Judith Ajani The Age The company’s plan to pulp native trees clashes with its investment in plantations …
GUNNS’ pulp mill is exposing tensions in both major parties. A decade of opportunistic me-too-ism has left big political problems for Australia’s forest industry. The big parties, thinking voters have nowhere else to go, have shoved forest policy under the carpet, leaving a cabal of industry lobbyists to shape decisions. Gunns is not alone in benefiting from this situation, but the pulp mill is at last bringing the contradictions in its business to the surface. Gunns’ pulp mill is moving against the Australian wood products industry’s surge into plantation processing. While 80 per cent of Australia’s wood products industry — the makers of sawn timber, wood panels and the wood used to make paper — is now plantation-based and therefore enjoys the commercial advantages of processing an agricultural crop, Gunns prefers to use native forests as its major feedstock.
Earlier, by Judith Ajani: But is the pulp mill economic?
And, John Durie Blog, The Australian: Big Gunns gamble needs brave board
