Pulp the other one!

Allan Ashbarry recently wrote in On Line Opinion declaring Tasmania’s pulp mill process to be a resounding, transparent, and welcome step forward for a state and industry plagued by the horrific “Richo” moments in the late ’80s, when politics trumped common sense and tighter Federal environmental legislation sent investors running.

What a strange time that was, so distant from the evolved governance that Tasmanians, and indeed Australians, are asked to put their faith in today. Graham Richardson, February, 1989:

On Friday, we saw events that are unprecedented in Australian politics. We had a private company ... it's a public company but certainly not Government announcing what the Government was going to do and that was recall parliament in a couple of weeks' time to reinterpret the guidelines for this pulp mill. The company also announced that it would have to agree with what the Government was doing before it was done. I've never seen Government by company before.

Cognitive dissonance occurs when people cannot absorb any information which conflicts with their viewpoint - no matter how significant and reliable that information may be. One example would be if a lobbyist for Gunns referred to an era when the Wesley Vale pulp project was abandoned and Tasmania’s clean, green branding really took off as though it was some terrible dark age.

The fact is that Ashbarry knows the history but misses both the lesson and the irony. Then Premier, now Gunns’ board member, Robin Gray probably does not.

Instead of “myth-busting”, Ashbarry goes mything in action with a flapjack stack of misinterpretations and misrepresentations. It is hard to tell which is which; for purposes of understanding the distinction is barely relevant. This approach typifies lobbyists who continue framing the mill issue as a clash between greenies and gold - so much less toxic than an escalating dispute over the rule of law, the corruption of due process, and the silencing of public interest.

Deflecting the debate into a discussion of “sovereign risk” is nonsense without acknowledging risk’s corollary - responsibility - an attribute which many are claiming but few seem able to handle.

Some corrections and qualifications:

• as repeatedly stated by Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC) panelists, the Tasmanian Emission Guidelines referred to were developed for a remote location with good air flows and good ocean flushing, traits respectively absent from Long Reach and the nearby areas in Bass Strait;
• 780 public submissions were received but, crucially, never subjected to public enquiry or debate by the RPDC. Gunns’ withdrawal effectively meant that submitters had their time wasted;
• the Honourable Christopher Wright detailed in his statutory declaration that Premier Lennon had insisted that he excise public hearings from the RPDC process - an outcome neatly delivered by the state’s fast-track legislation;
• it follows that public input was considered by the present Tasmanian Government in much the same manner as a windscreen considers a bug in flight; and
• delays were not caused by the RPDC panel. Delays were caused by the proponent, Gunns.

Now that last one is going to really upset some revisionists. Gunns abandoned the Hampshire option just months after the Emission Guidelines (which were far more suited to Hampshire than to the Tamar) were declared. Gunns waited until the last day of public submissions on May 29, 2005, to significantly change the detail of their proposal for the Tamar site, and secure 30-year access to native forests.

Gunns also waited until more than seven months after the preparation of guidelines for “any new Bleached Eucalypt Kraft Mill in Tasmania” to tell the RPDC that they would be pulping pine as well as eucalypt - a fact that is of considerable significance when Environmental Guidelines are framed. Gunns failed twice to meet crucial deadlines in 2006 and 2007 for submission of an adequate and complete Integrated Impact Statement (IIS).

Had Gunns pursued a legitimate process as tenaciously as they have pursued activists over letter-writing and other democratic mischief, the RPDC would by now have a complete IIS for consideration and be just months from a final decision in which the majority of Tasmanians would have placed great faith.

Of course, that is not going to happen. More conspiratorially minded Tasmanians believe that it was never intended to happen by either Gunns’ chief, John Gay, or Premier Paul Lennon. This peculiarly close “two-headed” Tasmanian duo speaks with but one voice on the majority of occasions, and is referred to by many electors as “John-Paul”. John-Paul runs the Gunnerment in Tasmanistan.

If this mill is so crucial to Tassie’s timber communities, and since Gunns seem to have been the cause of all significant delays and difficulties, why are Timber Communities Australia, FIAT, NAFI, ETC. still so critical of the RPDC and the Tasmanian public rather than of Gunns’ sloppy approach to assessment, and Lennon’s undercutting of the RPDC?

Why are TCA and the Tasmanian Branch of the powerful CFMEU so averse to the possibly-less-disastrous Hampshire site? Are both the TCA and CFMEU executive so deeply in the thrall of Gunns that they are acting contrary to the best interests of their members, or just in accordance with direction from the only “member” that counts?

Another reason might be that Gunns projected high transport costs and fuel usage at Hampshire - likely from driving timber through their massive plantation estate as it is intended for export woodchipping, rather than pulping with natives. In Tassie, at the end of the day there is an elephant in the room - an Asiatic elephant that is sure to remain hungry for under priced woodchips even once the mill is built.

With government subsidies, the pittance paid for native forests, and chip supply contracts all kept from public scrutiny, there necessarily is speculation involved. Gunns still claim that a new Tasmanian facility processing three to four million tonnes of wood each year won’t cause a single extra tree to be knocked down. The pulp mill demands an amount of woodchips roughly equal to Gunns’ current exports … and there has been no announcement by Gunns that woodchip exports are stopping any time in the distant future. It’s the kind of thing they’d mention - if they were even thinking of doing it.

As for the whole “dioxin is virtually absent” angle, well - no. Knowledge about dioxins and their regulation moves almost as fast as a Tasmanian Premier trying to avoid a 60 Minutes interviewer. According to a detailed scientific submission on Malcolm Turnbull’s provisional determination, the approval as it currently stands will permit dioxins to elevate to 224 times background levels in sediments in the area of Bass Strait where emissions will be released.

Scandinavian experience, resulting from comparable increases in dioxins during 1960-1985, is of significant biological impoverishment of many areas of the Baltic Sea. Because dioxins take at least several decades to biodegrade, this impoverishment continues to this day. The 47 Swedish mills now (operating) generate only 20% more dioxin than Gunns mill alone would be permitted. Drs Godfrey, Raverty & Wadsley (PDF 3MB).

Despite industry-spin currently seeking traction, many commercial shellfish, such as scallops and abalone do filter feed from these sediments and dioxins are notorious for concentrating in the fat tissues of animals that feed on contaminated materials. Significantly larger quantities of these long lasting endocrine disrupters and carcinogens will also be dumped into landfills near the Tamar wetlands.

Scientifically and legally, that creates complex issues only now emerging from a counter-productive war of words. We can’t all grasp complex science. Many scientists are themselves genuinely incomprehensible. And even the identities of many of the toxicants in treated pulp mill effluent have yet to be determined by science, as Wadsley explained at a press conference just this week. Acceptable effluent quality is in fact a moving target as experienced industry participants well know.

So when respected scientists review a significant matter and find data to be incomplete, inaccurate, or poorly modeled - TCA welcome better testing methods the way a Bush campaigner might treat a Florida recount. A diligent proponent might have submitted credible modeling by now, but such a thing is still absolutely necessary for Environment Minister Turnbull before he can fulfill his responsibilities in the important Federal assessment process.

Ashbarry also waves the industry’s new flag - the Maryvale mill in Victoria - claiming as Julian Amos, Chairman of FIAT, recently did that Maryvale proves dumping dioxin into Bass Strait causes no harm. However, oceanic flushing off Victoria’s 90 Mile Beach is about 40 per cent quicker (similar to that off Burnie) than the 180 days off Five Mile Bluff/Tamar. The operators have six decades experience in pulp. And the Victorian EPA says that a new mill would not be permitted to be built in the Latrobe Valley if an application was made in 2007 (mainly for atmospheric reasons).

The dioxin-dishmoxin argument is essentially without scientific, factual, or even relative merit. Ashbarry fluffs the reasons for delays, the scientific merits of the mill, and flails a blunt-heavy-object argument that it was somehow all fair, transparent, inclusive, and now that it’s all over you throwbacks-to-the-80s can just shut-up. It’s the kind of tunnel-visioned belligerence that characterises the log-at-any-cost disconnect.

Greens Senator Christine Milne, on the other hand, properly foresaw the current outcome during an interview in March this year:

Malcolm Turnbull has to conduct an assessment and that has to include the impacts on listed threatened species … on the forests, as well as [on] the marine environment. That is likely to take much longer than the three months that is Gunns’ ultimatum. The cronyism and secrecy that has gone on in Tasmania and the complete abrogation of proper process means that it’s now fairly and squarely a Federal election issue.

And even now, another vitally critical flaw in Gunns’ proposal has been largely overlooked.

Professionals and observers experienced in the practicalities of pulp manufacture most regularly confirm two facts - all kraft pulp mills stink, and all kraft pulp mills are very complex systems which need to be run by highly skilled, experienced specialists.

Tasmania’s Greenest Pulp Mill - nothing supports the claim that it will be the World’s Greenest, other than the paintjob in the artist’s rendition - currently lacks permanent, dedicated management positions to ensure that lax “where practicable” outcomes in the state permits are achieved.

But even with the foreman already named and PR assurance from John Howard that the current six-week delay by Malcolm Turnbull is just that - a delay - Gunns don’t yet have a team of dedicated environmental professionals that will keep all emissions and impacts in check. Presumably this is because Lennon’s permit - proof that greenies, journos, and the 65 per cent of Tasmanians are hysterical and confused - permits it. As Gunns famously helped write the 1,100 pages of permits and the people’s parliamentary representatives were prohibited from amending them, these facts suggest that Gunns themselves see no need to mandate such critical appointments.

As for confused journos, Ashbarry furphies that RFAs (Regional Forest Agreements) exist and that this not only proves that Tassie forests are being sustainably managed, but the Federal Court has confirmed this. What he actually means is that in the Wielangta Case last year, the Federal Court found that forestry practices in one area being tested in Tasmania were in breach of Australia’s principal environmental law and had invalidated the protection afforded to Forestry Tasmania under the RFA. Coincidentally, as a Party joining Forestry Tasmania in this case, the Commonwealth Government rewrote crucial elements of all the laws involved and as such may yet have reason for optimism about their appeal.

Tasmanian forestry - the hypocritical publicly subsidised woodchip industry which claims to be about “timber” and “community” and screams bloody murder at the thought of its activities being politicised - may not change everything … but it sure hits the spot for the current generation of Australian legislators, and it is certainly governing Tasmania.

In case you mythed it.