CLAIRE MILLER, The Sunday Age:
As annual meetings go, the venue did not put shareholders at their ease. The crowd was mixed. Most were locals who stood up regularly to defend the company against the smattering of shareholders taking managing director John Gay to task over the falling share price, corporate governance and the cost of legal action against environmentalists.
As the meeting dragged on and the room got stuffier, the crowd cast longing glances at the single window against which Gunns’ director and former premier Robin Gray lounged. But if John Gay was sweating, it wasn’t just the rising room temperature and relentless questioning. All is not well in the Gunns’ empire.
Tasmania’s timber industry is in crisis. Gunns, the woodchip export giant that controls 80 per cent of forestry in Tasmania, faces hostile international trading conditions for the foreseeable future. At home, there is mounting resentment over the treatment of logging contractors and the way tax exemptions on plantations are helping Gunns buy up farms, which tends to displace farm jobs.
Industry insiders rarely speak on the record for fear of retribution, but sources told The Sunday Age that logging contractors are bracing for bankruptcies and widespread job losses.
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The latest on Recherche Bay:
Public appeal to buy Recherche
Soil key to garden riddle
Dave Groves
November 6, 2005 at 08:46
I would like to share with you these “Supertramp” lyrics of the title track from their album “Crime of the Century”
Now they’re planning the crime of the century
Well what will it be?
Read all about their schemes and adventuring
Yes it’s well worth a fee
So roll up and see
How they rape the universe
How they’ve gone from bad to worse
Who are these men of lust, greed, and glory?
Rip off the masks and let’s see.
But that’s no right – oh no, what’s the story?
But there’s you and there’s me
Terror Nulius
November 12, 2005 at 15:47
A ‘forest’ corporation rips out many many thousands of hectares of native forest. Much of it is old growth primeval temperate rainforest. Most of the foliage is burnt on the spot and most of the scraps of biomass left remaining are woodchipped to create bum wiping paper and other such trivia that we can well live without.
Then ugly stick like alien monoculture trees are planted on this devastated land poisoned by pesticides and 1080 to kill browsing wildlife. The trees are fast growing and sap up the water otherwise used to grow food and replenish rivers. Nutrients are forever lost from the soil.
Where’s the entrepreneurship in this? Where are the bloody businessmen?? Who’s a clever dick that can make lots of bucks out of Government sanctioned theft??
And then to take advantage of a Government granted near monopoly trading position to squeeze contractors. Throw in a huge tax subsidy to force ‘investment’?? This isn’t business as usual. This is predatory and parasitic exploitation.
Government sanctioned rape and pillage. No less than that.
What happened to the Australian people to see these thugs still in boardrooms and parliament house?