiral. Such giant trees as shown on my blog were 400 or 500 years old in many cases, and themselves the climax stage of a 1000 year process from dry highly flammable sclerophyl. In many places they were stable closed canopies for 10,000 years to the last ice age.
Then people like Tuckey blundered in like a bull in the china shop and f*cked them and the water cycle good and proper. And that’s before even mentioning routine regeneration burns after every logging operation in native forest. You would have to be gullible to think none of those flare up even weeks later in a hot north wind. I’ve heard an eye witness report on the south coast here of just that at Deua from school teacher and greenie Peter Woof.
Bernard Keane is a no-hoper.
Where there is fuel ,there is fire.reduce the fuel.
Put livestock into the parks ,like there used to be.
At least Wilson Tuckey speak’s his mind ,not like the rest of the couch potatoe’s you mentioned,who just nod and smile.
The politicians can sit around feeling guilty,looking sorrowful for past misinformed judgements whilst, people are suffering ,people are in pain whilst wating for some common sense policy.
They want action we can see. Democrats — — Deleted Greens — — -?
I find what is deplorable is the non action by Turnbull, Bishop and the Opposition whips to do something about Tuckey’s behaviour. He is treated as a harmless silly old man by his collegues, who just ignore him. What should not be ignored are the comments which not only belittle other members of the Parliament but are blatantly untrue. It is particularly poor that he uses the tragic fires in Victoria to make cheap political shots.
The man is past being a joke, he should be invited to retire either quietly (doubtful) or kick the idiot out. There is no place in the House for irresponsible fools like him.
Bernard you will love this.
I am WA.
I have had a rich, eventful and fascinatingly exciting life.
It has put evidence of Tucker’s despicable contemptibility in my path over the years for my book about lots of other despicably contemptible WA dickhe-ds.
Your feelings are right and your courage is honourable.
Wilson Tuckey makes me so angry. How long do we have to put up with his bad-faith nuttery? It’s not just embarrassing, it’s damaging. Everyone else in Parliament managed a respectful response.
Germaine Greer was characteristically helpful, but my favourite was the opinion piece in the Guardian which wondered, among other things, why these people who have their houses burn down are so obtuse as to refuse to replace them with humpies or caravans at the very least. A certain kind of British leftie would be lapping it up, you just know it.
Hear hear!
You can all rave about Wilson Tuckey but remember we live in a country where we vote in our MPs. He was vote in by his constituents so if you want to blame someone blame the people who keep returning him.
Tuckey not tucker just a silly old error.
Good piece, Bernard. I’m astounded by people who will argue a scientific theory until they are black and blue in the face, when it’s clear they aren’t qualified in the field and have never conducted a skerric of research in their entire lives.
Men like Tucky piss in the waters of science for their own egotistical amusement, and the truth is lost in the cloudy broth.
While it’s true Tuckey is an ignorant, stupid old bastard, I’m surprised that his ignorance in regards to “greenies” and prescribed burning has spread so far. Environmentalists who understand ecology (as opposed to those who just think trees are pretty) have long understood that frequent low-intensity burning of forests is necessary to maintain biodiversity and forest health, reduce fuel loads, increase public safety, and promote fauna. Opposition to fuel-reduction burning, in my experience, comes not from “greenies” but from farmers worried it may spread to their crops, farmers worried smoke will make their grapes/fruit taste bad, and “treechangers” who are scared of fire.
If it is contemptible to push an anti-environmentalist agenda without waiting for the inquiry why is it not just as contemptible to out out there pushing the role of global warming?
It’s idiots with influence shooting their mouths off without getting the facts straight causing all the problems, Neville.
Whether it’s Conroy trying to squeeze gloves onto the internet, global warming debate based on recycled blog posts, any and every form of criminal activity being labelled as terrorism, or economic rhetoric that sounds like it came from the crusades.
To quote a music man - what about the age of reason?
Richard Farmer is honest enough to ask the obvious question and I don’t buy Bernard Keane’s answer.
That Tuckey is an old duffer is not in dispute. But his argument about forestry management are an old chestnut and he does have support at least on that score.
Quite frankly, Tuckey is a more creditable than the unedifying deceit displayed by Messrs Mann and Henson.
Mr Keane, and the others of you that are enjoying taking a swipe at Wilson, I’d like to ask you have you ever put on a yellow suit and gone and fought a bushfire? If you want National Parks, State Forests and Reserves than you have to manage them. Volunteer fire fighters are asked to go into these areas to fight these fires, at substantial risk to their lives. And it is not just about people -native wildlife populations are decimated by these hot fires. Enjoy yourselves paying out on Wilson Tuckey, but the fact is that Western Australia is way ahead of NSW and Victoria when it comes to fuel load management policies.
And if you think that Governments and Environmental lobbyist haven’t promoted lock up and forget policies when it comes to land management, then tell me why I recieved a letter from a government department offering to pay me to destock my land and fence it off for conservation? I know after having been in a State Forests, risking my life fighting a fire while watching bull-dozers roaring around at the last moment pushing out firebreaks, that in many cases that the lack of hazard reduction is the result of it just being forgotten about. In the letter I received there was no mention to how the build up of fuels would be managed on this area of land, and as a private landholder I am already daunted by the complexity of landclearing laws in relation to my legal requirement to perform adequate fire hazard reduction on my own land.
In relation to Global Warming, planting trees isn’t going to do much good if they all are going to go up in smoke. If you aren’t going to implement a management process to prevent thirty year build-ups of fuel in dry schlerophyll bushland, you might as well drop up bomb on them as far as conservation goes.
What’s even scarier/wierder than wacky wilson is the number of people who vote for him!
Must be a strange place that!
Talk about money for nothing!
Robert.