Four years ago this Saturday, ABC Learning Centres boasted of a 76% profit jump to a record $143 million. The rest is history.
Proving that politicians make poor business leaders, ABC Chairman Sallyanne Atkinson (former Brisbane Lord Mayor) and the National Party’s Director-for-hire Larry Anthony both signed off on the 2007 accounts, as did Brisbane-based auditors Pitcher Partners. It seems Atkinson, despite her more than reasonable $120,000 fee for attending a couple of meetings, wasn’t paying attention.
In hindsight, J K Rowling could have come up with a more believable set of numbers.
And tomorrow, a week behind schedule and still hiding behind a trading suspension shroud, Gunns Ltd will release their Preliminary Final Report for last financial year. It will be their last final report, and may turn out to be even more fanciful than Eddie Groves’ final hurrah.
As repeatedly promised, Gunns will announce an underlying earnings figure of between $40-60 million. It will be at the lower end – Gunns would hate to surprise on the upside. But that won’t be enough to allow a return to trading, as there will be a number of abnormal items. Like a writedown of forestry assets. Immediate writedowns will total around $150 million, but when forensic auditors pull apart the corpse next year, that number will blow out to more than $1 billion. Those writedowns may be balanced by an upwards adjustment to the value of the pulp mill project, which no doubt will be framed as highly attractive to overseas investors. Most importantly, there will be the unresolved issue of current liabilities. A lot of them, with some long-overdue creditors getting a bit edgy.
If I were to send a personal message to Gunns’ Directors, it would be, to paraphrase Tex Perkins: `Better get a lawyer, son. Better get a real good one.’
Anybody with an accounting degree could pick holes in Gunns’ half-year report. The full-year numbers will look so silly that even Matt Horan will probably even choke on his Hunter Valley Chardonnay when he drafts his press release tomorrow. If he does. (Note to Mattie – next time, get the money up front son.)
The good news? Well the pulp mill dream is still alive. We’ll be told that overseas investors are queuing up to throw their money at Bell Bay, and the tradies will start laying the slab as soon as they get paid. The Government will offer qualified support, citing the need for jobs in a struggling economy. They may even fast-track the compensation payment of $23 million so Forestry Tasmania can meet their payroll liabilities this month.
But auditors are running scared these days, and even the tame ones won’t sign off on creative writing of this magnitude. So Gunns will stay suspended for a few more weeks, making the term `substantial commencement’ pretty irrelevant in the broader scheme of things. That’s assuming they can afford to pay their ASX listing fees this month.
• Code Green demands exit from East Ben Lomond
CODE GREEN
MEDIA RELEASE: 25-08-2011
CODE GREEN DEMANDS EXIT FROM EAST BEN LOMOND
10 members of environmental community group CODE GREEN have blockaded a logging coupe in East Ben Lomond in Tasmania’s northeast. The coupe designated as TY025E is in the 430,000ha highlighted for immediate protection in the IGA (Intergovernmental Agreement) of August 7, 2011 signed by the Federal and State governments. It is adjacent to the edge of the Ben Lomond National Park.
The peaceful nonviolent campaigners have locked up all machinery in the coupe but are willing to release half the machines in order to ensure a cleanup and hasty exit from the coupe. Upon completion of the cleanup and public declaration of an exit from the coupe by Forestry Tasmania, the rest of the machines will be released.
“The Tyne Valley should have been protected on March 15 of this year. Five months on and the bulldozers are still in this coupe clearing what has been identified by both the State and Federal Governments as being of high conservation value and earmarked for urgent protection,” said CODE GREEN spokesperson Ali Alishah.
“Tasmania is in limbo and the government needs to show true leadership and hasten the implementation of the protection of 572,000ha of Tasmania’s high conservation value native forests starting with an immediate end to all logging within 430,000ha as identified by the signatories to the Intergovernmental Agreement of August 7, 2011, and the signatories to the Statement of Principles Agreement of October 19, 2010,” said Mr. Alishah.
“CODE GREEN cannot tolerate logging on the border of a national park that should have ceased five months ago and will soon be declared illegal. We understand that it is Forestry Tasmania that is responsible for scheduling of coupes and not the contractors themselves and hence have agreed to free half the machines to allow a cleanup of the coupe to occur upon the public declaration by Forestry Tasmania of an exit from the coupe. After the cleanup is complete and the exit is underway we will release the rest of the machines,” said Mr. Alishah.
• HCV logging documented, Forestry Tasmania information incorrect and Government urged to initiate logging reschedule process
Aerial inspection of Forestry Tasmania’s HCV logging coupes has revealed at least two of the 12 logging coupes said by Forestry Tasmania to be actively being harvested inside the 430,000 ha informal reserve area are not currently being logged.
Logging in other coupes within the informal reserve has only recently been commenced by Forestry Tasmania. Environment groups are calling for the Tasmanian Government to urgently implement the rescheduling process to move logging operations out of the informal reserve area as required in the recently signed Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA).
“At least two logging coupes said to be active on the list provided by Forestry Tasmania were found to be silent when inspected,” said Vica Bayley spokesperson for the Wilderness Society.
“Urgent action needs to be taken to ensure expense is not incurred by bringing machinery into these new areas when the task that Forestry Tasmania must undertake is to reschedule logging operations out, to non-HCV forest areas.”
Clause 26 of the IGA states that “where harvesting work has already begun in coupes within the nominated 430,000 hectares, rescheduling will occur as soon as practical. “ Despite being marked as ‘current’ on the list provided by Forestry Tasmania on 18th August, coupes BT013A and PC015B were inactive on inspection on the 22nd.
Dr Phill Pullinger, Director of Environment Tasmania said that following the failure of the moratorium process, decisive government action was needed to prevent environmental damage and further impact on the conservation outcomes agreed to by the Tasmanian and Australian Governments.
“This government agreement delivers outcomes for workers and for the industry and it must demonstrate the ability to deliver outcomes for the environment,” he said.
“The first test of delivering for the environment will be ensuring that logging operations are rescheduled out of the 430,000 hectares of native forests earmarked for immediate protection from logging in the government agreement.”
Download Aerial images of surveyed HCV logging coupes available, including BT013A and PC015B:
• MEDIA UPDATE: 25-08-2011
CODE GREEN DEMANDS EXIT FROM EAST BEN LOMOND
10 members of environmental community group CODE GREEN have blockaded a logging coupe in East Ben Lomond in Tasmania’s northeast. Tasmania Police and Forestry Tasmania are on-site and have instated a 4.5 km radius exclusion zone. The protesters have been directed to leave the exclusion zone and nine members of the demonstration have complied. A protester is still suspended from a tree-sit thirty metres up a Black Peppermint Gum attached to three machines. He is willing to be arrested to highlight irreversible damage in what is already already agreed upon additions to the National Parks in Tasmania’s northeast.
The coupe designated as TY025E is in the 430,000ha highlighted for immediate protection in the IGA (Intergovernmental Agreement) of August 7, 2011 signed by the Federal and State governments. It is adjacent to the edge of the Ben Lomond National Park.
The peaceful nonviolent campaigners have locked up three machines in the coupe but are willing to release a machine in order to ensure a cleanup and hasty exit from the coupe. Upon completion of the cleanup and public declaration of an exit from the coupe by Forestry Tasmania, the rest of the machines will be released.
“The Tyne Valley should have been protected on March 15 of this year. Five months on and the bulldozers are still in this coupe clearing what has been identified by both the State and Federal Governments as being of high conservation value and earmarked for urgent protection,” said CODE GREEN spokesperson Ali Alishah.
“Tasmania is in limbo and the government needs to show true leadership and hasten the implementation of the protection of 572,000ha of Tasmania’s high conservation value native forests starting with an immediate end to all logging within 430,000ha as identified by the signatories to the Intergovernmental Agreement of August 7, 2011, and the signatories to the Statement of Principles Agreement of October 19, 2010,” said Mr. Alishah.
“CODE GREEN cannot tolerate logging on the border of a national park that should have ceased five months ago and will soon be declared illegal. We understand that it is Forestry Tasmania that is responsible for scheduling of coupes and not the contractors themselves and hence have agreed to free half the machines to allow a cleanup of the coupe to occur upon the public declaration by Forestry Tasmania of an exit from the coupe. After the cleanup is complete and the exit is underway we will release the rest of the machines,” said Mr. Alishah.
