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February 14th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Rival protesters have clashed as tensions rise in Tasmania a day after the latest job losses in the forestry industry were announced.
Pro- and anti-logging groups came together in Launceston while employees of timber company Ta Ann, which on Monday said it would shed 40 jobs, marched on the headquarters of environmentalists in the south of the state.
Liberal candidate Andrew Nikolic and pro-forestry group Code Red member Brett Lucas confronted members of anti-logging group Code Green in a mall in Launceston, where a crowd and police looked on, the ABC reported.
In Huonville, south of Hobart, furious Ta Ann workers marched on the Huon Valley Environment Centre, one of the green groups accused by the company of causing the job losses with a campaign targeting Japanese customers.
Activists there accused the CFMEU organised group of verbally abusing an art therapy group located next door to the empty centre, a claim the protesters rejected.
“The police were probably not even 20m (away) and we were congratulated on the way we conducted ourselves,” CFMEU organiser Julian Cooke told AAP.
Action was set to continue on Wednesday with the group Still Threatened Still Wild, whose member Miranda Gibson has been atop a tree in a southern Tasmanian forest for 65 days, saying protests would take place in more than 40 locations worldwide.
The drama came as Tasmanian premier Lara Giddings called on activists to stop targeting Ta Ann customers, the catalyst for 12 of the state’s 15 upper house members threatening to block the intergovernmental forests peace deal on Monday.
“These are real people with families who are now out of work because of the irresponsible actions of these fringe groups,” Ms Giddings said.
“I cannot control the actions of these groups but I question what they hope to achieve.
“If it is an outcome of no reserves and a return to the conflict of old then that’s what they are well on their way to delivering.”
Tasmanian opposition leader Will Hodgman called on Ms Giddings to sack cabinet member and state Greens leader Nick McKim over the campaign.
But Mr McKim said green groups were merely exercising their democratic rights.
“The markets are in collapse and all that has been proposed this week is attacking free speech so that the industry can continue telling lies about a product that nobody wants,” he said.
“For these elected members to be advocating silencing free speech is a frightening attack on our civil liberties, and reminiscent of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe.”
Green groups say Malaysian-owned Ta Ann is falsely selling product sourced from high conservation value forests as environmentally-friendly to overseas customers.
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