Susan McMahon

The Report
Your people have spoken, Doug Burt. Over to you.

The Speech
Instead of being represented, opponents of this mill and the appallingly undemocratic manner of its ‘approval’ have been ridiculed; labelled ‘extemist’ or ‘misinformed’ by the very people (with some notable exceptions) who should be listening to us. We are not ‘extremists’ and we are certainly not ‘misinformed’. We are your neighbours, your doctors, your nurses, your teachers, your fishermen, your food-producers. We are, quite simply, everyone.
THE GEORGE TOWN COUNCIL was required to call and hold a public Meeting to debate the pulp mill after receiving a petition signed by 500 ratepayers earlier this year. Although required to hold the meeting within 30 days of receipt of the petition, this recalcitant council dragged its feet, eventually holding the meeting late, in breach of this condition. Better late than never.

The meeting was held on Tuesday 26th November in a packed George Town Memorial Hall, and it was a fairly willing affair. That it was so willing is not unexpected, given that the pro/anti mill divide is nowhere more marked than in this town shared by people who work in heavy industry living alongside so-called ‘sea-changers’.

It is fairly apparent that Gunns rather ham-fistedly attempted to stack the meeting with their supporters. The town had been leafletted a few days prior to the meeting with material (displaying the Gunns logo) urging people in favour of the mill to attend. The leafletting failed as it became apparent that the majority of the 288 people in attendance were opposed to the mill. It appears that mill supporters only turn up if they are paid to do so.

Some of the detailed submissions sent to the council prior to the meeting, and appearing on their website, had the unmistakable stamp of Gunns spin-doctors on them. There were three detailed ‘scientific’ submissions from Pat Bottle, and another three from Chris McIndoe, but the speeches were rather inarticulate and there was no mention of their submission contents).

Then there was the meeting itself – once again competently chaired by Lynn Mason. There was something of an outcry when the order of business as outlined in the agenda was changed to allow motions to be put to the meeting after the three-minute speakers, (those who had supplied detailed submissions) but before the two-minute speakers (those who had simply requested to speak). Incidentally, it was not made clear when the meeting was called that some speakers would be allowed three minutes and others only two.

It appeared that this change of order might have been a deliberate ploy to gag some speakers, but the ploy backfired because nine people scheduled to speak did not show, allowing enough time for all those who wished to speak to eventually do so.

There was something of an outcry, when a few George Town residents rather noisily requested that only George Town residents be allowed to speak/vote, but the chairman over-ruled this, pointing out that it was a public meeting. On this point, John Day shut up the critics by pointing out that, as a Rowella resident, he was only 3 kms from the proposed site – much closer than most George Town residents, and therefore he had every right to speak.

Of the speakers, there were 23 against the mill; 8 in favour of the mill, and of the 9 ‘no-shows’, 6 were pro-mill.

The first motion was one in favour of retaining Council support of the mill. It failed to get up.
The second motion, by Debbie Rainbow, requested that the council rescind support of the mill. This motion was passed.
The third motion, proposed by Laurie Crerar, calling for Council to ensure that risk assessments be done, was passed.
A fourth motion calling to censure the mayor, failed.

Your people have spoken, Doug Burt. Over to you.

I have very personal reasons for opposing this mill in the Tamar Valley. I grew up in George Town and I still have strong ties to the area. My father died in George Town at a relatively young age from respiratory disease induced by industrial pollution. He did not work at Comalco, but at the substation supplying power to that plant. This substation is situated downwind from the Comalco plant and my father breathed in God-knows-what crap for over twenty years. Sometimes he came home covered in a fine, white powder. I’ll leave you to join the dots. Some George Town residents seem happily ignorant of the fact that their town has the highest cancer rate in this state – all for the sake of a few jobs. And now a few of them happily back establishment of a pulp mill that will pollute this valley even more. Sometimes more is not better.

Susan McMahon
Tamar Valley Resident

My two-minute address:

I am speaking to you tonight as a former resident of George Town and someone who spent happy formative years here. I still have strong ties to this area and a deep affection for it.

We elect our governments to represent us; to be our mouthpiece in decision making at all levels and we expect to be heard.
When our elected representatives choose to ignore the majority view on a subject of vital importance, such as the likely or possible impacts of a giant chemical pulp mill with its accompanying green-waste burning power plant in a valley with an inversion problem, then WE have a serious problem. Our Premier will say that he had a ‘mandate’ to do what he did in forcing through the assessment of this mill, but the disquiet this act has generated, and the fact that this Premier’s approval has slumped to just 24% tells us otherwise.

The people have been forced to take matters into their own hands and make elected representatives take notice – this has already happened on the West Tamar with that council changing its stance and the election of anti-mill councillors. The same has happened just last week in the Launceston City Council. Then we have a new Federal Government elected with 21 out of 23 seats relying on Green preferences, including, overwhelmingly, Bass. Next we will target the state government, and campaign to have a fair, decent government with the ability to listen, installed in place of the appalling, unrepresentative excuse for a government we are forced to deal with at the moment.

What we ask is simply that there be a fair assessment of this proposal – nothing more; nothing less. To date this has not been the case and the very legitimate concerns of business owners in this valley, health workers, tourism operators, people who have invested everything into property and people who rely on the perception of a clean environment for their business edge, have simply not been addressed. There is not a level playing field to use the hackneyed cliche – this one company – Gunns – has become overfat from goverment subsidies, while our health system languishes for lack of funds.

Instead of being represented, opponents of this mill and the appallingly undemocratic manner of its ‘approval’ have been ridiculed; labelled ‘extemist’ or ‘misinformed’ by the very people (with some notable exceptions) who should be listening to us. We are not ‘extremists’ and we are certainly not ‘misinformed’. We are your neighbours, your doctors, your nurses, your teachers, your fishermen, your food-producers. We are, quite simply, everyone.

This pulp mill is merely symptomatic of a much larger malaise which is infesting our beautiful home. We are at a crossroads – do we adopt this third world pulp paradigm and subject ourselves to a future that depends on the market whims of low-value volatile commodities? Or do we continue down the path we are already on and capitalize even more on that which makes our island the unique and wonderful place it is to live and work? The choice is ours, but we may have to work hard to make our elected representatives listen with an open mind.

We have already begun to reclaim our democracy and we will continue to do so, for all our sakes. We are not going away.