Too little, too late

Turnoff Thetelly

Not one Liberal has opposed the disgusting actions of the ALP in forcing this shonky, unrepresentative bill through Parliament. They have stood meekly by while the RPDC was under constant pressure from Lennon’s pulp mill task force and claims of “heavying” of RPDC staff by Lennon himself. They have said nothing of substance as the peak independent planning body of the State has been trampled. Note the three votes taken on aspects of the bill: the LibLabs voted ‘as one’ every time

STILL the political spin and/or public gullibility continues as demonstrated by Libby (22), in Will in Cyberspace: “We should be supporting politicians who are interested in what we have to say. It’s a refreshing change.”

Could Will Hodgman’s sudden desire to ‘listen’ have anything to do with a federal election due later this year Libby? Any listening that is done now is too little too late — and any promises made by the Liberal Party are worthless once an election is over — examples below.

Pre-election: Howard, promising to support a “chlorine-free pulp mill”:
“I would indicate that if that feasibility study turns out to be positive then the Federal Government would consider contributing some $5 million to the project costs of the development of an environmentally friendly, chlorine-free pulp mill. Now that is dependent naturally on the rules in relation to the EIS and of course the feasibility study turning out to be positive.” The feasibility study wasn’t positive – “chlorine-free” was dumped, but Howard paid the $5 million to Gunns anyway. http://www.pm.gov.au/media/interview/2004/Interview955.cfm
http://au.biz.yahoo.com/061204/31/101iy.html

Post-election: ‘Minister for Forestry Eric Abetz says a chlorine-free mill was not viable. “That, of course, then was changed to an environmental best practice pulp mill, we looked at that and said fine,” he said.’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1562218.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/items/200506/1397436.htm?tasmania

Other PM references to forestry, 1080 poisoning, use of native timber:
http://www.pm.gov.au/media/release/2005/media_Release1380.cfm
http://www.pm.gov.au/media/release/2004/media_Release954.cfm

At the State government level, the following is a good indicator of the how the Liberals have been gutless and duplicitous in Opposition, indiscernable from Lennon’s ALP, and have failed to listen or raise the issues of a whole community in the Tamar Valley who have faced the pulp mill debacle unrepresented by the LibLabs, with support only from the Greens and some Independents and one brave Labor politician.

Note the solitary question (below) from the Opposition Leader, Will Hodgman, when the pulp mill bill passed through the House of Assembly last week.

Note that Hodgman failed to follow up when all parts of his question were not answered by Lennon. How much of his question was just ‘going through the motions’, to make it appear that he was in Opposition, when in fact he wants the pulp mill, no matter the benefit or otherwise, as much as Lennon.

Not one Liberal has opposed the disgusting actions of the ALP in forcing this shonky, unrepresentative bill through Parliament. They have stood meekly by while the RPDC was under constant pressure from Lennon’s pulp mill task force and claims of “heavying” of RPDC staff by Lennon himself. They have said nothing of substance as the peak independent planning body of the State has been trampled.

Note the three votes taken on aspects of the bill: the LibLabs voted ‘as one’ every time:

Final pulp mill debate and vote taken from Hansard
House of Assembly, Tuesday 17 April 2007:

Mr WILL HODGMAN (Question) – Mr Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Premier, your Government was due to appoint a consultant to assess the pulp mill project by last Wednesday, 11 April. Your planning minister has just announced that yesterday you appointed Scandinavian company, SWECO PIC, to undertake the task. He also said that there were three applicants for the job.
Premier, why in the Government’s opinion is SWECO PIC best placed to undertake this task and what credentials do they have in this field? Are they still required to report to the Government by the end of May, despite delays to your own time frame in appointing them? How much will they be paid to undertake this task? How many companies were actually approached with a view to participating in the tender process to be the consultant for assessing this pulp mill ? In a practical sense, how exactly does SWECO PIC propose to assess the pulp mill ? Will it be done from overseas or is the company required to actually conduct site visits to Tasmania?
Mr LENNON – I thank the member for his question, Mr Speaker. The member is correct in that SWECO PIC has been appointed as the consultant to assess the proposed pulp mill by Gunns in northern Tasmania on the Tamar River. This organisation is a large and substantial international firm with more than 4 000 employees and it has been involved in substantial consultancy work around the world. In particular I draw the member’s attention to the fact that this consultancy worked on the Stendal mill in Germany, which was completed in July 2004. I am advised it is the most modern greenfield kraft pulp mill in the Western World.
Mr Booth – You should go and move next door to it then.
Mr LENNON – I will ignore the member, Mr Speaker; he has started to mutter again.
Stendal, of course, is about 100 kilometres west of Berlin. No-one could deny that Germany is a modern economy with stringent environmental requirements. The Stendal mill would have had to comply with the European Union’s guidelines. Members would be aware that the Tasmanian emission guidelines were based on experience in Europe and Scandinavia. In addition to that, SWECO has also been involved in the Joutseno mill in Finland. It is reported to have the world’s largest single softwood pulp line, which was installed in 2001. Of course, these are the two types of processes which would need to be assessed under the Gunns proposal because it is proposed to produce hardwood and softwood pulp.
This is a large organisation. The project team for this contract will principally derived from two subsidiary companies, SWECO PIC OY and SWECO VIAK AB. The first organisation is a major consulting and engineering company worldwide. It employs more than 1 100 professionals and has been involved in consulting in the pulp and paper industry for more than 30 years. The other organisation, SWECO VIAK AB, is one of Scandinavia’s leading consulting companies in water and environment areas. This is the expertise which is required to properly assess this project. The organisation was recommended unanimously by the selection panel of Linda Hornsey, John Ramsay and Warren Jones.
Mr Booth interjecting.
Mr LENNON – I am not going to listen to your muttering so there is no point in going on.
As members will be able to observe via the Internet and so on, this organisation has also been involved in several other large projects around the world, looking at waste-water treatment in central and eastern Europe. In Budapest a large waste-water treatment plant is being designed. They have been involved in work in Latvia and the Czech Republic, and also, I am advised, for the World Bank. They have also been involved in a project in South-East Asia.
There can be no doubt that this is a substantial organisation which is well qualified to undertake this task. The advice I have from the panel – and the Deputy Premier has received this as well – is that the cost to do this aspect of the assessment process would be in the order of $500 000. We would expect that the total assessment costs, including an assessment of the social and economic benefits, would bring the total up to about $750 000. That is the advice I have about the cost to undertake the assessment and that advice has come from the panel.

Ms PUTT (Question) – Thank you, Mr Speaker; a notable silence, apparently. My question is to the Premier in relation to the consultants that have been chosen to conduct the fast-track assessment of Gunns’ pulp mill , SWECO PIC, who design pulp mill equipment. Premier, is it a fact that SWECO PIC were assigned for the plant and piping design of the super batch cooking plant for the Valdivia pulp mill in Chile? Are you further aware that the Valdivia mill caused unacceptable environmental damage to wetlands and wildlife where the effluent was released? Is it a fact that the mill had to be closed down and re-engineered to deal with the gross pollution problems? Where does this leave SWECO PIC’s credentials?
Mr LENNON – Mr Speaker, I think that all members of this House fully expected that the first thing that the member would do was start to launch an attack on the consultant, whoever it was, appointed to undertake this task. The fact of the matter remains that this organisation has been involved, as I have already said, in the pulp and paper industry for 35 years. The task this company has been consulted to undertake in this instance is to provide an assessment to the Tasmanian Parliament of the Gunns proposal against the guidelines that have been established here in Tasmania. That is what they have been asked to do and I am quite confident that they are a highly professional, reputable company capable of undertaking that task.
As I said, they have been involved in many pulp and paper projects around the world. The member points to one and I have already pointed to one, the Stendal mill in West Germany. I have also pointed to a mill in Finland that they have been involved in. They have been involved in other projects: one, for example, on the Mekong River, which I am sure the member will raise at some stage in the near future, if not today.
The consultant organisations such as this cannot be responsible for the performance of organisations for whom they consult. What we look for with these consultants is competency to undertake the task and I think clearly the evidence points to the fact that they have that competency, that they have been involved in the industry for a long time and that they have been involved in a number of pulp and paper projects around the world. You point to one and I point to two others and I am sure there will be other projects that we can point to.
All it adds up to, Mr Speaker, is this is a large international organisation which now, as the member points us to, has been involved in at least one South American project and it has been involved in Germany at Stendal. That is, of course, the mill that Julian Green and Dr Raverty went to. They went there because it was a greenfield mill, the last completed in Europe and the guidelines which we established in Tasmania looked to Scandinavia, Europe and North America in particular for guidelines that would meet modern First World country requirements as to environmental performance. So it would be far more relevant to look to those parts of the world when you are talking about the proposal for Tasmania than to look to South America.

Ms PUTT (Question) – Mr Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Premier, when you answered a question earlier in relation to the choice of consultant there were a couple of things that you failed to outline, so I just want to follow those up with you. How many consultants applied to undertake the assessment? My understanding, and correct me if I am wrong, is that you announced that three were short-listed but we do not know whether more applied. Secondly, will the time frame be extended from that which you tabled in the expressions of interest brief during the debate a few weeks ago, to account for the delay in getting a consultant on board? Is it still your intention that they supply a draft assessment report to the panel by 11 May, which is the original time frame, which is only three-and-a-half weeks away?
Mr LENNON – Mr Speaker, I thank the member for her question and I apologise for not answering all those questions last time. Mr Speaker speeds me along, so I have to keep moving if I can.
I am advised that eight expressions of interest were sent out and three organisations lodged a formal expression of interest. That answers the first part of your question. Secondly, the legislation requires that all the documentation necessary for Parliament’s consideration be tabled in both Houses of Parliament by no later than 31 August this year, provided that the consultant reports favourably on their assessment of the project against the guidelines. The expressions of interest that were provided when the legislation was dealt with by this Parliament were indicative in terms of the time lines associated with them. There is no requirement on the consultant to report by 11 May or by the end of May. The requirement is on the Minister for Planning to be in a position to table all the necessary documentation by no later than 31 August. That is the requirement of the legislation. There never has been a requirement for the consultant to report in draft form, as I think as you said in your question, by 11 May.
Ms Putt – It was in the expressions of interest brief.
Mr LENNON – Yes, and my advice is that that is an indicative timetable. It is unfortunate it was there. It has been misused in the media as being an absolute time line. It is not an absolute time line. The time line is 31 August for all the information being presented to Parliament and for Parliament to give its approval or otherwise for the project to proceed. The advice I have is that the consultant would need to report by no later than the end of June to enable the time line to be met.
Despite the fact that we have differences about this project, I am sure you would appreciate the range of work required in terms of permits, which can happen concurrent with the consultant’s assessment against the guidelines. They relate to some of the licences and approvals which would necessarily be required for a project to proceed in Tasmania and which would be standard across a range of projects not related specifically to a project of this type. As I told the House during debate on this legislation, my advice is that pretty well every government agency is involved in some way, shape or form. That is the nature of a project of this type. I think there was one government department which probably would not have an involvement.

Mr McKIM (Question) – Mr Speaker, the blame game continues with no solutions I see. My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney, this question relates to the meeting between Premier Paul Lennon and the head of the RPDC’s Pulp Mill Assessment Panel, Mr Christopher Wright, on 27 February this year – a meeting at which Mr Wright says that he was ‘leaned on and pressured by the Premier’ and that he felt ‘compromised’ by the Premier’s behaviour.
Minister, as you know, I wrote to you on 27 March asking you to refer this matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions and I attached to my letter to you a copy of legal advice I had received from eminent QC, Mr David Porter. As you will recall, Mr Porter gave his opinion that it is ‘reasonably arguable that Mr Lennon has attempted to obstruct the conduct of a hearing of the commission,’ which, if proved, would be a breach of the RPDC Act 1997. And further that there are ‘good grounds for suggesting that Mr Lennon has attempted to obstruct the conduct of a hearing of the commission,’ which, if proved, would also be a breach of the RPDC Act 1997. Minister, even though you did not have the courage to say so in your response to me – which by the way contained a factually incorrect assertion – you clearly do not intend to refer this matter to the DPP. Given your position as the senior law officer of Tasmania and your duty to ensure that the Government and its members behave lawfully, why did you refuse to refer this matter to the DPP? Finally, why did you act so expeditiously in referring matters associated with Mr Bryan Green to the DPP, agreeing to do so within seconds of being asked, but will not refer matters associated with the Premier?
Mr KONS – I thank the member for his question. He mentioned Mr Justice Wright in his remarks and I refer him to the comments of Justice Wright when he said he did not believe anything illegal had happened there. I think I might read the letter that I wrote to the member into Hansard .
Mr McKim – Please do, and you can correct the incorrect assertion you made in it as well while you are at it.
Mr KONS – It says:
‘Dear Mr McKim
Thank you for your correspondence of 28 March 2007 enclosing a copy of advice from Mr David Porter QC and requesting me to refer the Premier’s “interactions” with Mr Chris Wright to the Director of Public Prosecutions for investigation.
I should first correct an impression which seems to have gained some currency. This is the proposition that investigating alleged offences forms part of the DPP’s functions.
Investigation is the role of Tasmania Police, the organisation which is trained and resourced for this function. As you will be aware there is a long standing division between the roles of investigator and prosecutor and a strong public interest in maintaining that division.
I understand you have already explored the possibility of a Police investigation in this case’ –
Mr McKim – Wrong! Completely and utterly wrong!
Mr SPEAKER – Order.
Mr KONS – Okay, I will have a look at that –
‘… I also note that, according to comments attributed to him, Mr Christopher Wright whose legal credentials need no repetition here, believes that no illegality has occurred.’
As I have said, as soon as I received the advice from the Solicitor-General, which I requested, and from my department, I passed that advice on to the police and they were then given the opportunity to undertake an investigation if they believed it was a proper course for them to take. They undertook what they did and they determined there was no case to answer. I stand by my department’s advice, I stand by the response from the police and, as far as I am concerned, the letter was written to you. If there is an error in that statement about your referring it to the police, I can tell you that I did pass that advice from the Solicitor-General to the police and they did not believe that there was any allegation in there that warranted further investigation.

[11.07 a.m.]
Mr McKIM (Question) – A supplementary question. I clearly asked the Attorney-General to reflect upon his decision to refer Mr Green to the DPP for investigation within seconds of being asked and to compare the expeditiousness of his actions in that case with his complete lack of progress and lack of assumption of his constitutional duty to keep this Government lawful in relation to the matter of the meeting between the Premier and Mr Wright. The Attorney did not go there at all in his question and I would ask him to address that matter.
Mr KONS – I think I fully answered that question by reading the letter that I wrote to Mr McKim into Hansard . I apologise if I did get that part of his question wrong, that he referred it to the police. There was another member of the public who referred it to the police, as you are probably aware, and the police at this point in time have determined that there is nothing to answer. I have to reiterate the comments that I heard from Justice Wright on the news on television where Justice Wright, a very eminent jurist in this State, said that he did not believe anything illegal had happened. The advice I have received from the Solicitor-General is the same. As far as I am concerned, I have passed it on to the police, they have found nothing to investigate and I will leave the matter there.

PULP MILL ASSESSMENT BILL 2007 (No. 9)
Bill returned from the Legislative Council with amendments.
[11.24 a.m.]
Mr LLEWELLYN – Mr Speaker, I move –
That the Pulp Mill Assessment Bill 2007 be made an order of the day for a later hour.
[11.25 a.m.]

Ms PUTT ( Denison – Leader of the Greens) – Mr Speaker, the Greens do not agree that this should be made an order of the day for a later hour. This legislation is entirely unacceptable and should not be brought before the Parliament because it sidelines the proper assessment processes of major projects within this State. The legislation returned to this House makes minor improvements which in no way deal with the outrage of this situation. We would be insulted in this House by being asked to debate something that makes possible an approval without meeting one single guideline laid out as part of the initial process for assessing bleached eucalypt kraft pulp mills. Furthermore, it would not have to meet a single guideline that was developed by the RPDC through the integrated impact statement process for Gunns pulp mill . The RPDC considered all of the matters that were concerning the community and put together a set of guidelines. Not one single one of these would have to be met. It is a gross insult to this Parliament to be asked to look at such a thing.
In addition, the time frame that we would be asked to consider is just ridiculous. The Premier informs us in the House today that an assessment would probably have to be done by June. It is now half way through April. It is absolutely ludicrous to think that any coherent assessment, other than a dodgy fast-track, could occur within a six-week period. Furthermore, the air monitoring results, which of course are central to the problems with this proposed project, will not even be in by the time the assessment process is well and truly over and Parliament has dealt with an approval or otherwise. This matter was broadcast around the nation only last week, the huge concern over the potential for increased deaths in the Tamar Valley as a result of this thing going ahead. The pertinent details of those monitoring results on which a judgment could be made are not even going to be available in their entirety, or at all, to the people undertaking the assessment. Not only that, the public would be completely shut out from any further involvement with the assessment process, despite the fact that the head of the RPDC assessment – and this is still a project of State significance – said that the supplementary information provided by Gunns was still inadequate. Clearly it needs a further critique.
People who live in this State and who are due to be affected ought to be able to have a say. Mr Wright made it very clear that public hearings allow experts to come forward and give evidence which may be contrary to, or in some other way enlighten, the evidence being put forward by the proponents. The experts may actually clash and tease out the true situation in relation to the pulp mill .
Debating this today as an order of the day means that Parliament, which is not a skilled or appropriate body to determine complex planning matters or complex industrial processes, are the people who say yea or nay. In other words, it becomes an entirely political process. That is the gross affront that we cannot support today in this Parliament.
There should never arise in Tasmania , a place that calls itself a modern democracy, a situation where a major project, with huge environmental and other ramifications, is shunted through a fast-track political approval process. This deliberately circumvents the properly set up planning processes for the most thorough-ranging assessment that would be appropriate for such a project, and that the independent process is unilaterally abandoned.
Time expired.
[11.30 a.m.]
Mr LENNON (Franklin – Premier) – Mr Speaker, what the member is doing once again is trying to misuse the forms of the House to make some political point. I think the Tasmanian community now understands fully that the member and her colleagues do not support a pulp mill in Tasmania, no matter what.
Mrs Napier – Under any circumstances.
Mr LENNON – That is right, under any circumstances, no matter what. I think we have pretty much got that message. I do not think that gives the member the right to now use the forms of the House to effectively try to gag this House from considering amendments to legislation made by the Legislative Council.
Ms Putt – What did you use to do when you were in Opposition, mate? Who made it an art form?
Mr LENNON – What the member is doing is actually trying to use the Parliament now to stop the House of Assembly from giving proper consideration to changes to the legislation suggested by the Legislative Council. Mr Speaker, is this to be the start now of the push by the Tasmanian Greens to get rid of the Legislative Council? Who knows?
Mr McKim – We don’t support the legislation – you know that.
Mr LENNON – One could understand they would not be very happy with the Legislative Council right now, because after all, they have proposed amendments to the legislation and brought them back here. I have been in this House now since 1990 and I have never before seen a member stand in their place in this House and try to stop the House of Assembly from debating amendments to legislation brought forward by the Legislative Council. That is what the member is trying to do.
Ms Putt – We said that it should be made an order of the day forthwith.
Mr LENNON – She is trying to stop the House of Assembly from even looking at the amendments. One could understand if the member made the contribution she just did during the debate on the amendments, but no –
Mr McKim – No, you guillotined the debate, remember?
Mr LENNON – what she deliberately chooses to do is to stop the House of Assembly from even debating the amendments. This is the member of course who, when it suits her, stands in this Chamber and comments publicly about issues associated with democracy, but here we have now a quite deliberate manoeuvre by the Tasmanian Greens using the Standing Orders to try to stop the Parliament from even debating something that they do not like that has come from the Legislative Council.
Mr McKim – No, you stopped the debate by moving the guillotine, Premier.
Mr LENNON – It is no good interjecting and carrying on over there like some holier-than-thou member of parliament who knows it all, some expert on everything.
Mr Booth – You wouldn’t allow any debate.
Mr LENNON – The facts of the matter are that in the 18 years or so that I have been a member of this Parliament I have never before seen a member on either side of the House, or on the crossbenches, try to stop amendments from the Legislative Council from even being considered in this House. One could quite understand the members from the Greens benches voting against the amendments when they are brought on for debate, but the member is trying to use the forms of the House to stop the debate from even occurring. We will have no part of that, Mr Speaker. Of course the House should be looking at the amendments from the Legislative Council and making a decision about whether or not we support those amendments, and it will be up to the member to put her submission on those matters.
But what I think we have a clue again today about is what I said before: the members from the Greens benches will use all the forms of the Parliament, all the Standing Orders, in any way, shape they can, abuse parliamentary procedures in any way they can, to try to delay this matter. The fact is that at the end of the day, the people of Tasmania voted for the make-up of the Parliament as it is and the members of this House will have their say on this matter, no matter what the tactics of the Tasmanian Greens are.
[11.34 a.m.]
Mrs NAPIER (Bass) – I rise to indicate that this side of the House will support the motion that this matter be considered. In listening to the arguments put forward by Ms Putt, it seemed to me that we were back where we were the last time we were in this House in March; in other words, we heard a further debate against the bill. This debate, if Ms Putt had been correctly addressing it, should have been in relation to the procedure of whether we consider the amendments to this bill today. There probably would not be a debate at all, I suppose, if we were going to wait to debate the amendments on Thursday, but the matter of the procedural motion that we have here today asks whether or not the House is willing to consider the amendments as proposed by the upper House today, not on Thursday.
I heard no argument at all from the Leader of the Greens, Ms Putt, as to why it was not reasonable that we consider it today. I heard a lot of argument as to why there should not be a pulp mill and I heard a lot of argument as to why she did not agree with the bill that was passed the last time this House sat, but I heard no argument as to why it should not be within the capacity of this House, if it so decided, to deal with the few amendments made today. It seems to me that we have had almost a month, certainly three weeks, since the other House considered this matter. There has been plenty of opportunity to study the amendments that have been mooted and they are not significant amendments to this bill.
I would have thought that members have had plenty of time to study this, and not only go over the nature of the debate that was had – some 12 hours or so of it, some four weeks ago – but to continue to take on board information and feedback that has been received by members from within the electorate and from within Tasmania and correspondence received, to consider the amendments that have been provided. This side of the House is indicating, on the basis of the very small amendments that have been made, that we consider it not at all a difficult matter to deal with those today. They are not major amendments and I agree with the Premier for once that I do not think it appropriate that the Greens should be using another means by which they can again put on the record their opposition to both the mill and to the new process that was identified.
All members had an opportunity some four weeks ago to indicate that, whilst most of us would have much preferred that it stayed within the RPDC and was proceeded with in that way, this House is of the view that the project should be assessed. Fundamentally, it comes to that: that the members of this House want the chance of Tasmania having a world-class pulp mill , they want the chance for it to be kept alive, and that means that you therefore need an assessment process that was time framed and could meet the current proposal before us and that could provide an opportunity for that to be financially alive and for it to be assessed. Basically that is what the debate was about and after 12 hours’ debate this House decided that the pulp mill proposal currently before us should be assessed and that in the end Parliament would make the decision about whether it be proceeded with or not. It was an important debate; all members participated in and listened to that debate.
I and this side of the House can see no reason why we should not today just be agreeing to those small amendments that have been made by the other House. Let us get on with it. Let us get on with enabling the consultants to do that full and comprehensive assessment. Let us not even reduce the time frame by two days in delaying their commencing that process. Let us get on with the assessment. That is what most Tasmanians who have talked to me want to have happen, because they want to make sure that if a pulp mill is to be agreed to by this Parliament that it be thoroughly assessed.
Ms Putt – I don’t think two days is going to make any difference to the rushed job, Sue.
Mrs NAPIER – Two days will make a difference. You yourself have argued that the time frame is critical, so let us at least provide this additional two days rather than playing your usual games to try to stop the pulp mill because you do not want a pulp mill in this State.
[11.39 a.m.]
Mr BOOTH (Bass) – Mr Deputy Speaker, what an extraordinary position the Premier and also the Liberal Opposition have taken in regard to this matter. How can the Premier have the barefaced gall to come into this Chamber and speak about process and abusing the forms of Parliament? What a joke! What an absolutely hypocritical stance for the Premier, who, let us not forget, is the very person who created the situation deliberately that we see here today, that the Parliament has usurped the planning for this State, and has the impudence to suggest that the members of parliament actually have the capacity to assess a project of this nature. It is just an absurd proposition. I will stand here now and say there is not a single person in this House, including myself, who has the capacity or the ability to properly understand a jot of the 9 000-odd pages of submission by Gunns in their IIS.
Mr LLEWELLYN – Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The member is not debating the motion before the House. He is continuing to debate the issue that is behind the motion. The motion is that the matter be brought on at a later hour. He should be debating that particular matter, not the substance of the matter that will ultimately be debated in this Chamber.
Mr BOOTH – On the point of order, clearly I am entitled to address the matter in whatever way I see fit. As a member of parliament representing my constituents, my contribution is that I feel it is inappropriate that this bill be brought on today as an order of the day, rather than lying on the Table, as is the normal form of Parliament, to be debated on Thursday.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – On the point of order, what we have at the moment is a mechanical debate as such. It is not really a debate to visit the issues of the bill, except as they relate specifically to why the bill should not be an order of the day at a later hour. I would ask that the member stick to that form.
Mr BOOTH – Thank you. I will provide an explanation to the House as to how that fits in. Everybody in this House must recall that this bill was not debated properly because it was guillotined by the Government. We were unable to move a whole raft of amendments to the original bill when it came through this House. We were unable to scrutinise many of the clauses that were put before the House at that time. In fact, some of the matters that have now come back from the upper House were matters that we wanted to explore in great depth during that debate. I think it was deplorable that the Government chose to use its numbers to simply guillotine the debate, after, I might say, the media left for the evening. Ten minutes after the last journalist left the guillotine was applied by the Government in order to prevent proper debate and scrutiny of this particular matter.
Mr Llewellyn – I remind members that it is still an urgent bill.
Mr McKim – I know it is. We’re ready for you to move the guillotine again.
Mr Llewellyn – And we will, given this performance.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Order.
Mr BOOTH – By interjection, I would like Hansard to record the fact that the Leader of Government Business in the House, Mr Llewellyn, has now threatened that the Government intends to guillotine debate once again on a project of such vital importance. They will use their thuggery in the same way as they have outside the House to approve this bill on behalf of Gunns. Parliament was made into a rubber stamp when the original bill was put through but is now required to be a rubber stamp again under the threat of the guillotine by the Leader of Government Business. That is an appalling threat to make to this House. It behoves you to withdraw that remark or move to Zimbabwe or somewhere where you do not have the democratic forms that enable the public to participate in a parliamentary democracy. I think this is an absolute affront to parliamentary democracy. It is an affront to Parliament to expect that this House, or any other place with elected members, has the capacity to understand the complexities of a development of this scale. It is on the record that the reason we are debating this is that the Premier, through the Pulp Mill Task Force, undermined the RPDC process and then conspired with Gunns to withdraw from the process because they knew it could not possibly meet the RPDC conditions, as required under the integrated impact assessment. The Government has conspired with Gunns to have it withdrawn from that process and put through this House by a bunch of incompetents who do not have the capacity to understand the processes involved, or to understand any of the complexities in terms of the regulations or requirements. They are simply using the Parliament as a rubber stamp to do Gunns’ work. It is absolutely disgraceful.
If you want to see what happens when the Government decides to become self-appointed regulators, go and have a look at Ansons Bay . Have you had a look at Ansons Bay , Mr Llewellyn? It’s your own personal disgrace, where you now have a development that is collapsing into the sea.
Mrs NAPIER – Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I call your attention to Standing Orders that require the contribution be relevant to the debate.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – I would ask the member to make his contribution relevant to the mechanical nature of the debate.
Mr BOOTH – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I was saying before, the Premier is talking about our using the forms of this House in order to further debate, yet he is the very person who hypocritically guillotined it previously.
Time expired.
[11.46 a.m.]
Mr GREEN (Braddon) – Mr Deputy Speaker, the Greens have clearly demonstrated in the House today, despite the rhetoric of the past, that they do not support the democratic processes of the House. The attempt by the Leader of the Greens to undermine this process regarding the amendments from the Legislative Council should highlight to all of Tasmania that in fact everything she said about democracy has been eroded by her contribution today. Any interested person who wants to have a look at the debate on this bill as it went through the lower House could see that the Greens took every opportunity to filibuster through the debate. They did not stay on any of the points of relevance, which forced the Government, in the end, to guillotine the bill.
I would ask Tasmanians, when reading the Hansard, to also reflect on the process that the Greens undertook in the public debate. They tried to do exactly the same in the community so as to ensure that the whole process of assessment took so much time that it became impossible for it to proceed through the process.
It is clear to me, and it should be clear to the House, that we should support the motion moved by the Leader of the Government Business and thereby ensure that democracy is fulfilled. Not only that, I would also ask people to remember that the consultants have been appointed based on their expertise. It is my understanding that the RPDC was going to appoint consultants based on expertise.
Mr McKIM – Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You have clearly made rulings in this debate that members need to stick to the procedural matter. The member is way out of line – a long way off it – and I would ask you to be consistent in your rulings.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – I would ask the member to deal with the mechanics of the matter before us.
Mr GREEN – Okay, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will stick to the point. The point I was trying to make in support of the amendments that have come back from the upper House is that if the consultants do not recommend or suggest that the pulp mill cannot stack up to these rigorous guidelines then, in fact, we will not be having a debate in the future.
Ms Putt – What; that’s not right.
Mr McKim – You’re wrong again.
Mr GREEN – There has to be a recommendation from the consultants that the mill stacks up to the guidelines before it can proceed. It has to be assessed against the guidelines.
Mr BOOTH – Point of order. The member who just resumed his seat is clearly misleading the House by that statement. I would ask that he withdraw it and correct the record.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – It is not a point of order. I would ask the member to continue.
Mr GREEN – The Greens clearly do not like the process that is being undertaken. Most Tasmanians, I believe, want to see this pulp mill assessed. They want to see it go through a timely process of assessment. They want those people with the expertise to make that assessment against the most stringent guidelines established around the world and as a result of that and the work that is done, allow the process to proceed.
That is why it is important that this legislation come back to the House with amendments. It is important that those amendments, therefore, are debated in an appropriate way. Once those amendments have been debated, it is then up to the House to vote on those amendments and, of course, if we accept those amendments, then the bill will then proceed up for royal assent and we can get on the process.
In the meantime obviously, the Government has moved through the Deputy Premier, to a point with consultants and that has been entirely appropriate from a timing point of view because, Mr Deputy Speaker, timing is everything in this matter. We have already heard from the proponents the costs associated with the delays that have taken place. We have also understood from the work that has been done already that there has been a significant amount of public consultation – 119 odd days – when the legislation did not require that in the first place at all.
Nobody, other than the Greens, can complain that this process has not been open, transparent and underpinned by the very democratic processes that the Greens would normally want to uphold but, today, choose to try to cut from under the Tasmanian people. If nothing else, that should highlight to the Tasmanian people just how the rhetoric of the Greens differs from the actuality when they disagree with a point of view that has been established by a democratic election process that has delivered a majority government into the House of Assembly in Tasmania .
Of course, after that bill passed the House of Assembly, it went to the upper House and passed the upper House with some amendments and that is the reason that we are having the debate today. It is my view, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the Greens, in themselves have demonstrated once again, that there is no way that this mill would be given the opportunity if ever they had control in the lower House. It is clear from the contributions that have been made by both the member for Denison , the Leader of the Greens, and the member for Bass, Mr Booth, that, quite clearly, they believe that this process should not be given an opportunity. They are already trying to undermine the credibility of the consultants that have been appointed, people with a tremendous amount of expertise in the pulp mill area.
Time expired .
[11.53 a.m.]
Mr McKIM ( Franklin ) – You can sit down now mate, thanks very much.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Order. During question time we had a ruling from the Speaker about the importance of referring to another member in the proper manner. We do not use terms such as ‘sit down mate’ et cetera. I would ask the member to make his contribution.
Mr McKIM – I do withdraw the word ‘mate’ and I offer the honourable member the opportunity to sit down.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the rank hypocrisy of the Premier and his entire Government on this matter beggars belief. We have just had to sit here and listen to the Premier and then the member for Braddon come in here and have the gall and the front to give us a lecture about democratic process.
Of course, what they are hoping is that the Tasmanian people have forgotten that they guillotined debate on this bill when it was being debated last time. But not only that, the Leader of Government Business in the House has just flagged that they intend to guillotine debate again on this bill.
Mr Llewellyn interjecting.
Mr McKIM – Don’t try to add caveats to it now, Minister.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Order.
Mr McKIM – You did not have any caveats to that statement when you made it moments ago.
Mrs Napier – Yes, he did.
Mr McKIM – No, he did not. The Hansard will show that he has categorically informed the House that he intends to guillotine debate on this bill.
Mr Deputy Speaker, they can shout all they like and attempt to stop me making my contribution, which I have a democratic entitlement to do, but it will not divert me from saying this. You have the gall to give us a lecture on democracy when not only did you guillotine debate when this House was debating this bill originally, and you did it 10 minutes after the last media representative had left the building and the last deadline had passed, but you said categorically in this place that you intend to guillotine debate in relation to this matter again.
Mr LLEWELLYN – Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr McKIM – How –
Mr Green – Sit down, mate.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Order. I would ask the minister to resume his seat, and I ask Mr Green to withdraw that. The minister has the call.
Mr LLEWELLYN – Mr Deputy Speaker, the member indicated that I guillotined the debate on the previous occasion. I did no such thing.
Mr McKIM – On the point of order –
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Order. There is no point of order.
Mr McKIM – All right, I will continue my speech by saying I was very clear that I was referring to the collective view, that is the Government. We divided on that motion and you supported it, so you indeed did actually participate in the guillotining of the debate on a personal level.
Mr Deputy Speaker, that is what happened last time. What we have heard this morning is that this Government is going to guillotine debate again on this bill, that is what we have heard from the Leader of Government Business in the House. They did not even have the decency to wait until we were starting to debate the bill before they made this announcement, and quite frankly their hypocrisy and their lack of commitment to the democratic process in this State beggars belief.
This is an issue which has aroused public interest and public comment like very few other issues in my time in Parliament. The Tasmanian people are emotionally engaged with this issue, and they are emotionally engaged with the assessment process that this Parliament is currently attempting to set up. For this Government to come in even before the debate on the amendments has started and inform the House that they are going to guillotine debate no matter what, quite frankly beggars belief and is an indictment on their accountability, an indictment on their transparency, and an indictment on their commitment to the democratic process in this State and in this Parliament. I am astounded that the minister would come into this place before the debate on the bill has started, and announce his intention to guillotine debate, it quite frankly beggars belief.
I want to respond to a couple of matters that the member for Braddon went to in his contribution. He accused the Greens of delaying the RPDC process. Well, hello, it was actually Gunns Ltd who did not meet RPDC deadlines, despite being repeatedly asked to by the RPDC, I might add, that caused delays. Furthermore –

Time expired.
The House divided –

NOES 4
Mr Booth
Mr McKim
Mr Morris (Teller)
Ms Putt

AYES 20
Mr Bartlett
Mrs Butler
Mr Cox
Ms Giddings
Mr Green
Mr Gutwein
Mr Hidding
Mr Michael Hodgman
Mr Will Hodgman
Mr Kons
Mr Lennon
Mr Llewellyn
Mrs Napier
Ms O’Byrne
Mr Polley
Mr Rockliff
Ms Singh (Teller)
Mr Sturges
Mr Whiteley
Ms Wriedt

Motion so agreed to.

[And as an aside in another topic:]

[Mr McKIM]
Neither the Labor Party nor the Liberal Party can with any credibility get up in this place and say they want to attract young Tasmanians back, or attract a creative class to Tasmania, while they, in the case of the Labor Party, get up and accuse Richard Flanagan of being a traitor and a saboteur for daring to disagree with government policy. In the case of the Liberal Party, they get someone who is an ex-Liberal candidate at the last State election to get up and have a great whack at Rebecca Gibney for daring to object to the pulp mill proposal.
Mr WILL HODGMAN – Point of order. I just want to inform the member that the Liberal Party did not get anyone to do any such thing. What the gentleman in question has done is to exercise his right to free speech – at no-one else’s behest. I would just ask you to respect that.
Mr McKIM – Be that as it may, we have heard no condemnation whatsoever of that from the Liberal Party. Here we have a person who ought to embody the kind of people we want moving to this State. She is passionate about Tasmania ; she has moved down and she cares enough to participate in a public debate. What does she get for her troubles? A great whacking from an ex-Liberal candidate who dares to suggest that she does not have a right to a view or a right to make that view known. It is rank hypocrisy in my view.

PULP MILL ASSESSMENT BILL 2007 (No. 9)
In Committee
[12.30 p.m.]

Mr LENNON – Mr Deputy Chairman, I move –
That all remaining stages of the Pulp Mill Assessment Bill have allotted a total of one hour.
Mr McKIM – Mr Deputy Chairman, here we go – the gag comes out. Debate has not even started and Labor has moved the guillotine on this bill. This is a profoundly antidemocratic move that they were so keen to proceed with that the Leader of Government Business in the House could not even wait until debate on the bill had started before he told us he was going to guillotine debate. The first thing this Government does when they come to debate these amendments is get up and move the gag.
This Premier has the gall to come into this House and give us a lecture about democracy this morning. He has more front than a D9, this bloke. It is an absolute outrage that this Government will now be perpetrating on this House – and let me remind the Tasmanian people: this is what you get with majority government. This is the kind of undemocratic, unaccountable behaviour you get from a majority government. If this were a balance-of-power parliament, we would have the capacity to determine that this bill should not be guillotined and gagged. But here we are in a majority parliament, and look what you get. You get undemocratic and processes which are absolutely lacking in any transparency.
You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves, coming in here and moving the guillotine before one word of debate had been spoken on this issue. The very first thing the Premier did was get up and move the guillotine. It is undemocratic and completely lacking in transparency. This is what you get with majority government. You get a government that is drunk on power, that is what you get, a government that does not care about what the people think, that does not care for the processes of our Westminster democratic system, a system that people have fought and died for in wars. You come in here and trample all over the basic principles, one of which is that people who might happen to disagree with you still get a chance to have their representatives put their case in this Parliament. You come in and move the guillotine, and not only do you do that, you move the minimum allowable time of one hour. That is the minimum time that you –
Mr Lennon – A further hour – at least twelve-and-a-half hours.
Mr McKIM – No, these amendments have not been debated yet, Premier.
Mr Lennon – You didn’t want them debated at all.
Mr McKIM – These amendments have not been debated – don’t you come in here on a motion to move a gag and give us a lecture on our democracy. We do not need to hear it from you – you are a rank hypocrite on that issue. This is, without doubt, the most outrageous manoeuvre I have seen by a government in my time in this House, which is coming up on five years, and believe me, I have seen a few rankly hypocritical, antidemocratic manoeuvres from this Government, but this one takes the cake. Without one word of debate on these upper House amendments, we have the gag moved. Why do you think the Premier would be moving the gag, Mr Deputy Chairman? Because he does not want to hear about the flaws in his bill, that is why he is moving the gag –
Mr Lennon – You have had more than 11 hours for that.
Mr McKIM – and in relation to the Premier’s interjection, don’t forget, Mr Chairman, that this is the second time on this bill that the debate has been gagged.
Time expired.
Mr WILL HODGMAN – Mr Deputy Chairman, I will place on record the Opposition’s position on this matter. It was indeed an interesting manoeuvre by the Premier but perhaps with some justification, given that we have had twelve-and-a-half hours, I believe, of debate already on this matter. There was a substantive debate on the bill. We did not support the gag on the last occasion because that was the substantive debate on the bill and now we are dealing with amendments which are very clear and simple and certainly do not require the sort of filibustering that we saw last time. This matter needs to move on, this process needs to be commenced, so we will support the motion.
Greens members interjecting .
Ms PUTT – Mr Deputy Chairman, it goes from bad to worse. We certainly know who is running this State and they are not even here, but people are dancing to the tune of Gunns Ltd today – yes, they both have the same footwork going on.
This is an outrage. Because the Government moved the guillotine when we were debating the substantive bill, we did not get the opportunity to scrutinise in detail clauses 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or the two schedules to the bill and we were only part-way through clause 4 when the bill was guillotined in this House.
We are talking – as the Premier will remind us continually – about the largest project with the most major ramifications that has ever been proposed in this State, and it is not in any way an extraordinary thing for the Greens to wish us to debate this at length. We need to thoroughly examine every last detail. We found, during the last time when we got into the committee stage that the Premier was singularly ill-informed about particular matters and he is no doubt aware that he made a solemn undertaking to me that he would get back in touch immediately he had talked to advisers about a question I asked which he said was very pertinent, and I am still waiting for an answer that he promised on the record, here, that he would get for me. It just goes to show how much he actually cares about informing other members of parliament or the public about the matters contained within the bill.
What we want is a full opportunity, at the very least, to scrutinise the amendments that the Legislative Council has made, now that the Parliament has decided that this will come on for debate today. The Opposition member gets up and says, ‘Oh, these are very simple amendments.’ I hope he has noticed the sleight of hand that has changed and watered down the wording that was in the initial bill. There is an appearance of tightening things up, but in fact, because of the sleight of hand with the changes in wording when slightly modified bits of the clause are put back in, it has been watered down. I hope that the Opposition have been doing their homework because there are some very serious matters contained in here. There are some things which need to be amended to give effect to what seems to be the intent of the Legislative Council, who obviously have been somewhat misadvised in the way these amendments have come forward. So we need the full period of time in which to do it and we know that cannot be done within one hour.
We know what happens in this State. When Gunns says, ‘Jump’, the Premier says, ‘How high?’ and so does the Opposition. That is what is going on here today. This is a microcosm of what has occurred with the entire Gunns pulp mill assessment. You cannot possibly have a full thorough-ranging examination, either in the Parliament or through the RPDC, because it does not suit Gunns. That is what is going on here today and it is an absolute outrage. I find it really difficult to believe that an opposition party has supported the gag. I do not imagine they would have done it for anything other than the pulp mill project for Gunns because, by tradition, opposition parties never do that. They uphold the right to fully and at length debate matters here in this Parliament. It is most extraordinary that in relation to the Gunns pulp mill the Liberals do not care about going thoroughly over all these amendments and working out what the implications are.
Time expired.
Mr BOOTH – Mr Deputy Chairman, what an extraordinary instalment in this act of perfidy that the Premier has personally orchestrated to get this approval through the Parliament. He has bashed it through, broken every democratic principle in the book and destroyed the forms of the House and parliamentary democracy. It is just extraordinary to guillotine debate to prevent elected members scrutinising a bill of this moment. That reflects, Premier, very much the personal standards that you display outside of this House. You have completely lost control of your position as an elected member and Premier. I find it an absolute insult to democracy that you would carry on in this way, with a carefully crafted plan to guillotine this debate to prevent proper scrutiny. Hansard needs to reveal to future generations precisely why or how this mill proposal was put through.
In my very limited amount of time I would like to read out a couple of things that indicate the preconditions that you have set up for this mill. It would not have been able to get through the RPDC, but we now have an approval about to go through this Parliament – by the guillotine. This is a letter from Julian Green to Dr Warwick Raverty:
‘I wish to stress that the position you have found yourself in was not of your doing – the fault lies squarely with the activities of the Tasmanian Government’s Pulp Mill Task Force.
I would personally like to take this opportunity to thank you for the work you have done to date, particularly your dedication and commitment to the assessment process and the work of the assessment panel. Your experience and expertise, drawn from your work with the pulp and paper industry, has been invaluable and will be greatly missed.
Yours sincerely
Julian Green.’
The Tasmanian Government’s own Pulp Mill Task Force brought down the assessment process and forced the resignation of Warwick Raverty and Mr Green. Then Mr Raverty goes on to say:
‘Why did I resign from the RPDC panel?
On 20 December 2006, Julian Green said to me, “(Solicitor-General) Bill Bale says if you choose to stay and fight this allegation of ‘apprehended bias’ in the Supreme Court, the Commission will have to seek my (Bill’s) advice on whether they should pay your costs. He would have to advise the RPDC that because of the decision in the High Court in the case of Ebner, supporting Raverty would be far too risky. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and you would almost certainly lose. In addition, the case would delay the mill review by up to 2 years. I would have to advise the Commission that the only practical course is for it to withdraw Raverty’s delegation.” ‘
Now listen to this, Premier:
‘Warwick – we would have to sack you. I am extremely sorry – you have found yourself in this position because of that little **** Paul Lennon. He promised me on 2 February that the Task Force would not contact CSIRO. Look here is my diary entry for that day “Meeting with Lennon ……. advised Premier concerns re Raverty. Told Lennon TF not to contact CSIRO or Ensis under any circs. Premier said, “consider it fixed, Julian”. Good meeting!’
Julian Green continues on 20 December:
‘A month later that idiot Bob Gordon signs a contract with Ensis to do a review of bleached pine effluent toxicity. I am really totally pissed off with Lennon. I will have to resign from the panel myself, Bill told me that. And I’m damn well considering resigning from the RPDC.’
[12.45 p.m.]
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order. I will ask the honourable member to resume his seat. I will just remind the member that the language used was unparliamentary and to refrain from making those sorts of comments.
Mr BOOTH – Thank you, but I am just quoting from a letter from Julian Green. These are not my words. He goes on:
‘I am really profoundly sorry Warwick – the panel will not be able to function without your expertise and experience. You have been able to Australianise the technical advice of our Swedish consultants. I certainly do not want anything like the Skoghall mill built in the Tamar. It would be an absolute catastrophe. Gunns should have to be made to fix the gross errors in the IIS. I’ll tell you this, if Gunns were not a Tasmanian company, this proposal would already have been rejected. As you know we’ve bent over backward to help them get it right and they just keep stuffing us around. They are just a bunch of clowns. I am really really sorry Warwick.’
That is quoted from Julian Green, the ex-head of the RPDC. It indicates very clearly that this Premier has been involved in an orchestrated campaign to stuff up the process before the RPDC so that he could do Gunns’ bidding, so that he could sit on the seat they have warmed up for him.
Mr LENNON – Point of order. I put up with a fair bit from this honourable member who misuses the forms of this House, who defames me under parliamentary privilege time and time again.
Mr Booth – What is your point of order?
Mr LENNON – I am on my feet now. I am entitled to speak.
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order. I ask the honourable member to stop interjecting.
Mr LENNON – Mr Deputy Chairman, here we are again. On the one hand these people claim that they want time to scrutinise the bill. What we now find is that they want time to defame me again under parliamentary privilege. You are using parliamentary privilege to defame me. What you went on to assert after you referred to the letter was something that you would not be prepared to say outside this House. You need to say it inside the House so that you can protect yourself. You are the worst member in this Chamber for abusing the forms of parliament and for unparliamentary behaviour.
Mr McKim – You are just wasting the member’s time.
Mr LENNON – It is no good interjecting. I am entitled to have my say. I am not going to sit here through a parliamentary debate and listen to you defame me.
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order. Premier, just for clarification, are you making a personal explanation?
Mr LENNON – Absolutely, and I am entitled to.
Ms PUTT – Point of order. Where is the standing order that says you can suddenly stand up and make a personal explanation when you do not like what someone is saying? I have been ruled out when trying to do that on numerous occasions.
Mr Lennon – Absolutely not. You do it every day that Parliament sits.
Ms PUTT – I have been told that I must not do it at the time and that there is an appropriate time later. That is what I have been informed.
Mr Lennon – If you had any decency you would sit your colleague down.
Ms PUTT – Do the rules apply equally?
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order. I ask the honourable member to resume her seat. That situation is during question time. You cannot make a personal explanation during question time but you are given an opportunity after question time to do so. The Premier is in order.
Mr LENNON – Thank you, Mr Deputy Chairman.
Ms PUTT – Point of clarification on the point of order.
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order.
Ms PUTT – If the Premier were to assert something about me, could I stand up right now and make a personal explanation?
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order. I would ask the honourable member to resume her seat, please. In relation to the previous point of order, I mention to the Premier that it is supposed to be a brief personal explanation, so I would ask that he wind up.
Mr LENNON – I shall. The last point that I would like to make on this matter is that I would not have had to make the point of order and make this personal explanation if the Leader of the Tasmanian Greens, Ms Putt, would force some decent standards on the member for Bass, Mr Booth. He continually uses this House to defame other members of parliament.
Mr BOOTH – Point of order. I have to get up and make a personal explanation in response to that because this is an absolute absurdity that the Premier is carrying on with. I was making a proper and valid contribution to the debate.
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order. I just remind the member that there are two minutes left in the debate.
Mr BOOTH – Thank you. I was making a proper and positive contribution to the debate that outlined, in the words of Julian Green, the ex-commissioner for the RPDC and in charge of the pulp mill assessment no less, that the Premier interfered with the process and that –
Mr Lennon – I did not.
Mr BOOTH – Well, I will read it again.
Mr Lennon – I did no such thing.
Mr BOOTH – what Mr Green had to say to you, Mr Premier, is in stark contradiction to what you are saying.
Mr DEPUTY CHAIRMAN – Order. I would ask the honourable member to resume his seat. If you are going to make a personal explanation it has to be relevant to you and not to anybody else. It has to be a personal explanation.
Mr McKIM – Point of order, Mr Deputy Chairman. The Premier referred at length to Mr Booth during what you are claiming was a personal explanation by him. To be consistent you are going to have to allow Mr Booth to refer to other people during his