How I was muzzled at The Examiner

TOM ELLISON, Stockbroker and Journalist
An interesting season is winter. The heat pump in my house expired the day the thermometer first dipped below zero, a nice gentleman from India rang me to tell me I could save lots of money on my telephone service, and best of all, it seems I’ve become a Greenie.

True. An Examiner staff member stopped me in the street the other day, sagely enquiring whether I had really started batting for the other team. The Greens, that is.
I’m not sure from where his information was sourced. Perhaps he’d tapped into some sort of secret electoral database, which, if it actually existed, would confirm that in my 27 years as a voter, I’ve voted Labor, Liberal, Independent. And Green.

Of course that sort of ingenuity would have been beyond him, and The Examiner would never approve of that sort of reporting anyway.

More disconcerting was a statement by a former stockbroking client of mine, who confronted me in the CBD, accusing me of telling lies about Gunns. He was quite aggressive, not unlike the folk who forced me to change my phone number in 2007 after repeated threats that I might end up under a log truck.

I wasn’t worried about their silly comments – to be frank, I don’t give a shit what ill educated, brainwashed forest workers think of my writing. I have a dobermann and a strapping 15-year-old to protect me, and I don’t drive much anymore.

But it got me thinking about why a stockbroker turned journalist could gain a reputation as a `Greenie’ without ever writing or uttering a single word about Tasmania’s forest industry that wasn’t verifiable, impartial and accurate.

After all, it isn’t that long ago that John Gay used to ring me inviting me to lunch after the AGM. He doesn’t ring me anymore.

Last time I spoke to John, he accused my of trying to `bring his company down’, and suggested I might like to take over his job. I must admit I was tempted, but didn’t think he was serious.

His reaction followed a column I wrote in The Examiner, in which I suggested that in the interests of good corporate governance he should stand down as either chairman or chief executive. Not particularly controversial given that it was a view shared by nearly every educated observer in Australia, but it certainly triggered a response.

I’ve kept the transcript of what John said that day, but I don’t remember exactly what my reply was. Probably something like `John, you’re on one million dollars a year. Harden up.’ In any event, he didn’t like our conversation, and followed it up with a chat to the then editor.

To reinforce John’s suspicions that I was Dangerous and Unreliable, he recruited none other than Gunns board member and failed Liberal Premier Robin Gray to have me sorted out. Robin paid a visit to general manager Phil Leerson, suggesting that I be brought in line with appropriate editorial policy.

I don’t know Robin well. I bought a house from Edmund Rouse a few years ago, and spent many a happy hour hunting in the attic for football socks filled with cash, and Robin’s spirit was everywhere. I never found any cash, just a few forgotten cases of wine billed to The Examiner.

I know a little about the man though. I’m halfway writing through his biography, and will be moving to Italy for about a year after publication date. No chance of being run over by a log truck in Tuscany.

Anyway, I suspect the John and Robin show of October 2007 wasn’t the first time Gunns had tried to have me muzzled by The Examiner. After the company released its Draft IIS for the pulp mill project, The Examiner asked me write a series of features, twelve in all, investigating every aspect of the mill proposal.

Being a dutiful employee, I complied. The first, published under the heading `Rolling Thunder’, pointed out that with the pulp mill in full swing, residents of northern Tasmania could look forward to a heavy vehicle movement on the East Tamar Highway every 40 seconds. That report was picked up by the Launceston Chamber of Commerce together with many others, who included the detail in their submissions to the RPDC.

The second identified considerable uncertainties about the impact of mill effluent, including the possibility that many species endemic to Bass Strait could be extinguished, ironically including the Gunns Screw Shell.

The other ten features were never published. I was told by senior editorial staff, coincidentally in the presence of former Pulp Mill Taskforce head Bob Gordon, that `there is no public interest in the pulp mill.’ Indeed.

A little later, my twice-weekly column was scrapped, on the basis it was `political, rather than business related.’

I don’t work as a journalist anymore, except to write a weekly column in The Canberra Times, and the odd feature in mainland newspapers. I’m not a Greenie either, although my girlfriend does own a striped beanie, and I have a worm farm and three compost bins at home.

I haven’t run away from journalism. Finance pays much better, and after Phil Leerson instructed his staff not to accept any more contributions from me (on the spurious assumption that I bagged The Examiner on Tas Times: Sacked …), there’s little scope to earn beer money by writing in Tasmania.

But two things still worry me. Why do we have to put up with a complacent, compliant media who accept on face value everything fed to them by Gunns? And perhaps more importantly, in the new, enlightened Tasmania, why should someone be branded a Greenie just for telling it how it is?

Not that I care. I’m happy to wear it as a badge of honour.