Garrett’s pulp mill approval and sovereign risk: baloney?

They have been given more time to find a solution to the problems associated with building a pipeline from Trevallyn dam to the Bell Bay site, and to build arguments for extra tax-payer subsidies.

They have been given time to see where the Bartlett Government’s dip into the federal infrastructure fund helps logging-transport arrangements to Bell Bay and the upgrading of the Bell Bay port itself.

Is it coincidental that the extension to Gunns until March 2011 to complete hydro-dynamic modelling comes after the next federal election, which has to be held, at the latest, before the end of January 2011? This gives the Rudd Government flexibility over time leading up to and after the federal election to see how they should play the mill issue to the greatest electoral advantage to them.

However you look at it politically, the extension of time to Gunns is a win-win outcome, for Gunns and for the Rudd Government. It has nothing to do with Garrett wanting hydro-dynamic modelling for effluent disposal in Bass Strait, because that was always going to be required under the terms of EPBC Act, but it has everything to do with providing political options, not just to fit the electoral cycle, but also to fit the rapidly deteriorating economic situation.

I have said it before on numerous occasions, and I will say it again. The push is on for the use of the Rudd infrastructure funds to fund Gunns’ mill. Forget about infrastructure in health and education. Forget about investment in alternative energy which is the only hope for Australia in the long term.

Let me put it as baldly as I can. If in fact it is true that Gunns can seek compensation if Garrett varies Turnbull’s approval conditions as he claims, just answer this. How can the Rudd Government even consider introducing an ETS for carbon without risking exactly the same sovereign risk claims from every company that has negotiated with governments and is likely to be affected by that legislation? I’m talking about companies involved in projects that already exist, not those, as is the case with Gunns, that haven’t even started.

If I am wrong about this, I want to know why and I want to know how. If the fourth estate can’t ask these basic questions and explore the underlying issues involved in this, then they need to be exposed for their failure as well.

As for the people of Tasmania, it’s absolutely simple. We have no Obama, no political leadership which is willing or capable of understanding even the fundamental tenets of representative and responsible government and governance.

If this is a sovereign risk issue as Garrett claims, where is the democratic equity in that notion for the people of the Tamar Valley? What does sovereign risk mean to you if you have a house, a business, a property, a vegetable garden, a fishing enterprise, a respiratory illness? Can you claim sovereign risk due to a government agreement with a corporation to establish a pulp mill at Bell Bay if you happen to be adversely affected?

Be assured that sovereign risks do not apply to people, just as the PMAA-PMP deliberately excludes them from consideration. But then, the CSIRO report about effluent disposal in Bass Strait has never been made public either, has it?

So what does sovereign risk mean to you?