No Plan B … Gunns compo ruled out. L’Estrange at Tailrace, Wednesday …

Exec. Summary.

After an extremely difficult year, Gunns are expecting another difficult year.

As a result, operations are being pared-back to one chip mill and a pulp mill that doesn’t actually exist. This means the directors can get a pay rise, but due to the harsh economic conditions, it will be capped at $1.2 million a year.

Meeting In More Detail.

One year on has bought big changes to Gunns. The AGM this year was in the rowing club across the road from head office, under a mirror ball, in a dimly lit room more often used for dance parties.

The job of channeling the previous chairman was left to Chris Newman.

Nothing like the tirades against members in the audience of AGM’s past. John Gay is sorely missed.

Instead we got some controlled angst and a lot of mumbling.

The big problems are reduced woodchip sales to Japan and the high Aussie dollar.

Due to delays in ‘due diligence’ the pulp mill financier-JVP will not be announced again today.

Gunns is not selling MIS this year, but the collapse of the schemes brings opportunities for processing the trees. Which would happen anyway, but now they are cheaper. Like the FEA softwood mill at Bell Bay, which cost FEA $80 million to build but Gunns picked up for only $40 million.

The pulp mill at Bell Bay is central to all Gunns forward planning and financial prospects. The last question of the meeting asked ‘what would happen if the pulp mill didn’t get built?’. After some shuffling and scrapping it seems that outcome is not being considered. There is no ‘plan B’.

Interested parties at a Gunns AGM must put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle. Little is made obvious.

Much of Greg L’Estrange’s speech covered the same ground. They have a new operating ‘model’ involving doing the things that everybody told them to do years ago when they were too belligerent to listen. It’s all about ‘consultation’ now. 92% of their profit once came from MIS and wood chips. Both hard hit. They have 330,000 hectares total of eucalyptus plantations to be used for ‘fiber’. The $1.5 million Portland Victoria chip loading facility will be ready to ship chips to Japan and Tasmania by early 2011. Tasmania? This doesn’t make economic sense.

The ‘Tasmanian Forest Agreement’ was a recurring theme. It will put everything right.

It will rescue the company’s reputation, it will resolve conflict, it will bring Gunns compensation.

They seem to have embraced it fully, if not reluctantly.

The Questions.

‘Gunns said they will import pulp into Asia in the bottom quarter of the market by price. Who provided this data and how old is it?’ It was provided by none other than the people selling Gunns the pulp mill, Jaakko Poyry. This must very objective and reliable data.

‘How is carbon saved by burning wood for electricity?’ Nobody knew, but Timo Piilonen thought it was because trees grow faster than you are burning them.

‘Will Gunns revoke the Pulp Mill Assessment Act?’ No, but they will engage more.

‘Why is there a contradiction between the 1.5 million tonnes pa Forestry Tasmania contract for native timber and Gunns claim to use 100% plantation timber?’ This was not answered at all. There was some waffle about ‘The Statement of Principles’ and things being ‘on the table’ but no reason was given.

‘Has the Bass Strait effluent modeling work been completed?’ Yes, and its gone to the Federal Environment Department.

‘Who did the work?’ Mostly by ‘Metocean’ of WA.

‘Will it be publicly available?’ One day.

‘How many people will work in the pulp mill?’ 275 people.

‘Will a social impact assessment of the pulp mill take place?’ Some base line research will be done one day.

‘Can the pulp mill be reassessed?’ No, the approval is in place.

That was mostly it. The board was invited to an anti pulp mill meeting at the Tailrace Center but declined because none of them live in Tasmania. None of them even are Tasmanians after Richard Millar goes.

Greg L’Estrange was only voted onto the Gunns board half an hour before the AGM.

On Tasmanian Times … No Plan B: The John Lawrence analyses

PREMIER David Bartlett yesterday ruled out a State Government payment to Gunns Limited as compensation for pulling out of native forest logging.

He said it was not within the capacity of the State Government to provide such compensation.

“What we have done is established an independent review proposal that we want the Federal Government to be engaged with and it is through this expert review panel that advice can be provided,” he said.

His statement came after Gunns managing director Greg L’Estrange said on Thursday the Statement of Forest Principles could fall over if Gunns did not receive compensation from the Federal Government.

“A whole range of people should be fairly compensated for those outcomes [the end of native forest logging],” he said.

Mr L’Estrange said Gunns would need to be compensated for licences, the businesses they had and infrastructure such as roads that should be recognised in the process.

Tasmanian Greens forestry spokesman Kim Booth rejected Gunns’ calls for compensation.

“Gunns Limited has already been the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies, they receive a virtually free wood supply from Forestry Tasmania and if anyone should be paying compensation it is Gunns, not the long-suffering taxpayer,” Mr Booth said.

Read more HERE

GUNNS SHOULD PAY, NOT RECEIVE, PUBLIC COMPENSATION
And Abandon the Toxic Pulp Mill Proposal
Kim Booth MP
Greens Forests spokesperson

The Tasmanian Greens today unequivocally rejected Gunns’ calls for public compensation if it moves out of native forest logging, and said that taxpayer’s funds should rightfully be used to fund hospitals, schools and essential infrastructure, not to bail out a company that has already been the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars of public subsidies, and whose business model has now failed.

Greens Forests spokesperson Kim Booth MP said Gunns are restructuring their company and changing their focus from native forests to plantations because the business as it stands has collapsed financially, and that it is Gunns themselves who should now be compensating forest contractors who are facing ruin due to the behaviour of Gunns, as well as taxpayers who have already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the forest sector during the last decade.

Mr Booth also yet again reiterated the Greens’ total opposition to Gunns’ proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill due to the decision to ram the fast-tracked approval process through Parliament, and said that the market needs to be aware that the mill still does not have a social licence, a water pipeline, or Federal Government approval to dump 64,000 tonnes of effluent daily into Bass Strait.

“Gunns Limited have already been the beneficiaries of hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies, they receive a virtually free wood supply due to arrangements with the out-of-control agency Forestry Tasmania, and if anyone should be paying compensation it is Gunns, not the long-suffering taxpayer,” said Mr Booth.

“Gunns are restructuring because business as it stands has collapsed, and there is no way that any more public money should be paid to bail them out. Enough is enough.”

“State and Federal Labor need to avoid being hoodwinked, again, by this mendicant company which has been on the public teat for years and which now wants to be compensated because its own business model is failing.”

“Gunns say they are now reliant on the Tamar Valley pulp mill proposal, but that proposal has never been properly assessed, does not have a social licence, does not have a water pipeline, and has no federal permission to dump 64,000 tonnes of effluent in Bass Strait every day. There is no way that the Greens, or the people of the Tamar Valley, will allow this pulp mill proposal to go ahead.”

“Public money is raised to fund public infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and roads – it should never be used to reward failed business models.”

“Rather than asking for another public handout, Gunns should actually be returning their share of the hundreds of millions of dollars of public money that has been poured into the forest sector during the last decade.”
“If this so-called compensation was calculated based on Gunns’ bottom-line during the last decade, it would result in Gunns paying the public, not the other way around,” said Mr Booth.

MEDIA RELEASE
Friday, 26th November 2010

Today, conservationists from Still Wild Still Threatened released footage showing current logging of ancient tracts of forest in the Styx Valley.

They documented the felling of a giant eucalypt in logging coupe TN034B just a few days ago. In falling, this hundreds of years old tree reflected the 20m message on its trunk: ‘The Clock is Ticking’.

“The clock is ticking for Tasmania’s ancient forests. Spectacular tracts of forest continue to be logged even as industry funding is committed and four weeks after the signing of the forest principles” said Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Ula Majewski.

“Over the next few days, all of the world-class forest in this Styx coupe will have been destroyed. This is tragic. Most Australians want the logging and roading of high conservation value forests like these halted immediately” said Miss Majewski.

“The solution is for both the state and federal governments to get behind the Forest Principles, immediately start the moratorium and begin steering the industry towards a truly sustainable future” said Miss Majewski.

And,

Yesterday, Still Wild Still Threatened released footage showing current logging of ancient tracts of forest in the Styx Valley. We documented the felling of a giant eucalypt in logging coupe TN034B just a few days ago.

In falling, this hundreds of years old tree reflected the 20m message on its trunk: ‘The Clock is Ticking’.

You can view this footage at www.vimeo.com/17172748.

We need your help to spread the important message that our spectacular ancient forests are still falling and that the moratorium on Tasmania’s high conservation value forests needs to be implemented right now!

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

• Email, facebook and twitter this footage of an ancient Styx giant falling to everybody you know.
• Write to Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to tell them that the world can’t wait to see Tasmania’s precious forests get the protection they deserve.
o David Bartlett feedback form: http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/contact
o Julia Gillard feedback: http://www.pm.gov.au/PM_Connect/Email_your_PM
• Take part in the huge upcoming International Day of Action for Tasmania’s forests on Wednesday 15th December. If you would like to be involved, please email us as soon as possible at [email protected] for more information
• Please forward this email to all your friends, colleagues and family

We hope you’re all having a most spectacular day, wherever you are in the world.

For the forests and with love,
from all the crew at Still Wild Still Threatened

Anna Pilkington, Friends of the Tamar Valley

FRIENDS OF THE TAMAR VALLEY INC

– INVITATION TO ‘NO PULP MILL’ PUBLIC MEETING
7.30pm, Wednesday 1 December 2010

Friends of the Tamar Valley (FTV) invite the public and media to a ‘No Pulp Mill’ Public Meeting to be held at the Tailrace Centre, Riverside this Wednesday, 1 December 2010

The proposed Tamar Valley Pulp Mill has been the most controversial and divisive public issue since the Franklin Dam and remains the elephant in the room in terms of future peace between the logging industry, the government and the people of Tasmania.

This meeting will focus on the risks to the health and wellbeing of the residents and businesses located in the Tamar Valley as well as outlining the major economic and environmental risks associated with the Pulp Mill project.

“Any resident of the Tamar Valley or business person concerned about the effect this Pulp Mill may have on their health, their business and our region cannot afford to miss this meeting” said spokesperson for FTV Anna Pilkington.

Dr Warwick Raverty is flying in from interstate specifically to outline why the Tamar Valley is the worst location for this Pulp Mill.

At last week’s Gunns AGM an invitation to attend this public meeting was also extended to Gunns CEO Greg L’Estrange. Mr L’Estrange told FTV members present at the AGM that he will definitely attend.

Speakers: Peter Cundall, Dr. Warwick Raverty (Former RPDC panelist & authority on pulp mill technology), Alderman Jeremy Ball (Launceston City Council), Jon Bryan (Underwater Photographer) & Vanessa Bleyer (Local resident, conservation lawyer)

There will be a short period for questions from the public after the Speakers and after the conclusion of the meeting, media will have access to speakers and meeting organizers.