Dr Warwick Raverty Speech to a memorial service on the first anniversary of Gunns withdrawal from the Resource Planning and Development Commission, outside Gunns’ head office in Lindsay St. Invermay, 11am on Friday 14th March.
As a scientist, I have been trained to question continually and to re-evaluate the evidence that is put in front of me every day. Until now I have hoped in vain that Gunns would see the error of its ways and that it would counsel, or sideline members of staff who behave in an anti-social manner. I had hoped that, presented with so much public opposition, Gunns under better more competent management, might base a pulp mill in Hampshire, using 100% plantation wood and complying strictly with the Tasmanian Environmental Guidelines and regulations. Today I have to tell you that I have abandoned that hope and reached what is, for me, a sad conclusion – namely that Gunns cannot change and is therefore not a fit and proper company to build a pulp mill anywhere. I would not now support a pulp mill in Hampshire operated by Gunns.
Today is also an opportunity, a real opportunity for all of us collectively to draw a line in the sand – this far with the nepotism and cronyism of Rough Red and her mates and no further. Collectively we can create a new beginning for Tasmania. A Tasmania where politicians govern for the many, not for the few; where money is taken from the rich and given to the poor, instead of the way it has been for so long. This is a beautiful, unique island where sustainable agriculture, forestry, fishing, wine making, tourism, mining and all the other activities by which we earn our daily bread can live in harmony with the environment.
FRIENDS, thank you for coming today. I cannot express in words how much it gladdens my heart and lifts my spirits to see you all at this memorial service. Exactly one year ago there was a great tragedy in Tasmania – in political terms the first of three serial killings of vital public expectations was committed and we are gathered here today to pay respect to those who laboured for that which was killed, to commit to bringing the killers to account and to give thanks for the good things that have come out of this great tragedy.
Firstly we need to consider what lies dead and rotting in this coffin amidst us here today. Thankfully no person was murdered here in Tasmania on the 14th March 2007. The RPDC was not killed.
Thankfully the RPDC was only wounded and it lives on in a much diminished role with its wings so badly clipped that it has become irrelevant in this important struggle. Hopefully those damaged wings will one day grow again with your help.
So what exactly was killed on 14th March 2007? There are many answers to this question and I can only give you my own personal opinion as to the real victims. And as always, as a public servant, I am obliged to tell you that what I say here today is only my personal opinion and it does not represent the opinion of my employer, or that of any other organisation. In my view, what died in those tragic killings between the 14th March and the 30th August last year was much more important than any three people. It was three intangible things that are far more important to you as a community. It was, in the order in which they died:
• Firstly GOODWILL – not goodwill among men, but public goodwill for a once proud family-owned company that has sadly become demented and deluded in its old age.
• Secondly RESPECT for the executive arm of government, and lastly
• TRUST that its elected representatives would act in a manner that reflected the hopes and wishes of the majority of the people.
And none of these important things died quickly. Like all cases of cancer and dementia, it was a slow and very painful battle with the diseases that had eaten away at the three of them for many years.
Many of you, as loving family members, had stood by the bedside, in the Albert Hall, as the RPDC, acting as any good physician would, tried vainly to keep alive all of these three important members of your community using intensive care. Intensive care had been given for over two years in the hope that one day good health would be restored and all three would rise from their sick beds to be welcomed back by you all.
Alas, it was not to be. A group of common rednecks, masquerading as businessmen, lawyers and former politicians came in to that room on the 14th March and screamed, ‘Enough is enough! This has gone on too long! And it’s costing much too much! If the doctor can’t guarantee that these three will get better by the first week of September 2007, we are pulling the plug.’ The chief physician, Justice Christopher Wright, was aghast, ‘The end of November is the earliest they might be healed’, he said calmly, you people have withheld vital information from me and my colleagues that has delayed recovery quite considerably. With that, the Rednecks pulled the plug and GOODWILL died instantly. He had been the sickest of the three, injured on a daily basis as he watched regular reports of the rednecks’ poor forestry practices, incompetent management and an adulterous affair with a powerful old woman called ‘Rough Red’. Even members of the Gunns family had become ashamed of the behaviour of the rednecks to whom they had sold their family business.
The other two intangibles lingered on for a while and Rough Red had a brief chance to save them. If she’d said, ‘One death is enough. Get these rednecks out of the room and put RESPECT and TRUST back on life support!’, then I suspect that those two would be alive and well today. Unfortunately Rough Red was not a tower of moral strength on this, or on many other occasions and she had fallen into the habit of robbing the poor to give to the rich. After all, she was emotionally involved with the rednecks and the affair with them had been going on for years. Word was that she loved it! So instead of ordering the rednecks out of the hospital room, she invited them and their lawyers back to her place for the weekend – to meet her friends – other ‘ladies of the night’. And as you may imagine, one thing led to another, promises of money changed hands and a lot of debauchery went on over that weekend. The following week, of course, there was a big fat Bill to pay, the ‘Pulp Mill Assessment Bill 2007’ it was called. Respect and Trust were shown the Bill in their hospital beds and Respect promptly gasped several times and died.
Trust alone remained alive, shivering quietly with its heart weakly beating. The heart of Trust beat weakly on for a few months while many of you, loving family members, kept Trust alive and begged a few brave men and women, women like Christine Milne, Peg Putt, Ruth Forrest, Norma Jamieson and Lisa Singh, men like Bob Brown, Terry Martin, Kerry Finch, Don Wing, Kim Booth, Nick McKim and Tim Morris to urge them to do everything they could to help it recover. But 12 brave people can only do so much when so many others are only listening to Rough Red and her good time girls fornicating in the corridors of power with a group of demented, rich elderly rednecks. And so it was at 1:30 PM on the 30th August 2007, the Bill was passed, an un-natural Act in both the eyes of God and Man if ever there was one – and Trust finally passed silently away in its sleep.
With the deaths of three such important members of your community in only 5 short months, it is quite natural for all of us to feel sad – and to feel angry. We ask ourselves why. Why did these three eminent citizens have to die under such tragic and easily avoidable circumstances?
As in many cases of murder, the answers are quite easy to find. The answers lie in common human frailties – greed, lust for power, stupidity and plain old selfishness – the belief that my wellbeing is much more important than your wellbeing and the wellbeing of the Planet. Common rednecks, particularly elderly ones, display all of these traits in great abundance having had a lifetime to put them into practice. We all trust that our Westminster system of democracy will protect us from the elderly rednecks who make it into public life. But that is a naive trust, particularly here in Tasmania, where the Westminster system was twisted and distorted into the Tasminster system as early as 1856. As Benjamin Franklin said a few decades before that, ‘Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.’ All of us here today know who the two wolves are in the case of the pulp mill – and we also know that all of us here are ‘the sacrificial lamb’.
Fortunately, Ben Franklin added a second line to his famous quote, ‘Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!’ Now I am not, repeat not, advocating a call to arms, or violence, to contest the vote that was taken on the 30th August 2007. If the past two hundred years of history have taught us anything it should be that violence achieves nothing of value and that ‘fighting fire with fire’ leaves only bitter ashes in its wake. So I am intensely proud of all of the people here today who have started to train in the methods of non-violent protest. You have a great leader in Bob McMahon – a truly great leader, a leader in the mould of Sir Edmund Hillary and Martin Luther King. And I urge those of you who think that this contest is not worth protesting about to reconsider and to join the protest. Because on the 30th August 2007 this battle ceased to be a battle about a pulp mill. On that day it became a battle for Liberty, a battle for the freedom of every Tasmanian, every Australian – the freedom to enjoy clean air, drink clean water, enjoy pristine native forests and to enjoy a wholesome community life where our children and grandchildren can play, be educated and grow up to enjoy the same high quality of life that you enjoyed until one year ago.
Make no mistake – in the same way that history tapped me on the shoulder on the 4th January 2007, when Michael Stedman of the Launceston ‘Examiner’ rang me at work and asked, ‘Would you fax me a copy of your letter of resignation and Julian Green’s letter of resignation?’, history is tapping you on the shoulder today. And as I did 14 months ago, you have an important decision to make.
If you say ‘No, I can’t. I’m an Australian. I don’t want to make a fuss. This is just another industrial development. It wont matter in the long run. If the mill will be all that bad then the Parliament would not have approved it. It’s not my problem. I’ll play it safe – keep my head down and get on with my life,’ then you will be playing right into the hands of the wolves and into the hands of Rough Red.
Furthermore, you will be betraying your fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, grandfathers and great grandfathers – in fact every member of your family who has fought in two world wars to preserve the freedoms that we all now accept as normal.
Consider, what exactly is the point of standing by the roadside on ANZAC Day clapping the old Diggers, if you aren’t prepared to stand by the roadside with a placard to protect what they fought and died for? You have all seen the honour rolls in our churches, in our schools and on our monuments. You’ve seen the names of the many brave men and women who fell in battle. Well, Bob McMahon and the members of TAP are not asking you to die, but they are asking you to put your name on an honour roll – the honour roll of 2008 that lists the names that your grandchildren will read in a hundred years’ time. An honour roll that lists the names of the brave people of principle who were prepared to stand in 2008 and hold a placard by the roadside at Long Reach. Names of people who were perhaps prepared to be arrested and perhaps to spend a night in jail to protect the Tamar Valley, to protect Tasmania’s native forests and to protect the rights of ordinary Australians in the face of a deluded big business and debauched politicians. Everyone who is prepared to do that deserves to be honoured.
A great Australian social scientist, Dr Alex Carey, has observed, ‘… the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.’ Just reflect on that for a moment. ‘… three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.’
In his book in which this statement appears, ‘Taking the Risk out of Democracy’, Alex Carey went on to explain that, in democracies like Australia, advertising and public relations – both of them, largely ‘spin’, are the prime means through which corporate propaganda is waged. When you think about the extensive advertising campaigns that Gunns has run, does any of this ‘ring a bell’ with anyone here? And yet that same company has run very few meetings to consult with the public, and in those it did run early on, people who asked awkward questions were threatened by senior Gunns executives who behaved just like common thugs. I experienced exactly the same treatment at the hands of the Pulp Mill Project Manager in Canberra on 26th September last year.
Remember – the definition of a fascist is someone who believes that your rights as an individual are subordinate to the interests of the party, or ‘the state’. Just because today’s fascists wear business suits, Rolex watches, expensive after-shave and speak in reassuring weasel words, does not mean that they are any less dangerous than the brown-shirted and black-shirted fascists of the 1930s and 40s. In many ways they are much more dangerous. Today’s fascists have access to far more subtle and effective resources than the torch carriers of 70 years ago. They have access to an army of perverted psychologists, public relations people, marketing executives and professional spin doctors; all feeding carefully crafted half-truths and lies into a well-oiled media machine that is designed to be very seductive and extremely ‘believable’. It is very easy to be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the messages put out by these largely greedy and power-hungry people. So be on your guard!
When I consider the ‘fast-track assessment’ process, I am forced to the conclusion that assessing how clean, or ‘green’ an industrial facility might be is not the proper role of a state parliament. Its members are not expert on those matters. What parliamentarians should be expert in is representing the wishes of the majority of the electorate. And if the majority of local residents do not want the facility in their community, that should be the prime concern of members of parliament. It should result in a majority of members of that parliament voting ‘NO!’ to the facility. The prior responsibility of the owner of the planned facility, of course, was firstly to talk openly and constructively with everyone in the community who might be affected by the development and to satisfy the majority of people that it will not have an adverse impact on their daily lives. That is Rule #1 in any large private development project.
By any measure, Gunns failed abjectly in this vital task. Arguably Gunns should also have promised to compensate people who were adversely affected, particularly when their spin doctors and propaganda were all so adamant that the mill would cause no harm to anyone. I ask you to compare and contrast the actions of Visy Industries, a model of good corporate citizenship, who promised that no-one would be adversely affected and then went out of their way to compensate local residents when their mill at Tumut took a few years to live up to the promises that were made for it. Regrettably, it seems that ‘good corporate citizenship’ is not in the redneck dictionary and I doubt that Rough Red could even put the three words together in the same sentence.
As a scientist, I have been trained to question continually and to re-evaluate the evidence that is put in front of me every day. Until now I have hoped in vain that Gunns would see the error of its ways and that it would counsel, or sideline members of staff who behave in an anti-social manner. I had hoped that, presented with so much public opposition, Gunns under better more competent management, might base a pulp mill in Hampshire, using 100% plantation wood that complies strictly with the Tasmanian Environmental Guidelines and Commonwealth regulations.
Today I have to tell you that I have abandoned that hope and reached what is, for me, a sad conclusion – namely that Gunns is unable to change its ways and that therefore it is not, in my personal opinion, a fit and proper company to build a pulp mill anywhere. While I would very much like to see a pulp mill in Hampshire based on 100% plantation wood chips operated by an experienced and well-managed company, I would not now support a pulp mill in Hampshire operated by Gunns. It is my fervent hope that some large international company with good corporate citizenship credentials takes Gunns over and roots out the ‘rotten apples’.
Telstra Director, Geoffrey Cousins publicly questioned whether or not John Gay was a fit and proper person to act as a company director! It is my guess that the people in the ANZ bank are also asking themselves that question. They certainly seem to be taking a long time to decide. Let’s hope they reach the same answer that we all have.
The sub-title to Alex Carey’s book is ‘Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty’. Note that there is that word ‘Liberty’ again – used by Benjamin Franklin 200 years ago and even more under threat today when the neo-fascists and their peddlers of propaganda do not wear swastikas, or military uniforms. No, they wear Armani suits, silk shirts, Rolex watches and heavy gold chains. Some even sport ginger moustaches! But you know, many of them still bite their fingernails down to the quick. Because these are not men of sound, or rational mind – they are men full of greed, lust for power and selfishness as I said at the start. And all of this stems from a very deep, deep-seated inner fear that without the expensive suit, the watch, the gold chain, the luxury four-wheel drive, the jet-ski and the big house, they would be nothing at all. And in that sense these people need our understanding.
And the best understanding would arguable be given by a Royal Commission, or an Independent Crime and Corruption Commission, but that is only my personal opinion.
Unfortunately, this is the real world in 2008 and a Commission is unlikely to be established to enquire into the debauched process that we have all witnessed. Australia is still a federation of States and our Federal Government does not have the power to sack a state government, or to subject its members to a Royal Commission. So stopping what is happening here falls to you and me – each one of us is the last line of defense in a democratic process that has not only gone ‘off the rails’, but looks like becoming a fully fledged ‘train wreck’. And if any of you think that my description of this conflict as a ‘struggle for Liberty’ is over the top, I ask that you stop and consider: Forestry Tasmania is already prohibiting public access to areas of public forest simply to benefit Gunns, your water is being poisoned with herbicides and pesticides because ‘forestry’ is exempt from environmental regulation, the Tasmanian Police have already tried and failed to seek recovery of costs from one brave young woman who was simply exercising her democratic right to protest peacefully in the forest and, if this mill goes ahead as planned, many of you will lose the freedom to have a Sunday BBQ in your own back gardens free of the stench of methyl mercaptan. No, this is a fight that is well worth fighting. An important fight, a vital fight!
I am just as sick and tired of the fight as you all must be. We all want to get back to our ordinary lives. That is no different to your parents and grandparents who were sick of war between 1939 and 1945 and who also wished that ‘it would just end’, so that they could go back to their ordinary lives. And just as they did not give up, neither must you. The price of ‘Liberty’ is indeed eternal vigilance and you must remain vigilant.
Most of us have been exceedingly lucky. We’ve ‘had it good’ for most of our lives, thanks to people who made sacrifices in previous generations. It is now time for each of us to repay that debt, in the interests of our children and our children’s children, by making our own sacrifices. It’s not just a giant pulp mill in the Tamar. It’s global warming, it’s climate change, it’s water shortages, it’s the giant challenge of developing ways of living that are really sustainable and helping those less fortunate than ourselves. As a scientist, I am optimistic. Between the clouds that surround these dark days, I catch glimpses of a bright, prosperous, sustainable future for Tasmania without a Gunns pulp mill – a future where people can build on their land without interference from the Preservation of Agricultural Land Act, where farmers are paid both for the food that they produce and paid even more to plough a special form of charcoal, called agri-char, into their fields, where it will remain stable for hundreds of years, fertilising the soil and keeping carbon out of the atmosphere until advances in solar, wind, tidal and geothermal technologies can meet our energy needs sustainably.
In the meantime, farmers and forestry industry workers will also be paid to grow and harvest native trees and plants in ecologically sound ‘multi-cultures’ that can be harvested periodically and be converted into liquid fuels for our cars and the agri-char that will help stop carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere. There will be new jobs and prosperity in the countryside converting these energy crops into bio-oil and agri-char.
All this will come to pass if we insist on one critical factor. That factor is high standards of government and public administration that can address these challenges professionally and systematically, with the best interests of our community and the planet at heart. Rough Red and his ladies of the night will never be able to do that! They are much too absorbed in robbing the poor to give to the rich. It is my fond hope that Kevin Rudd and his new Cabinet will be able to do so. Importantly though, Mr Rudd will not do anything about Rough Red, or this mill, unless you all make a very, very big fuss. That is how democracy works when all else fails.
So it is vital that you do not give up this struggle. When you do feel like giving up, and everyone has times of weakness, I ask that you remember the following quote from another great American, former President Calvin Coolidge:
‘Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men and women with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.’
So in conclusion, I congratulate all of you on your persistence so far and I ask you to keep it up.
Finally, as at all memorial services, it is worth reflecting on the positive things that have come out of this tragic murder of Goodwill, Respect and Trust. Many people who lived through World War 2 look back on that time as one of the best in their lives. They often do so because fighting a common enemy brought communities together as never before. That same phenomenon has obviously happened here. Many people whom I have met in this Valley have told me that they have met their neighbours and people down the street for the first time. In the Tamar there is a growing sense of community and ordinary people are doing things to help others that they might not have imagined doing five years ago. People can see as never before what wonderful attractions this valley offers. Life is like that, we seldom appreciate the really valuable things in our lives until somebody tries to take them away. And people of goodwill respond – as you have responded, so that evil does not have to prevail. So let all of us here today give thanks for that and see it for what it is – a mark of our civic pride, a mark of our spirit and, above all, a mark of our humanity.
Today is also an opportunity, a real opportunity for all of us collectively to draw a line in the sand – this far with the nepotism and cronyism of Rough Red and her mates and no further. Collectively we can create a new beginning for Tasmania. A Tasmania where politicians govern for the many, not for the few; where money is taken from the rich and given to the poor, instead of the way it has been for so long. This is a beautiful, unique island where sustainable agriculture, forestry, fishing, wine making, tourism, mining and all the other activities by which we earn our daily bread can live in harmony with the environment.
Tasmania can be an example to the rest of Australia and to the rest of the world, rather than the shameful joke that Rough Red has made it. That vision of a bright future is something that I think is well worth fighting for. Lastly, do not listen to the cynics who say that ‘nothing will ever change’. Cynics are simply depressed, burnt out people who have had too much Rough Red, who have memorised the cost of everything and who have, in the process, forgotten the value of important intangibles like Goodwill, Respect, Trust and Humanity. As that other great American, John F. Kennedy, once said, ‘Some people see the world as it is and ask ‘why?’, I see the world as it might be and ask ‘why not?’’
I hope that all of you can find the strength to ask ‘why not?’ and to make yourselves a pledge to fight on for your valley and your rights as long as you can. The future of your children depends on that pledge and not on a stinking pulp mill that might be shoe-horned into the wrong place by ignorant Politicians and a pack of greedy elderly men.
