Get off the Gunns merry-go-round

According to this logic, if you plant trees as a carbon offset, you won’t need to reduce your carbon emissions. Thus the piddling 5 per cent carbon reduction target. Keep on mining. Keep on logging native forests. Keep on burning coal and oil. Sounds like the mission statement of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, does it not?

Julia Gillard’s spruiking of the pulp mill is the authentic voice of that union. Is there an implied federal guarantee to Gunns in this? I fear and suspect so.

The Labor Government is putting behind it the collapse of the Murray-Darling, the dying of the Great Barrier Reef, the destruction of the native forests, the finitude of water resources. Australia is a nation choosing to fail.

The pulp mill is a symptom of a deep-seated disease that is Australia-wide and not a localised “not in my backyard” issue for the residents of the Tamar. It is the local scab on a national cancerous sore. It is fast looming as a symbolic battleground for Australia’s future. It has been forced on the people of this nation by rotten government policy and rotten government behaviour.

It has forced the people of Tasmania on to the streets in their tens of thousands. It has forced us to mobilise community resources to defend what the generations have built here in the Tamar Valley.

We must defend our vineyards and our olive groves from the assault by government and corporation. We must defend our fishing grounds and our farms. We must defend our families, livelihoods and property because we have a vision for Australia’s future that begins with what has been proven to be sustainable.