Tasmania’s pulp mill row has been compared with the divisive Franklin dam dispute of the 1980s, writes Andrew Darby.

Sue Smith is no fan of greenies. The hawk-eyed member of Tasmania’s upper house serves with an instinctive feel a small electorate in the island’s conservative north-west. She dismisses the people she calls “the radical dark greens”. So she was puzzled as she sifted through emails lobbying against the proposed Gunns pulp mill. “I expected to get hundreds of emails from green campaigners,” she told the Legislative Council. … “What surprised me, and it took me halfway through to pick it up, was that it was ordinary people. There were academics, teachers, public servants, people on the street, training companies …”

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