Word: laborities
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Peter "Sid" Sidebottom's constituents, he says, don't much like being in the spotlight. Since 1998, the Labor M.P. has represented the federal seat of Braddon, a quiet, largely rural electorate in north-western Tasmania of around 62,000 voters, many of them farmers and fishermen. But one of the region's other industries, forestry, keeps bringing the residents of Braddon's towns and hamlets the kind of attention that makes Sidebottom furious. "Many hundreds" of his constituents depend on the state's forestry industry, he says, and if the campaign in this election to phase out logging...
...pursue water reform, with Latham announcing $A1 billion to revive the Murray river, and the Coalition touting a $A2 billion water fund to expand water recycling and efficient irrigation infrastructure. But to the concern of many scientists, crises like salinity and biodiversity loss have barely been mentioned. And despite Labor's promise to sign Australia up to the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse emissions and increase renewable energy use, climate change has also struggled to stir voters. "I think once they've done water and the Tasmanian forests, they're almost exhausted," says one senior scientist. After leading the world...
...Despite signaling they'll move for change, both Labor and the government still had their forest policies under wraps as the campaign entered its final week...
...Howard has perhaps more room to move, says Monash University political commentator Nick Economou, with the Coalition holding none of the five House of Representatives seats in Tasmania. If he offers a package to save the forests, Economou believes, "he'll write Tasmania off." Labor, meanwhile, has the trickier task of satisfying traditional voter bases in seats like Braddon and also wooing mainlanders like MacLulich. But the momentum is there: some of the strongest applause from the party faithful at the Sept. 29 Labor campaign launch came for Latham's promise to detail a policy before the election. Party strategists...
...From an essentially environmental agenda, the Greens' platform has grown to encompass many of the social justice issues that were once seen as the domain of the Labor Party, and after consistently opposing the indefinite detention of asylum seekers, Brown says the Greens' opposition to the Iraq war has won them many more converts among older voters. As the Liffey river dances and gurgles at the bottom of the slope, Brown says he's confident this will be a breakthrough election for the Greens, who one day want to be a serious contender for government. And how will the party...