Garry Stannus:
Shortly after 7:00am this morning, outside the gate to Gunns’ Longreach property, a Hazell Brothers low loader, carrying a roller, was stopped from entering the property. A man has locked himself underneath the loader. I went up to see what was going on. I asked him if he was okay and he nodded. A man photographed me as I asked the question while people gathered around the vehicle. Some are in high viz vests and others, have just walked down the highway and are gathered alongside, appearing to support the man underneath. They are now in two groups, standing apart from each other. At this moment (8:00am) there are no police present.
Hazard signs have been put out, though the vehicle is itself off the highway. I am at my ‘vigil vehicle’ some 40-50metres south of the Gunns entrance. Both groups are speaking with each other at the moment. It is at much the same location as where an incident occurred last week, in which as I recall, members of Code Green locked onto a vehicle which was bringing in some sort of portable office to the mill project site.
It’s strange. All through the weekend, people have been bipping me, to express feelings for and against. But not a single horns has gone off this morning. The loader is highly visible from the highway.
More later,
Garry Stannus
• UPDATE:
UPDATE FROM LONGREACH:
Since the previous Tasmanian Times post, the police have arrived – six police vehicles. One is a paddy wagon. One is parked out on the highway with its red and blue roof lights flashing. One of the two lanes leading to George Town has been closed and witches hats have been put down by the police. It is overcast and rain is coming in from the north. A while ago the loader moved backwards towards the highway a short distance and it now appears to have its tail end virtually now abutting the edge of the highway itself. Win news has just arrived and has pulled up off the road, past the low loader.
A chap pulled in some twenty minutes ago to say hi and to support my in the ‘Vigil’. He and his wife were heading north to George Town. We spoke for a couple of minutes and then he went on his way. Yesterday I had a constant stream of callers, and when I get time, I’d like to show you Fairley’s wonderful raspberry slices and Maddie’s cheese scones!
A police ute with a trailer behind has just arrived and my guess is that it’s maybe something like Search and Rescue, who might have gear to to disengage the anti-mill protester from below the loader. How and why they moved the loader backwards, with the anti-mill protester locked-on under it, I wouldn’t know. When I find out, I’ll let you all know. At the moment I’m keeping out of the way, keeping my distance. Sorry about the darkness of this latest photo, but it was dark and wet.
More whenever,
Garry Stannus
• Code Green: Tasmanian conservationist halts access at Pulp Mill site.
Media Alert
5 Sep 2011
Tasmanian conservationist halts access at Pulp Mill site.
This morning a member of CODE GREEN has attached himself to a main entrance gate and halted haulage trucks from entering the proposed Gunns Ltd pulp mill site.
“The illegal work on this proposed pulp mill site after permits have expired, is an ongoing disaster that is the pulp mill development.
We are taking these measures on the front line at the site to highlight the corruption that is occurring when these poor attempts to prove substantial commencement should be halted,” CODE GREEN spokesperson Jared Irwin said.
Unfortunately, a truck ran in to the back of and damaged one of the conservationists cars this morning at the site of the protest.
UPDATE:
CODE GREEN
Protestors Stop Trucks Entering Pulp Mill Site
Members of the direct action group Code Green have this morning stopped a Hazel Bros truck carrying a road roller from entering Gunns pulp mill site at Longreach. The group is protesting against the continuation of work on the site despite the lapse of construction permits last week.
One conservationists vehicle has been badly damaged as a result of aggressive and dangerous driving by the driver of the Hazel Bros truck.
Spokesperson for the group, Ali Alishah is locked to the base of the truck, preventing it from entering the site. Police are present on the scene and awaiting a police rescue crew to release Mr. Alishah. The group is outraged to see earthwork machines entering the site after their permits have lapsed and the question of substantial commencement is still being determined.
Once again we see Gunns acting with a complete lack of accountability to the law. In the midst of uncertainty surrounding earthwork permits, continuation of work on the site is completely illegal. Mr. Alishah said. Code Green is calling on the government and regulatory authorities to ensure due process is observed and that Gunns are forced to cease this blatantly unlawful work.
• Bob McMahon, TAP:
The Examiner of Tuesday, August 30th shows two photographs of yellow coloured machinery ‘at Gunn’s Bell Bay site’.
There is an article by Chief Reporter Alison Andrews under a further photo of the machinery ’at Gunns’ old woodchip land near the boundary with the company’s pulp mill site, as seen from Rowella’.
In it she states that, ‘It looks as though the big machines had finally turned up for work at Gunns’ proposed Bell Bay pulp mill site … ‘Yesterday, a neat row of at least five big, yellow, apparently unused, earth moving machines could be seen lined up on Gunns’ old Longreach woodchip land near the boundary with the pulp mill site and pointing in that direction.’
The article may have been intended to excite interest in the controversy surrounding the proposed mill and thus encourage sales of the Examiner. Nevertheless, it was careless reporting from a Chief Reporter, who failed to check details of the ‘big yellow earth moving machines.’ and left instead an impression to a casual reader that work was about to start at the pulp mill site.
The equipment shown in the photos is in fact log handling equipment only and is totally unsuitable for earthmoving. Three of the machines, as noted by TAP’s timber experts, are Wagners, log loaders with large pincer-like grabbers as used in the chip mill’s heyday.
The machines are apparently unused due to the downturn in the forest industry and are not awaiting earth working duties
An aerial photograph taken on the same day showed no earth moving taking place: the only machinery being a utility vehicle.
TAP agrees that it is the prerogative of the editor of any publication to choose the material that is published. However, a random sample of Letters to the Editor from Monday 29th August to Friday 2nd September has nine letters in favour of the forest industry, pro pulp mill and anti Green and environmental organisations. Despite the Examiner’s policy of limiting letters to 150 words, of the nine letters four are over that amount.
In the same period no letters from those opposed to the pulp mill and in favour of present government policies have been published.
Pic*: The Garry Stannus Protest, HERE
• Friends of the Tamar Valley:
5 September2011
Media Release
Gunns’ Pulp Mill – Community Opposition Moves to TV Advertising
Friends of the Tamar Valley Inc has launched the first in a series of community announcements designed to highlight the dangersand unassessed risks Gunns’ Tamar Valley pulp mill poses for everyone who lives in the region.
The first of these 30-second announcements has begun airingthroughout Tasmaniaon Southern Cross and WIN TV.
The announcements’objectives are to remind the Tasmanian community that according to both Gunns’ and the State Government’s research, fatalities and health problems have been factored into the construction and operation of the pulp mill,and apparently deemed acceptable.
Each of the statements made in respect of the individual risks described in the announcements has been fully and comprehensively referenced.
FTV believeGunns’ pulp mill is too great afinancial risk to consider in the current tough economic climate, and the company’s ‘all or nothing’ attitude in itsdetermination to build a pulp mill has resulted in significant job losses within the timber industry.
Should it be built the pulp mill is expected to employ only 280 workers directly.
The permits that required a ‘substantial commencement’ be made on the project expired on 30th August.
Video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMzeus3ouo
• ABC Online: Gunns makes Premier wait, HERE
The Premier Lara Giddings says she has not received any word from the timber company Gunns, on its compensation offer to end logging in most public native forests.
The State Government made an offer to the company last week, as part of the $276 million forest peace agreement.
The Premier Lara Giddings has already indicated the maximum amount Gunns could receive is $23 million.
It was expected the company would make an announcement to the sharemarket by last Friday, but the Premier says she has been given no update.
“We now have to wait a little bit longer,” Ms Giddings said.
Financial analysts say the market can expect an announcement before it opens on Monday.
Gunns shares remain in an indefinite trading suspension, pending a resolution.
• Barnaby Drake:
Gunns – but no Roses
Gunns has been in a trading halt for over a month since the 2nd August.
This was basically on the principle that they were expecting some largess from the public account in the form of compensation from either the Federal Government of from the local one. The offer was made but has been rejected, but the trading halt has not been lifted.
However, they still have not yet produced an officially audited set of accounts that were due by the end of July. They have only produced a set of internally produced accounts which they have called a ‘PRESENTATION’ to the ASX.
In this ‘presentation’ they have declared a loss of $355 Million – the largest in Australian history, but if John Lawrence’s previous analysis (HERE) is anything to go by, then their last report was dramatically understated and the loss could possibly be in the region of $500 million, and will be even greater if they are forced to write off a further $216 million for the pulp mill project.
Gunns has not paid its current creditors such as Forestry Tasmania and its suppliers and appears to have defaulted on the last year-end interest payments to the ANZ Bank. They are now publicly announcing that they will default again in January when their major repayment of $350 million falls due to the ANZ and are wishing to ‘renegotiate’ their loan. This is an admission of insolvency! Should the ANZ agree, then they can be seen to be supporting Gunns pulp mill, as this is virtually the only thing the company has left. Seven years ago they promised they would not sponsor this and they quoted their signing of the ‘Equator Principles’ as a reason after demonstrations against the bank. They appear to have forgotten this. If they do not agree to a refinancing deal, Gunns goes immediately into liquidation!
With ‘Cash’ currently standing at a mere $12 Million, Gunns are currently trading while insolvent, as their debt far exceeds their ability to pay their current creditors and they are banking on the over-inflated value of their assets to get them off this hook. This is despite that the sale of assets in the last year having only netted approximately one third of their book value. They have also declared in their ‘presentation’ that the yields from plantations was less than expected, and this is the same supply that they need for their pulp mill – except they have upped the proposed mill output by 0.3 million tonnes a year! No wonder their auditors are getting cold feet about signing off their accounts!
Gunns are now commencing so-called construction 4 days AFTER the permit lapsed. For every other normal individual and company, this would be declared an illegal act, but somehow Gunns believes it is above the law that governs everybody else. Maybe it is? In common parlance this would be called ‘corruption’, but in Gunns case, it appears to be normal business.
Gunns has previously announced (I believe the latest count is) 23 Joint Venture Partners to the ASX and the public. It seems they have been wrong on all 23 occasions. However, this does not deter them from doing the same thing again with little chance of the results being anything different.
Gunns announced a couple of years ago that they were changing the mill to a ‘lite chlorine bleach’ system and claimed that this now met the environmental conditions. It doesn’t. It has simply changed them, and if anything, lite bleaching is MORE damaging to the environment, not less, (see Dr. Warwick Raverty’s comments) as it involves the use of hydrogen peroxide as well as chlorine, and timber, especially pine, as a result of H2O2 produces an endocrine disrupting chemical for fish which will then be dumped into the Bass Strait. No permissions and no research done! Also, it must be noted, the Planning Permissions that Gunns almost received did not incorporate these changes and a new facility will have to be built to accommodate the manufacture of hydrogen peroxide. It is a dangerous chemical and potential explosive, but no mention has been made of this. Gunns are (pretending) to start construction on a site which has been approved for a different mill.
Can anyone explain to me and to all other Tasmanians how it is that the Government, the Opposition, the ASX and the ANZ Bank can continue to support this situation which appears to totally illegal on so many fronts and heading for a financial disaster in the short term and allows Gunns to continue trading and maintaining this charade of going-it-alone?
