The following article is excerpted from a speech to a November 5 Council on the Aging (COTA) forum in Hobart by Susan Austin, who was the Socialist Alliances candidate for Denison.
-
-
On November 17, thousands of people, including five busloads of people who came down from Launceston, rallied in Hobart’s Franklin Square against Gunns Ltd’s proposed $1.8 billion pulp mill in the Tamar Valley.
-
Dear fellow workers,
-
More than 500 students in Launceston walked out of class on November 8 to protest against the planned pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. This followed a similar protest of 600 students in Hobart the previous week.
-
Six hundred students from more than a dozen high schools and colleges walked out of school and gathered at Parliament House lawns in Hobart on November 1 to protest against Gunns pulp mill. The mill, planned for the Tamar Valley near Launceston, would be the biggest of its kind in the world and has been approved by both state and federal governments.
-
Tasmanian high school, college and university students are planning to walk out of class on November 1 to protest federal environment minister Malcom Turnbull’s approval of the Gunns’ pulp mill.
-
In the latest attempt to intimidate forest protesters and restrict freedom of speech in Tasmania, the state governments Forestry Tasmania agency is suing forest activist Allana Beltran, who is also known as the Weld Angel.
-
The federal environment minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has given government approval to the construction of the Gunns pulp mill in the Tasmanian Tamar Valley, planned to be the biggest pulp mill in the world. The decision, announced on October 4, attached an extra the 24 conditions to the approval, on top of 24 conditions previously imposed.
-
On August 31, after booking a flight with Jetstar Airways, Duncan Meerding, a legally blind 20-year-old Hobart resident, phoned the airlines service centre to request assistance in navigating on and off the plane, in navigating the Sydney Airport Terminus and with baggage recovery.
-
On August 30, the Tasmanian parliament approved an operating permit for Gunns Ltds proposed $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill. The independents-dominated upper house voted by 10 votes to four to allow the mill to go ahead.
-
The fight over Gunns Ltds proposed pulp mill, which has now moved to the national stage, is so contentious because it will determine the future of Tasmania. If this mill is allowed to be built, the logging of native forests in Tasmania will be massively expanded and an investment of this size would lock Tasmania into the logging industry for decades to come.
-
A court challenge brought by the Wilderness Society (TWS) against the federal government was rejected on all counts on August 9. TWS alleged that environment minister Malcolm Turnbull had not properly assessed the environmental implications of the proposed Gunns pulp mill development in the Tamar Valley.