The People of Tasmania have Already Voted for the Pulp Mill
It was the The Greens, who mounted a vigorous campaign against the mill, garnered slightly more than 20 per cent. Clearly most Tasmanians want the $1.5 billion kraft pulp mill on the banks of the Tamar River.
In all the heated discussion since Gunns recently decided to withdraw from the Resource Planning and Development Commission process, the views of the majority have been conveniently forgotten.
They were not just voting for a state of the art pulp mill that will add 2.5 per cent to the island state’s gross domestic product, employ 3000 workers in the construction phase, create 280 production jobs and, conservatively, generate another 1600 jobs. It was a vote of confidence in high value-added industrial production in Australia.
lectorate’s endorsement of the project, along with the potential for jobs, that the Labor government had to consider in the wake of the Gunns’ decision to withdraw from the RPDC process. The wishes of nearly 80 per cent of Tasmanians and the future of thousands of working families would have been ignored if they hadn’t fast-tracked the legislation through parliament.
What is the real alternative to the pulp mill?
If this infrastructure is lost to Australia it will probably go to a location in South-East Asia, where labour rights and conditions are inferior and environmental standards are all but nonexistent. Thinking Australians can’t be happy with the scenario of woodchips being exported to production facilities overseas so that we then import the end product, in this instance, paper.
Paper isn’t about to disappear as a product in our society—either we make it here or it is made overseas.
There will be an environmental impact wherever this industrial production occurs. The point is, who can best minimise the impact? The construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union believes Australian industry can.
Projects such as Gunns’ pulp mill will always be political—there is an element in the community that opposes any industrial development, no matter what economic cost. The RPDC process created the fiction that the process is not political, that it will devise a solution everyone can agree on. In the forest industry, we know that is simply unattainable.
Every concession to the Greens emboldens them to make greater demands.
It’s within their rights to ask for more, but the responsibility of government to find the right balance for the whole community.
All the science says the industry is sustainable
The CFMEU learnt a valuable lesson during the regional forest agreement process in the 1990’s. It’s better for us to debate these issues in any forum, whether it be parliament or the media, in the bush or the city.
All the science says the industry is sustainable, and slowly the public is coming to understand this—a forest industry and conservation are not mutually exclusive.
One of the most interesting aspects surrounding the proposed Gunns’ pulp mill is how little opponents have focused on environmental issues.
There seems to be grudging acknowledgement this mill will be state of the art. The process set up in the new legislation will ensure this still occurs.
In developed countries, such as Northern Europe, environmental impact studies for similar projects take about two years. Gunns past this deadline late last year and could get no assurance from the RPDC that the process would be completed by the end of this year.
Given this context, what was the company supposed to do? It knows the project is being asked to meet the highest environmental standards. At the same time, Gunns could see its window of opportunity in a globally competitive industry slipping by.
The Lennon government had no choice but to take the issue back the forum elected by the Tasmanian
people — the parliament.
