Coroner & Legal
If the mill is built …
PHILL PARSONS
Legal precedents about activities subsequent to approval will only be set by the Pulp Mill Assessment [Approval] Act if the mill is built and a challenge to the effects of its operation are made.
And this PMAA protection can only apply to matters within the jurisdiction of the State of Tasmania.
Hence the move to entrench a new power, that of the paper oligarchs, through a Federal industry advisory committee designed to tie the government to propping up the pulp, paper and thus plantation industries besides subsidizing the destruction of natural forest, binding government to the continuance of dated practices almost regardless of cost.
The Carr inquiry into the P and P industry has made the stunning discovery that elements of the paper industry are in trouble due to under investment in the paper making machinery by the owners. Well der.
Bruce Felmingham has described the impossibility of world scale industries being competed with from Tasmania without subsidy.
Next will be the surprising announcement that this industry needs a plan to prop it up, rather than let capitalism take its course of failing all those whose costs of manufacture exceeds that reigning in the market place.
And so we will see more taxpayer funds creating stronger bonds to an industry.
Reform was offered by Latham but rejected because it didn’t suit at the time. Now reform will be directed by industry for its benefit, subsidised if not fully paid for by taxpayers.
This is the same model that pervades the CPRS, profits privatised and costs socialized. To do this successfully a social licence is needed.
Certain sectors of the energy industry have grabbed one given the concerns about the climate. That licence is subject to moves to reduce emissions and capture and store carbon.
The greater good is often rolled out to justify such licences and later in the game of delaying investment and change what will we do without it will come into play. Baseload power or paper, it matters not in this game of spin the money into ‘my’ pocket without it costing ‘me’ more.
Given the track record of Garrett the Tamar Valley we may well see changes in addressing the dispersion of pollutants in the licence he approves but it will need a mighty leap of faith to be adopted socially if the nationwide opposition to Gunns is any measure.
Level playing fields exist for games of sport [Bracknell Football Ground excluded] but not for political ones.
Keeping up the pressure is essential in ensuring the social licence is justified, in the minds of those judging as much as those voting post approval, or even post construction, if such a failure of process comes to blight those who are stuck with a dumb, dirty and outdated pulpmill.