Peter Adams
One reason I have always had respect for you as a politician (and why I have voted for you) is your commitment to helping out the smaller communities in your electorate. However, with your unfailing support to fast track the pulp mill legislation, I feel that you have betrayed the “little guy” in your attempt to get the pulp mill up and running. Much like the Republican Party is in America, one expects the Liberal Party to be a slavering dog for large corporations such as Gunns. One expects the Liberal Party, not the Labor Party, to enact legislation that denies due process, protects corporate investment, overrides environmental law, forbids public input and subsidizes big business from the public purse. One does not expect such blatant behaviour from the Labor Party.
Dear Lin,
Thanks for sending me a copy of your Hansard speech to the upper house in support of the passage of the pulp mill assessment process bill. I have read it more than a few times and would have replied sooner, but, like Cassy O’Connor’s TT letter to you, ( Dear Doug Parkinson ) have sat on my feelings for a while in order to write in a less emotionally charged way.
Gunns jumped ship from the RPDC process, not because of a lack of time, but because they could not meet the environmental conditions imposed by the RPDC. Everyone knows this. You, the Labor Party and Gunns know this. Your speech (having all the trademarks of having been written by some Labor Party spin merchant) is just a whitewash. You underestimate the intelligence of your constituents by pretending it to be otherwise.
One reason I have always had respect for you as a politician (and why I have voted for you) is your commitment to helping out the smaller communities in your electorate. However, with your unfailing support to fast track the pulp mill legislation, I feel that you have betrayed the “little guy” in your attempt to get the pulp mill up and running. Much like the Republican Party is in America, one expects the Liberal Party to be a slavering dog for large corporations such as Gunns. One expects the Liberal Party, not the Labor Party, to enact legislation that denies due process, protects corporate investment, overrides environmental law, forbids public input and subsidizes big business from the public purse. One does not expect such blatant behaviour from the Labor Party.
You said in your speech that it would be “irresponsible” if you did not enact the pulp mill assessment process bill. To me, and to those community members I have talked with, you and the Labor Party have been more than irresponsible in the way the bill was introduced, debated and passed. You have been complicit in undermining democratic process and this is a travesty. Senior academic law professors ( Michael Stokes 0 do not comment about the serious negative aspects of a bill without some heavy intellectual thinking processes behind their decision. Again, one would expect the Liberal Party to be doing this sort of thing, not the Labor Party. No wonder it passed so quickly without sufficient debate. The Liberal Party must be laughing themselves silly at having roped in the Labor Party to do their dirty work for them.
You felt that Beca AMEC would be the expert Consultant group. Don’t the alarm bells ring loud for you when Sweco is announced as the consultant when they have business dealings with Jaako Poyry and Andritz? Or, are you living in denial? Tragically, I feel you have been duped into thinking that Tasmania’s unique environment will be protected by this new assessment process bill. It won’t be protected and you are too intelligent to feel otherwise. It beggars belief that you would be supportive of this bill.
I remain very ashamed of the way our state politicians have handled this sleazy business. If it weren’t for the likes of Labor’s Terry Martin, the Greens and the four other MLCs who voted against the bill, I would have been utterly disheartened and disappointed with the way our elected officials have given away democratic principals for the sake of one company’s business interests. The whole process was, is, and will remain for years, a huge blight on Tasmania’s political history. Your complicity in this is sadly deplorable.
Sincerely,
Peter Adams
Roaring Beach
