Mike Bolan
We need to show the Upper House that Tasmanians are repelled by Paul Lennon’s ‘fast track’ process and we need the Upper House to take the third option, neither say yes nor no to the mill, instead say NO to the process simply because there isn’t enough information to make an informed decision. That’s their job as a House of Review and it’s up to us to ask them to do that job on behalf of the community (as opposed to the job they’re being asked to do by the various lobbyists currently schmoozing them). The community has produced a petition calling on the Upper House to say no to the process until the parliament or government provides complete and independent information about the costs and risks presented by the proposal to local industries, businesses and communities …
IT’S clear that the various apologists for the pulp mill expect our MLCs to understand the details of pulp mills in order to make a decision. In fact, overseas tours and briefings by Gunns lobbyists and pulp mill experts are not relevant to the situation.
The impacts of pulp mills on sensitive industries are what really needs to be studied but the government’s limited ‘fast track’ process ignores over 80% of the impacts of this ‘world scale’ proposal. Surely no house of review can fail to reject a proposition that ignores 80% of the impacts. It would be like taking out a huge mortgage on a house after only looking at the bedroom!
So far, the mill story has been written by powerful figures controlling our governments and political parties coupled with a publicly funded GMU that is manipulating the media to define people’s concerns for their future as ‘anti development’ or ‘extreme green’.
From where I sit, the official descriptions have little or no validity. The 10,000+ people at the last anti-mill demonstration were not a noisy minority, any more than the 980 loggers counted at the pro-mill rally was 11,000 people. People aren’t just concerned about the mill, they are concerned that their own paid representatives are refusing to represent them, thereby exposing them to harm.
Restauranteurs with millions invested in outdoor eateries; tourism operators hoping to offset their substantial investments with paying visitors; farmers watching their water supplies dry up as they become surrounded by tax funded tree plantations; Bass Strait fishermen relying for their futures on the cleanliness of the seas; wine growers worried about their futures; organic food producers seriously concerned about their ability to remain organic; Tamar asthmatics concerned for their health and their lives; these and more are the people that I hear from continually. Many were at the anti-mill rally and probably counted themselves as liberal or labor voters once. Few could be categorised as ‘deep Green’.
Their concerns are that they cannot be protected from any ‘world scale’ pulp mill when the government ignores community and industry sensitivities; when the government outsources the approval decision to a pulp mill supplier; and when the government wants to place severe time limits on parliamentary debate to meet the requests of one company without regard to the potential risks being taken with people’s health, jobs, investments, lifestyles and futures.
This government’s abandonment of due process; their rejection of public involvement; their dogged pursuit of a giant pulp mill upwind of 80,000 people engaged in sensitive industries; their use of public money to market the mill; their refusal to fund community research or submissions; their refusal to represent taxpayers; all these represent flawed and perverted decision making and have no relationship to a democratic system.
Because Paul Lennon’s ‘fast track assessment’ ignores so much vital information, it sets a dangerous precedent for Tasmania’s future. As it now stands, our political system gives us but one chance to express public and business disquiet over the government’s abandonment of due process.
The only body that Tasmanians can turn to, the now overloaded Upper House, is the house of review for the parliament. In this case, it is clear that the parliament’s fast track approval process prevents a coherent understanding of the total impacts of a pulp mill by ignoring most of them, particularly those that are inconveniently negative.
We need to show the Upper House that Tasmanians are repelled by Paul Lennon’s ‘fast track’ process and we need the Upper House to take the third option, neither say yes nor no to the mill, instead say NO to the process simply because there isn’t enough information to make an informed decision. That’s their job as a House of Review and it’s up to us to ask them to do that job on behalf of the community (as opposed to the job they’re being asked to do by the various lobbyists currently schmoozing them).
The community has produced a petition calling on the Upper House to say no to the process until the parliament or government provides complete and independent information about the costs and risks presented by the proposal to local industries, businesses and communities as well as reporting on the total likely amount of subsidies. (Remember, ‘world scale’ mill….world scale subsidies)
It’s therefore important that as many of you as possible get as many signatures as you can since we only have a couple of weeks. If you can get out with a clipboard and a swag of forms, you can have a mass of fun going to some new places (markets, shopping centres, churches, cinemas etc) and getting so many signatures that neither the state government, nor John Howard, can fob the community off as a ‘noisy minority’ or as ‘deep green sympathisers’.
Over to you…
Earlier: Bob McMahon
