Utter contempt

John Hayward
As one of the three breathing the spray on Tuesday from nowhere closer than over a kilometre from the Gunns plantation, I can attest to the impact the next day. It literally knocked me over. This particular poison is particularly toxic to aquatic life and is never to be used where it may find its way into water, much less land in it, as it did here. It is, of course, possible that we were given a burst from the helicopter as it returned up-wind from refuelling. It is hard to imagine that ordinary drift would have had that effect. Suspicions rose the following day when the renowned DPIW spray monitor P Lee-Archer arrived to perform his contortionist tricks. No, the powerful insecticide smell wasn’t necessarily alpha-cypermethrin. It was probably just the hydrocarbon surfactants that had detached from the poison en route. He snatched up a few blades of dead grass as a sample. One thing the day did do was restore our appreciation of Gunns’ and the Bartlett government’s complete contempt for both nature and the public. Now to work out why we have such a feeble immune response to it.

Bob McMahon
I was there at the SACA (Sustainable Agricultural Communities Australia) Annual General Meeting held at Wegeena. Local members of SACA were present as well as directors from the mainland, who were able to witness at first hand the contempt shown for the health and safety of the Tasmanian public and the Tasmanian ecosystem by the State government, Forestry Tasmania and Gunns.
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