A Royal Commission is essential

Lance Anderson

A Paul Lennon comes around only once in a lifetime if you are lucky!

I READ with great interest Richard Flanagan’s Gunns: Out of Control and waited for Gunns’ writ against him. To my amazement it never came.

Now knowing Gunn’s propensity to prosecute I can only assume what Richard Flanagan wrote must be essentially true. It appears Geoffrey Cousins came to the same conclusion.

If the State Government had been serious about the need for a pulp mill and wanted a level playing field of transparency and even handedness it would have called for expressions of interest on a world scale followed by calls for tenders. Neither happened and now we have the incredible situation where a private firm is about to be given a 50 year monopoly over our forests without facing any competition or a test as to their suitability to be given such responsibility.

This would have been part of the assessment had tenders been called but Gunns have neatly by-passed this assessment and succeeded in limiting scrutiny to the scientific aspects.

Their dogged pursuit of the mill in spite of every poll showing public opposition shows they sense great wealth for Gunns and their shareholders – an opportunity not to be missed under such a pliable government. A Paul Lennon comes around only once in a lifetime if you are lucky!

The situation as it stands is untenable. On the one hand we have an author of some stature presenting uncontested evidence in considerable detail showing Gunns are out of control and on the other the state Government turning a blind eye.

In view of Flanagan’s serious allegations surely it is not yet too late to subject Gunns to a completely independent assessment as to their suitability to be given such awesome power. A Royal Commission is now essential and the only way to heal the divide.

L Anderson

Grindelwald
TAS 7277