Comments
Wow, that’s fabulous Richard. Just wish I could have been there to hear it first hand and add my support.
Posted by The Jedi on 17/11/07 at 02:30 PMIt’s heart warming to read a speech fired with moral indignation and passion. Both ingredients missing from all of today’s editorials. Congratulations Richard, well said.
Posted by Dismord on 17/11/07 at 05:42 PM“Raise your hand if you will stand there with me,..”
It will be my great pleasure to stand there with you Richard and I doubt we will be there on our own.
Posted by llareggub on 17/11/07 at 05:54 PMIf it must be, I will stand on that road to the pulp mill. Raise your hand if you will stand there with me. Richard Flanagan.
I was there and I joined with over ten thousand others in raising my hand.
I hope the same can be said for the huge number of people who could not attend. I hope they feel the same about this monster that is trying to destroy us. I hope that they will stand united in a show of ‘People Power’, for if they do, this Mill will not be built.
Posted by Barnaby Drake on 17/11/07 at 07:59 PMI could not be there in person today - but I was there in spirit. And I will go to bed tonight with more hope in my heart having heard Richard’s passion and knowing that there will be action from many, many people to regain ‘Tasmania’.
Here’s to us!Posted by sanguine on 17/11/07 at 09:11 PMWhat a stirring speech!
I could not be there today, but I will proudly stand with you Richard to defend our future against this abomination.
Down with Gunns and the gunnerment!Posted by Bert Norton on 17/11/07 at 09:14 PMThe call has now gone out, I and over ten thousand others have raised our hands and our voices! We will be there and I know that three times as many will be prepared to stand at the gates of that abomination if it begins to be built.
Posted by Rocky on 17/11/07 at 09:28 PMWonderful speech.
Who is Gunns Ltd though? Perpetual Trustees? ANZ bank? AMP? Fairfax and Murdoch? (The Mercury, The Examiner, The Advocate, The Australian etc) TasPlan?
All of them? Each owning shares in each other. Same capitalists investing money that has been forcibly taken from our paypackets each week to pay for ‘our future’.
Posted by Brenda Rosser on 17/11/07 at 11:20 PMGreat speech in the best tradition of the art! We know now the dark side truly has a fight on its hands and one they cannot win. Well done Richard and all you bloody Tasmanians ready to stand up and fight.
Posted by David Hancock on 18/11/07 at 05:36 AMAnother cracker from a proud Tasmanian….cheers Richard.
A man vilified for speaking out against “Mine Tasmania INC”.I am glad so many from the south of our island joined hands with those from the north to pledge unity to fight the tedious few who push with their masses of money to twist all that is good and true in their tragic ride into the abyss of greed.
In time, when these few are gone and the disenfranchised are as one, Tasmania will be all it can.
We are as Lao Tzu would have said, “On the walk of a thousand miles” and I am thankful we are well into that walk.
Posted by Dave Groves on 18/11/07 at 06:02 AMThank you for the opportunity to read Richard’s wonderful speech, as I had to work and couldn’t be at the rally. I put my hand up, too, Richard.
I watched some of the TV reports of the rally last night, and the snivelling, whining riposte by Barry Chipman. What a contrast. The movement against the mill has become an unstoppable juggernaut - I don’t think any company can withstand this kind of opposition for too long. Imagine how much the interruption to work is going to blow out the costs of the project - be wiser not to start at all!Posted by Valleywatcher on 18/11/07 at 07:41 AMWe couldn’t be there as we are in Melbourne at present but we were with you in spirit. Our 80 yo aunt and uncle from Launceston joined the march and were delighted with the great turnout.
Richard’s speech captures all our feelings and is inspiring…thank you Richard.
We know only 2 people pro the mill and everyone else is against.
The fight is only at the beginning and we are prepared to see it through to the time that we stop the mill. Dare to struggle, dare to win!
Posted by Proud Tasmanian on 18/11/07 at 09:45 AMDave Groves said: “..unity to fight the tedious few who push with their masses of money to twist all that is good and true ...
The ‘tedious few’??? Dave do you know of the identities of all who invest in Gunns Ltd? This is the age of networked capitalism after all.
You can’t separate one large corporation from another. For example, Perpetual Trustees invests in Gunns. Who invests in Perpetual Trustees? Fairfax last time I heard. Fairfax owns Rural Press. Rural press owns the Advocate and the Examiner.
AMP invests and is a major shareholder in Gunns Ltd. Who invests in AMP? AMP has prescribed interests in Australian television (40 TV stations throughout Australia as of the late 1980s). It is also a shareholder in Pioneer concrete. AMP is the largest shareholder in ACI, APM, AWA, Brambles, Bundaberg Sugar, Coles, Carlton and United Breweries, David Jones, Grace Bros, Humes, Mayne Niklass, National Bank, OPSM, Peko Wallsend, Repco, TNT, Woolworths, and Wormald. “Moreover, after the personal shareholdings of the Fairfax family, the AMP Society was at the time the largest shareholder in John Fairfax Ltd.” [Keith Windschuttle’s ‘The Media’].
ANZ finances Gunns. ANZ is a major shareholder in News Corporation. News Corporation owns the Mercury, The Australian and most other major Australian newspapers as well as leading ones in the UK and the large Fox TV network in the US.
Gunns represents a whole range of Australian mega and multinational corporations. That’s who we’re fighting. Put another way, if we want to end the rape of the environment and the increasing exploitation of people then we are seeking an end to capitalism itself.
Posted by Brenda Rosser on 18/11/07 at 10:26 AMBrenda (8 & 13) is right about the interlinked controllers of capital. Most of us, of course, tolerate their consequent control of our lives as long as we’re not too inconvenienced or ripped off. It will be possible to defeat Gunns on this single isue and then wait for the next time some big corporation goes ‘too far’, and then the next and so on…
Despite what Richard said, Gunns is our government and its profitability is the main benchmark of our success as a society.
I don’t like that, most of you don’t like that, the vast majority of us don’t want the pulp mill and an even bigger majority hate the way the whole approval process has been corrupted.
But so what? We can only have a government at State or Federal level that is hand-in-hand with Gunns (and their cronies). There is no realistic alternative if we rely solely on the political process.
The people must stop this mill by making its construction physically impossible. Fifteen thousand at a rally means nothing compared to 15,000 in makeshift gaols and a handful of martyrs. Make those bastards show their real faces.
Posted by Justa Bloke on 18/11/07 at 02:24 PMBrenda it’s very important to counter the mill spin with factual information - Perpetual Trustees is not an investor in gunns or the mill - ask them and look at their share register - Perpetual Investments has a large share holding in gunns and is most likely the firm daily buying and selling shares for a quick profit.
We must be factual in the battle else we lower our selves to their level.
Posted by adam on 18/11/07 at 05:47 PMRichard Flanagan’s courage to speak out about the corruption and lack of due process in this State gives inspiration to all of us. It is one sickening issue after another with this Govt and now the Australian is reporting today that Forestry Tasmania wants to cut a swathe through the Tarkine by building a tourist road to make it more accessible:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22781103-601,00.html
Of course this will also improve logging truck access at the extremities yet it will destroy everything that is unique about this special place.
The battle to save our State from these environmental vandals looks set to continue for a long time until people finally realise that our destiny is being formed by the mainstream parties they continue to blindly vote for.
Posted by Malcolm on 19/11/07 at 09:02 AMHere’s a fragment of Flanagan’s speech.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=CTGArRy_cZk
Posted by Richardstuff on 19/11/07 at 04:34 PMAdam in post 15 above implies that I have not been factual in claiming that Perpetual Trustees has a major interest in Gunns Ltd.
Adam, I ask you to explain how one can differentiate between Perpetual Trustees, Perpetual Group and Perpetual Investments?
Here is part of the transcript taken from Perpetual Trustees AGM in 2004:
“Shareholders may recall at last year’s Annual General Meeting that a number of shareholders and interest groups raised the issue of Perpetual Investments’ holdings in Gunns Limited, which currently total 11.2 million shares, or 13.7 percent of its issued capital. I take this opportunity to describe the rationale behind our holding in this company.
Perpetual has been a major shareholder in Gunns Limited in the period to December 1996 and since September 2001 and we continue to hold the stock based on its strong financial performance and the
returns it generates for our investors.As a fund manager, our commitment and legal obligation to our investors is to generate the best possible return on their investment. The investment returns from Gunns Limited have been very strong over the past 10 years, ranging from 19.7 percent per annum over the past 12 months, to 67.8 percent per annum over the past five years. Over the past seven years the investment return has been 32.0 percent per annum, against a market return of 7.7 percent…”
Source: Perpetual Trustees
Annual General Meeting 2004
Address to Shareholders
Charles Curran AO - Chairman
http://www.perpetual.com.au/pdf/AGM_2004_Address_to_Shareholders.pdf
Page 3What a wonderful performance from an investment in a company who is the recipient of such enormous and ongoing taxpayer and public subsidies.
Posted by Brenda Rosser on 19/11/07 at 08:46 PMIt’s a variation on the Nuremberg Defence - ‘I was only following orders’.
Like this: ‘Although as an individual I naturally have strong feelings on this matter, nonetheless, in view of my responsibilities to my electors/ party/ shareholders I consider their interests override these. In doing so I think I’m acting altruistically and am an honest man’So Messrs Turnbull, Garrett, Smith, Gay etc lead the merry dance to our extinction.
They have a greater responsibility to the planet.Posted by Mike Adams on 19/11/07 at 09:55 PM‘How to Hold Corporations Accountable’
http://www.alternet.org/environment/67121/
“When the system doesn’t allow people to protect themselves from corporate harm to their communities, it is time to change the system.”
“This is not anti-business. … we all need toilet paper and toothbrushes, stuff that needs to be made. But the question is: Who makes decisions about how those things are made? And, in addition, the question is whether those corporations should be governing entities, or should they merely be business entities? And over time, corporations and the few people that run them have become governing entities; they make governing decisions over us.”
“… people come up to me and say that the regulatory system is broken. It’s not protecting our health. It’s not protecting our welfare. To which, increasingly, we look back at government and maybe we say the regulatory system is working perfectly because maybe its purpose was not to protect health and welfare.”
“Maybe its purpose was to legalize corporate harms…”
“The law changes when people stand up and say we can’t take this any more, we are not going to do this anymore. In fact, lawyers have never changed the law in this country. It’s always been community organizers who are pressing up against existing structures of law that have changed anything in this country.”
“They change something when a spark happens. When people see other people doing democracy in a different way and it catches fire – then it has nothing to do with the individual law. It has to do with a movement that builds, with people no longer willing to live under a structure of law that continually screws them. Because there’s nothing left to lose, and when there’s nothing left to lose, people whose backs are against the wall tend to come out kicking.”
“… they can’t turn to their state legislature or their courts for a remedy because those courts are carrying out laws that are written by the corporations in the first place.”
“…Where do these folk turn to for a remedy? They have to create their own remedy – just like the suffragists did, just like the abolitionists did, just like the great people’s movements of this country did.”
“It’s going to be pushed upward by these groups of people who are courageous enough to come together around their kitchen table to say “we want this for our community” and being told that they can’t have it, and then they are pushing back and they are saying, “we are going to take it anyway.”
Posted by Charles and Claire Gilmour on 20/11/07 at 07:43 AMThe whole world is watching and inspired by your protest. I was one who organized an international protest against ANZ yesterday and I want to say that we are with you!
Posted by Pat Rasmussen on 21/11/07 at 06:17 AMCould some kind person please E-mail me the speech by Richard Flanagan made at the Hobart Rally. Also if posssible the amended form of the speech published in the Age?
I have correspondents overseas who are keen for me to Forward it (them?)Posted by Mike Adams on 21/11/07 at 05:16 PMI raise my hand in support. And wish that I had been there in person to do so that day. We are lucky that there are Richard Flanagans prepared to voice what so many people think with such eloquent and moving expression.
Posted by Deanna on 21/11/07 at 07:51 PMWhoa! Thank you for your help with my E-mailing problem. It’s fixed, and the speech and the article are on their way around the world.
Posted by Mike Adams on 21/11/07 at 09:55 PMSeven new gaols to house the protesters? Wow, think of all the CFMEU jobs the construction of those would entail. What’s the bet that a Gunns subsidiary would get the contract?
Posted by Justa Bloke on 22/11/07 at 11:13 AMOnya Flan.
Johnny
Posted by Randall McMurphy on 23/11/07 at 06:34 PMHere’s another take on the pulp mill march of 17.11.2007, from cheeseepeas.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=2zxAtyvP9-o&feature=related
Posted by Richardstuff on 26/11/07 at 01:52 PMTotally off subject; but possibly not?
I’ve just finished reading the submissions to the G.Town council for tomorrows meeting. Does anyone else feel that the pro mill submissions seem a bit sus? I make this suggestion with some diffidence as I hate conspiracy theories but this is Tasmania and the pro submissions just read far too professionally for me.Posted by Steve on 26/11/07 at 06:14 PM28
My impression is that the pro-mill submissions have been pre-prepared and handed on and people are just tacking their names onto the bottom. There are a few people who have put in more than one submission eg pat bottle (?) and one instance where two different people have signed separate but identical submissions.The whole thing is clearly being orchestrated to try and “prove” that the George Town community is totally behind the mill. I doubt whether some of the people submitting even have a clue as to the meaning of the information in their submission!
Posted by Nelly on 26/11/07 at 10:17 PM29; I’m glad I’m not the only person to gain that impression. I don’t suppose there’s anything actually illegal about someone else preparing a submission on your behalf, or indeed copying another submission. Would be interesting though if anyone could actually prove TCA was preparing the submissions.
I’m wondering if those submitting are going to address the meeting?Posted by Steve on 27/11/07 at 06:49 AM
