Cheshire

A Bed Time Story for Tas Conspiracy Theorists

(Caution — readers need to be advised that this material may cause nightmares for sensitive, idealistic or honest citizens who believe integrity and truth are important).
BEFORE the election the State Government categorically ruled out the possibility of a new hospital, but now our illustrious leader says that is exactly what is needed.

This sounds very familiar to the political manoeuvring about Ralphs Bay. But if so, what would they have to gain by delaying such an announcement?

Surely promises of a new hospital would have been a winner before the recent election … unless there’s something about the funding that is needed for it that might be a bit of a time-bomb. So let us look a little closer …

The Treasurer is currently looking at all Government businesses “to see” if any of them might be worth selling to raise the needed funds. Tucked away in the announced list is Forestry Tasmania. FT is most definitely not placed at the top of the list, and it is strenuously overshadowed by all the Government pronouncements that they will not be selling the Hydro.

But who might want to buy Forestry Tasmania and presumably the public land assets/forests that it administers?
Especially when FT is locked into a cheap-as-chips supply deal with a major company that is developing a new resource-hungry pulp mill that happens to be strongly supported by the Government …

Could it be that the Premier might be considering graciously listening to all those greenie complaints about FT running at a loss and so might remove it from public hands to solve the problem? Could it be that a major Tasmanian company might step forward and take this task on out of the goodness of its heart, in order to give the Government solid $$ towards the hospital and to ensure that the ex-FT is still administered by people with experience in the forest industry?

Could it be that this is simply the next stage of a multi-year “public benefit” plan that has been unfolding before our eyes since the then-deputy Premier and the chief executive of said company were happy to be ‘sprung’ openly discussing a pulp mill proposal at a prominent Hobart restaurant?

But what interest could a big company have in taking on a poorly performing enterprise such as FT? Perhaps there is a clue in that Gunns has already been seeking agreements and commitments to secure more wood resource. This would be more than is currently locked in by the bargain basement deal the company already has, especially if the significant federal tax/MIS subsidy propping up the plantation industry is removed. Perhaps the only way of getting an even better deal from FT is to take the whole thing on? After all, you don’t have to make a deal or to pay anyone for the forest resource if you administer it yourself. And it would still be a service to the people of Tasmania, as the cheap 20 year supply agreements already in place with FT probably make it less economically attractive to anyone BUT the company
that’s locked them into it. Who knows, it might even help Gunns negotiate a cheaper price for the overall lock, stock & barrel of the gutted FT empire.

Attractive part of the deal

It would be inappropriate to suggest that maybe FT has been increasingly run into the ground for this very reason, although if certain ex-FT executives end up on the Gunns Board it might be worth revisiting this thought in future. Beyond that, it is worth noting that a pulp mill with this level of access to guaranteed resources could ultimately be sold to interstate or international interests for a massive profit. If FT were to be subsumed, it would boost the Gunns empire in the same way the Norths acquisition did.

More importantly, the accompanying resources would be an attractive part of the deal, rather than an external commitment as would currently hamstring any sale of FT. Would a foreign multinational treat contractors and truck drivers with any more contempt than the current empire? Who knows, but the new industrial relations laws, voted in with the support of the forest industry, wouldn’t leave anyone sleeping soundly at night.

But maybe this is all too cynical. After all, we haven’t seen said empire buying up other land and assets around the State have we? If it was that keen to expand surely we’d see a massive increase in farmland disappearing, plantations springing up, etc, etc … what’s that you’re saying?

We need to remember that this is all happening under the wise and benevolent rule of a Premier who claimed that $15M was better spent on rich interstate football teams than on Tasmanian health services. His laughably indignant argument on ABC Radio was that doing so would improve Tasmanians’ attitudes to exercise and so reduce the health system burden in future years. Presumably the same goes for the money allocated to horse and car racing within the State. Perhaps we should check on the Premier’s health again after five years of thrusting his snout deep into the Hawthorn corporate trough …

More broadly, this is the same Government whose standard bearers gave us the glorious closed-door TCC deal, the alleged & decisive input to industrial relations actions involving mates of a mate, and who laughed in Parliament that involvement in such scandal would probably boost their popularity.

There are also rumours that a Minister who has publicly denied knowledge of unauthorised land management activities under investigation on his land was previously given face to face advice about these issues by the relevant authorities on the land in question and prior to the work being undertaken. Now there is an issue waiting to erupt if a Freedom of Information request were to come along …

We have Ministerial statements that the Big Box development is being run by the Commonwealth, despite the State owning the land and the Treasurer telling us it is an inevitable development whether we like it or not. There’s the Ralph’s Bay double dealing, and the Premier’s blatant inability to see the potential impropriety and need for proper disclosure when accepting hotel upgrades, contracting house renovations, or issuing consulting contracts in situations with potentially massive conflicts of interest.

Cynics might notice

The tragedy is that the general public is simply no longer surprised when such allegations come to the surface. Another day, another scandal, so why not try to get away with as much as you can?

As a side note, cynics might notice that the Government is making a very big song and dance out of the fact that they won’t sell the Hydro, as this was a core election promise when they took power from the Liberals in 1998 (three elections ago — an unheralded adherence to political promises that John Howard should note!!). Not only does this repeated statement distract attention from the implications of FT being on the list of possible Government fire sales, but it also sounds honourable and upstanding to the public.

This is despite the fact that Hydro was a single entity when Labor started fighting against its sale. The subsequent split of the business into Hydro, Aurora and Transend was an artificial one by the Liberals to help facilitate the planned sale. Labor is standing by its pledge not to sell the Hydro (as it is now) but is ironically still considering selling Aurora and
Transend, at least superficially.

But let’s not split hairs (or companies). Could this really all be part of some cunning grand design? Let us not forget the astonishing ambush Lennon, Gay, Howard & the Forest Industry set up for Mark Latham at the last federal election. Even down to Terry Edwards and co greeting Latham in their industry polar fleeces to hear his vision for the forest industry, but
donning suits and ties to do the same for Howard’s proposals while he aspired to return to the top job.

Such cold calculation can still be seen worming its way through the system. Legislation is currently before the State Parliament to give the Forest Practices Authority, not DPIW, the power to regulate non-forest land management as well as forest. Despite continued public complaints that the forest industry is exempt from state and national threatened species laws, there are apparently also determined moves afoot within the relevant Government departments to further distance and exclude state threatened species experts and authorities from this system. These last remaining DPIW powers will instead also be given to the Forest Practices Authority.

Probably deliberately, all this is being done before the findings of the Weilangta court case are announced. Let us not forget that the transcripts of that case show that significant expert advice was ‘amended’ prior to the trial at the request of forestry executives, and that the sworn and supposedly independently written affidavits of at least three pro-industry
witnesses were shown to be word-for-word the same in several key paragraphs.

Timing is important for other reasons too. It should be noted that the public comment period on the pulp mill is now closed and the comments received are currently being considered. This will allow the RPDC to inform the proponent of whether any significant issues have arisen, and whether preliminary or provisional approval for the mill can be granted.

Very convenient timing

Such approval can hardly be in doubt given the Government stance on the project, aided even further by the two week limit that Government specialists had to comment on the 7500 page Integrated Impact Assessment before their feedback
had to be passed on for “quality control” from above. Never mind the independent RPDC’s boss and his prior working relationship with key members of the Gunns Board.

Despite holding such cards, however, the proponent certainly would not have wanted to consider taking on the onerous duty of managing something like FT without a clearer guarantee of a rubber stamp for the mill and therefore the definite need to access such additional resources. It would therefore have been too early and very inconvenient timing to have a new hospital and a potential FT sale on the table prior to the election. Best for the Government of the time to instead scupper the idea as being absolutely impossible and then backflip months later, instead of risking that the Liberals might catch the wave of public attention and possibly the election with promises of a new hospital.

If the possible sale of FT is seriously to be considered, it is also something that the proponent would not have wanted on the table prior to the close of public comment on the pulp mill. Why complicate the public’s submissions with considerations like that? Especially when the RPDC is not going to consider the related issues of the source of timber resource needed to run the mill that is being approved.

Perhaps it is coincidental that the Premier’s announcement about the new hospital was made in his speech the day after the pulp mill’s public comment phase ended. This could well be the same sort of coincidence that saw the Government steadfastly support the Meander Dam proposal through thick and thin, despite intense economic criticism and poor uptake of the scheme by farmers, only to then see the water it will release to Trevallyn magically also solve the water supply problem for the pulp mill. What good fortune that a project so long on the drawing board magically matched up to another
long planned venture, and did so well enough that the deal to supply water and the approval for the dam could be announced within a week of each other.

But coincidence is kind and tends to return such karma. It was similarly coincidental and very considerate that there were no forestry regeneration burns by FT or other major private forest companies in the lead up to the State election last March, but that they started again immediately with a big celebratory burn on the Monday following. This absence of burns has been publicly claimed to be due to weather conditions, but then why did the Parks service receive a political directive not to undertake any burns during the same period? There was a similar lack of regeneration burns in the north of the State when interstate media hordes and watching international eyes were waiting for days on end with nothing to do at Beaconsfield. Yet, immediately after the miners were freed and the media left, Bridport couldn’t be seen for the smoke.

The funny thing about small places is that these coincidences just seem to stack up. Sometimes they don’t work as ‘fortuitously’ as planned, as shown by the emergency re-announcement of the Ralphs Bay proposal after the election. It stirred up a hornet nest, but failed to divert attention from a beleaguered deputy; one of the few ‘coincidences’ that hasn’t worked like gold for the powers-that-be.

So, with all this in mind, wouldn’t it be another amazing coincidence if the purchase of FT by a well-meaning local forest company (and therefore funding for the new promised hospital) became conditional on the approval and adequate State servicing of the pulp mill? Perhaps the Premier hasn’t been concerned about spending $15M on Hawthorn instead of the Royal, as he’s known for some time that funding for a new hospital is a done deal, like the mill itself.

But remember this is just a story, a nightmare from the twisted depths of imagination that couldn’t possibly be true.

Surely not in Tasmania?

Cheshire is a long time observer of political duplicity and organisational scheming, and has a keen interest in connecting the dots between the longer term strategies that both employ to maintain an imbalanced status quo. This article was written before the elevation of Bob Gordon …