Economy
A wrap on Gunns … As Bartlett Labor Seizes Private Property for Gunns
Gunns drops historic site
NICK CLARK | August 21, 2010 02.00am
TIMBER firm Gunns is seeking to hand back a 20-year lease of the historic homestead Entally House, near Hadspen in northern Tasmania. As part of a divestment of its non-core assets, Gunns is negotiating with the Parks and Wildlife Service over the lease.
It is expected that Parks and Wildlife will offer the site to the public through expressions of interest within weeks.
Gunns took up the lease in 2004 and spent more than $1 million on the property, including establishing a vineyard.
Gunns was the only firm to express an interest in the 1819 home, after the State Government ended a 99-year lease held by the National Trust.
The company intended Entally to be a cellar-door site for its Tamar Ridge wines, which it sold last week to Brown Brothers for $32.5 million.
Parks and Wildlife general manager Peter Mooney said the service and Gunns were working through an appropriate transition strategy for Entally House.
Scottsdale mill fate uncertain
NICK CLARK | August 20, 2010 12.01am
GUNNS is expected to review and then close its Scottsdale softwood sawmill in the state’s North-East within weeks, axing 120 jobs in the process.
It is believed the mill is uncompetitive because of a diminishing resource, lack of throughput and ageing equipment.
Bass Liberal MP Peter Gutwein said he had spoken to Gunns chief executive Greg L’Estrange on Wednesday.
Mr L’Estrange had said the Scottsdale operations would be reviewed regardless of Gunns’ attempt to buy the former Forest Enterprises Australia mill at Bell Bay.
Mr Gutwein called on Gunns to make its plans public.
“We learned from Gunns management that regardless of the outcome of the FEA Bell Bay sawmill sale, it would be difficult for the Scottsdale mill to compete both now and in the future, and its operations are being reviewed,” he said.
…
A Gunns spokesman would not comment yesterday.
Earlier:
Gunns pins future on pulp mill
NICK CLARK | August 19, 2010 12.01am
THE Tamar Valley pulp mill is central to Gunns Limited’s future as its profits continue to slide.
Gunns chief executive Greg L’Estrange would not speculate on construction dates yesterday, but said the firm expected to build the project.
Gunns shares slumped 9 per cent to close at 63c yesterday on the back of its annual profit of $28.5 million 50 per cent down from last year.
The firm’s annual result yesterday had the same information on the pulp mill as a June update.
“Three interested parties have progressed from the initial bid process to detailed due diligence,” Gunns said. “On the ground the project is being held in ready status to allow us to efficiently commence construction on financial close.”
Pulp mill capital expenditure would be $7.1 million to December 2010, compared with $39 million in 2009-10.
Two years ago, the company said it expected to start construction before November 2008.
Gunns aims to win a social licence and Forest Stewardship Council certification, and be a plantation operation.
Karl Stevens: HERE
Tuesday, August 24:
JUST ANOTHER DAY IN GUNNSMANIA
As Bartlett Labor Seizes Private Property for Gunns
Kim Booth MP
Greens Forests spokesperson and Member for Bass
The Tasmanian Greens today continued to hold Premier David Bartlett to account over the decision to compulsorily acquire private land for a four-lane highway along the Dilston Bypass that would obviously never be built, and to then gift the use of that land to Gunns for the construction of a pipeline that is essential for Gunns’ contentious pulp mill proposal.
Greens Forests spokesperson and Member for Bass, Kim Booth MP, said the landowners originally refused to sell their land to Gunns for the pipeline so Bartlett Labor has stepped in and used the possible future construction of a completely unnecessary four-lane Dilston Bypass as a Trojan Horse to acquire private land on behalf of a private company.
Mr Booth also completely rejected the Premier’s decision to label his concerns about this appalling acquisition of private land on behalf of a private developer as “old-style politics”.
“It is patently obvious that the possibility of a four-lane Dilston Bypass was cynically used by David Bartlett and Labor as a Trojan Horse to allow the seizure of private land on behalf of Gunns Limited,” said Mr Booth.
“The seizure of private property on behalf of a private developer is unconscionable and a chilling warning to all Tasmanians that if Bartlett Labor or Gunns Limited want your land then they will take it from you.”
“The Premier should hang his head in shame over this disgraceful act of betrayal.”
“The Premier’s retort about me demonstrating ‘old-style politics’ by asking tough questions says a lot more about his standards than about mine. If Mr Bartlett is truly interested in ‘new-style politics’ then he needs to be honest and transparent and stop behaving like a dictator on behalf of Gunns.”
“It was David Bartlett who claimed to have drawn a line in the sand, it was Bartlett who claimed that there would be no further assistance for Gunns, and now that he has been caught out deceiving Tasmanians by seizing private property for Gunns Limited, he cries foul,” said Mr Booth.
Sue Neales, Mercury: Rift grows over pulp mill land
Mr Booth asked why the Government had seized nearly 12ha of land in a 70m-wide strip from East Tamar farmer Gerald Archer ostensibly to build a future four-lane highway.
Early this month, the Government granted Gunns the right to build its pulp mill pipeline on the land, despite claiming last year that the land acquisition was “entirely unrelated to the construction of the pipeline”.
“Premier, is it not a fact that, despite numerous ‘lines in the sand’ and assurances that your Government would no longer provide support to the Gunns pulp mill, you have in fact been negotiating with Gunns behind the scenes to provide access for its pipeline?” Mr Booth said.
Mr Bartlett dismissed his question and launched into an attack.
“I note [Mr Booth] continues to persist with conspiracy theories and a whole range of obscure linkages to mount an argument that really holds no water at all,” he said.
“This is a classic bit of old-style politics that the member for Bass continues to play because it goes to the heart of trying to.”
Mr Booth interrupted, saying: “What? Secret deals behind closed doors with your mates, lying to people in regard to whether their land is going to be seized or not?”