The six-year campaign against Gunns’ proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill in northern Tasmania is entering a critical stage.
Federal environment minister Tony Burke approved the three outstanding modules of the mill’s environmental management plan on March 10.
However, pulp mill opponents remain staunchly against the project in whatever form and have vowed to organise ongoing protests and blockades to stop it going ahead.
A mass protest has been called on the site for March 20.
The mill will now use only plantation timber and 40% less chlorine than originally planned. “No native forestry will be allowed to be legally used through this mill,” Burke said on March 10.
Greens Senator Christine Milne said on March 10: “Everyone knows that the approval process for this mill was totally corrupt and instead of legitimising it, the federal government should have demanded that the proponents resubmit their final proposal to a proper assessment process.”
Surfrider Foundation Tasmania national director Peter Whish-Wilson said on March 10: “It’s absolutely critical that people understand Tony Burke’s … announcement today, and the Gunns Ltd ocean effluent study, only assess the potential impacts on Commonwealth waters, many kilometres out from our beaches. What about the inshore areas and coast?”
Tasmanian Greens MP Kim Booth said critical areas were not included in the environmental assessment, such as impacts on coastal fisheries and associated health impacts.
He said: “For example, the community’s health remains vulnerable due to the level of persistent organic pollutants in the mill discharge, which will include dioxins, furans and sterols, all of which are some of the deadliest known poisons.
“The Greens do not support this mill and we will pursue our Pulp Mill Assessment Repeal Bill in the state parliament.”
Tasmanian Greens Leader Nick McKim MP said: “The Greens’ bill … will implement the call by 500 people who attended a Launceston public meeting last week to repeal the contentious piece of legislation rammed through by the then-premier Paul Lennon last year when Gunns pulled out of the Resource Planning and Development Commission process.”
Gunns has still not found a joint venture partner to finance the pulp mill. Some mill opponents, such as TAP Into a Better Tasmania’s Bob McMahon, are worried that the federal or state government may step in and provide funding.
McMahon told the March 11 Hobart Mercury: “The only way to get this project out of the grave is to throw public money at it to sweeten the deal.”
Tasmanian Labor Premier Lara Giddings has admitted that there were problems with the mill’s fast-track approval process, but she has ruled out any further assessment of the project.
The February 19 Mercury said that Giddings “maintained the $2.5 billion Gunns pulp mill was now more essential to the Tasmanian economy than ever”, citing jobs, economic growth and taxes as the reason.
“Before [the economic crisis] the pulp mill was the icing on the cake, the cream," Giddings said. “Now it is the cake.”
The March 5 Mercury said: “The Tasmanian Greens delivered an ultimatum … to its Labor minority government partners, threatening to ‘bring down’ the government over the pulp mill.”
According to the Mercury: “Booth said he would move a no-confidence motion in the Giddings’ Labor minority government or block money bills, if either direct or indirect funding for pulp mill-linked finance or infrastructure was included in the June state budget.”
Booth told the Mercury: “I would hope the government will be thinking very carefully about what it does because I am not pussyfooting around here. Surely [Labor] doesn’t think enough of this corrupt project that that they would be prepared to risk government over it.
“This is my principles at stake here and I have always fought against corruption and the squandering of public taxes on politicians’ pet projects.”
However, the very next day the Greens MPs retreated and “unanimously reaffirmed their commitment not to block supply or move a no-confidence motion in the government”, said the Mercury.
Author and mill opponent Richard Flannagan reminded people of the community pledge made to stop the mill in the March 5 Mercury.
“Some years ago I spoke at a rally of 15,000 Tasmanians opposed to the Gunns Tamar Valley pulp mill. I said if it came to it, I would stand between the machinery and the site and go to jail in an attempt to stop the mill.
“I then asked those who would stand there with me, who would also go to jail, to raise their hands. An overwhelming majority raised their hands.
“No matter what deal has been done, I haven’t changed my mind. Nor, I strongly suspect, have most of those who raised their hands that day.
“Whatever the backroom deal, there is no social licence. What there is, in consequence of Gunns’ ruthless determination to build this mill, is a fundamental social betrayal.
“And if it takes thousands of Tasmanians going to jail to stop the mill then we will go to jail, and we will keep going to jail until this mill is stopped.”