A conspiracy or …

Henry Melville

A federal politician once said: “If you have to decide whether it’s a conspiracy or a fuck-up, it’ll be a fuck-up every time.” In Tasmania, things might start out looking just like a simple conspiracy but the longer they run the more they develop into a cluster fuck!

GUNNS Pty Ltd realised in the latter half of 2006 that the RPDC assessment process was going to put the company and its Pulp Mill IIS under considerable scrutiny. This became a serious issue for the company as they were being asked to provide additional data from their consultants in response to queries from the RPDC Pulp Mill Assessment Panel.

Internally the company was aware that the tough environmental guidelines prepared as part of the assessment process could not be met and it was very likely that the whole proposal as set out in the IIS was in jeopardy under the joint state-commonwealth process. The likelihood that the RPDC assessment panel would request major changes to the pulp mill design and technologies to ensure that the air and liquid effluent emissions complied with the guidelines.

Both the company and the State Government were aware of the impending impasse that was looming as the RPDC process continued. The long and cosy relationship between Gunns and the Government would given both these players clear understanding of the difficulties the project faced. There would have been legal and business advice offered to the company about the RPDC assessment process under the Project of State Significance late last year and the company would have known from their own legal team that the project faced a very difficult future especially under the RPDC process.

The Company had delayed providing further information as requested by the assessment panel in late 2006 and they were then clear that rigour applied to the IIS would at best significantly delay and at worst scupper the pulp mill.

The activities of the Government-funded Pulp Mill Taskforce had been a concern for the chairman of the assessment panel, Mr Julian Green since late 2005. He had raised the matter with Lennon as premier — who did nothing to rein in the blatant use of CSIRO information on their official documentation and through website. The Taskforce actions precipitated the first crisis for the credibility of the RDPD assessment process. It gave a ‘free kick’ to the mill opponents by allowing them to claim that another assessment panel member, Dr Warwick Raverty — a seconded CSIRO-Sensus scientist with Kraft mill expertise — was likely to be compromised in his roles as an assessment panellist because the Taskforce had cited Dr Raverty work to bolster there claim. This was presented as an example of ‘apprehended bias’. Mr Green and Dr Raverty took legal advice from the State Government’s solicitor-general who advised them that the allegation was strong and that there was no alternative but for Dr Raverty to resign from the panel.

This advice from the State Government was the beginning of the unravelling of the RPDC assessment process because it precipitated a strong reaction from Mr Green who then realised that Premier Lennon through his failure to get the Pulp Mill Taskforce to desist in its misuse of information had now caused the current RPDC process to be seriously compromised.

Mr Green had to accept Dr Raverty’s resignation with regret and he was clearly disgusted by the undermining of the RPDC assessment which he squarely put at the feet of the Premier.

In early January 2007, despite some disingenuous comments from the State Government to cover the real reasons for the resignations — both Mr Green and Dr Raverty resigned. Dr Raverty was under no illusion that ‘Machiavellian tactics’ had cause both he ands then his boss to resign on principle because the process had been seriously corrupted by governmental interference. Mr Green was paid an $180,000 redundancy package and remained silent about his resignation. Lennon now signals that he — as Premier — might not be bound by the decision of the RPDC assessment panel after all!

The State Government selects a retired Supreme Court judge, Mr Christopher Wright to replace Mr Green as RPDC panel chair. This was a somewhat unusual selection in that Mr Wright was renowned for his independence and uncompromising attitude to due process. At a directions hearing in early February 2007, Mr Wright detailed the approach he was to take and invited the proponent legal team to respond to the earlier request to provide the additional information that the RPDC has requested in late 2006.

Mr John Gay, the chief executive and chairman of Gunns Pry Ltd used this opportunity to state that his company was not going to provide any further documents to the panel until he received clarification about the assessment process. He publicly called for a private meeting with Mr Wright.

This public ultimatum precipitated the second crisis for this recently resuscitated assessment process. Mr Wright did not meet with Mr Gay and instead Mr Gay demanded that Premier Lennon sort it!

All through January Paul Lennon kept a very low profile and only engaged when John Gay made it clear he wasn’t satisfied with the way the new panel & its chair was to conduct the assessment of his pulp mill proposal. Lennon goes to Launceston to meet John Gay and later told media that he would intervene to ‘clarify’ matter with Mr Wright. A few days later, Lennon met with Mr Wright and presented a proposal that would speed up the panel assessment — it requested the RPDC assessment be finished by the end of June 2007 and public hearings not occur.

The meeting of Premier with Mr Wright precipitated the third crisis; Mr Wright found Mr Lennon’s proposition — worked out between Lennon and Gunns only days earlier — totally unacceptable and he offered his verbal resignation on the spot.

Lennon then went to New Zealand and left his head of Department to liaise with Mr Wright over the impasse. Clearly Lennon conveyed Mr Wright’s response immediately to John Gay and the Board of Gunns.

The response displayed by Mr Wright was the last straw for Mr Gay and the Gunns Board. Mr Gay told Lennon that he had ‘stuffed him up’. The company now had to review where all this was taking the project. They obviously talked tactics ‘going forward’. It didn’t take long — Gunns makes the big splash — it unilaterally withdraws its IIS for the pulp mill from the RPDC assessment process and demands that the Premier sort it politically.

Within days, Lennon with his inner sanctum of minders and advisors (including the attorney-general, Steve Kons and solicitor-general, Bill Bale) met in Hobart with Mr Gay and his inner sanctum including Robin Gray (former premier and Gunns Board member). After the meeting, Lennon tells Tasmanians that he will convene his Cabinet and the Parliamentary Labor Party ASAP to tell them what has been decided at his meeting with Gunns. Once Lennon has all of his Party — except Terry Martin — agreeing with his proposition he tellS Tasmanian he will recall Parliament next week and draw up new assessment legislation over the weekend.

When Parliament convenes specifically to push the Pulp Mill Assessment Bill 2007 through the lower house, Lennon faces strong questions from the Opposition Parties about his cosy relationship with Gunns and his meetings with Mr Wright and then with Mr Gay and then with Gunns. Mr Wright listened to Lennon responses under Parliamentary privilege. Within hours Mr Wright had convened a press conference in which he details — as only a judge could do — the timeline of his meeting with Lennon and the proposition put to him. Mr Wright explained that he had resigned at the meeting but was asked to withdraw his resignation later via three way contacts between Mr Wright, Linda Hornsey (Head of DPAC) and Mr Lennon (in New Zealand at the time).

There is little doubt that Mr Wright’s resignation — had he followed through with it — would have seriously weakened Lennon politically. Not only was he — as Premier — vulnerable to the accusation of inept management of the assessment process yet again, but this resignation could have been the last nail in the coffin for the assessment of the pulp mill. It’s likely that Mr Wright would not have been bound to remain silent as Mr Green was and he would have expressed the inappropriateness the proposition Lennon put to him.

In any event, Mr Wright wasn’t backward in stating his view that Lennon had lied to Parliament about his recollection of the meeting that they had on 13 March. Lennon was now cornered publicly because if he really lashed out against the judge that Lennon himself had appointed and lauded as beyond reproach, it was likely the judge — a very eloquent communicator — would show the Premier as duplicitous and occupying the moral low ground.

Mr Wright told his truth and walked away while Lennon appeared insecure, compromised and devious.

Lennon now had the job of getting the new assessment process cleared through the Parliament with solidarity. He hadn’t countered on Terry Martin!

The foUrth crisis for the assessment of the project was the crassness of the legislation. Lennon had already received appeasing acceptance from virtually all of the Parliamentary Labor Party; they all agreed to a Bill they hadn’t even seen. The State Liberal Opposition was left in the dubious position of not wishing to be the spoiler for the only assessment process left standing! The Tasmanian Greens exposed the weaknesses in the legislation that literally rubber stamped the project; they moved that the Bill’s name reflect what the Premier intended — The Pulp Mill Approvals Bill 2007. The Bill emasculated the RPDC assessment process and installed a new set of variable tough environmental guidelineS; truncated the assessment to a shortened review by a consultant chosen by the Government after discussion with the proponent.

The President of the Legislative Council, Don Wing, indicated that the legal advisors to the proponent had input into the drafting of the legislation and Gunns even employed a retired legislative councillor, Tony Fletcher to lobby and discuss any amendments before the final Legislative Council vote on the bill.

A federal politician once said: “If you have to decide whether it’s a conspiracy or a fuck-up, it’ll be a fuck-up every time.”

In Tasmania, things might start out looking just like a simple conspiracy but the longer they run the more they develop into a cluster fuck!

You decide was this a conspiracy or a fuck up?