Henry Melville
Malcolm Turnbull sits on a narrow margin in his Sydney seat and Mr Cousins outspokenness in Sydney Town will perhaps do more to focus the mind of Malcolm (and his future political prospects) than faffing around in the corrupted politics of the Apple Isle. The question is: Will Malcolm blink and allow a thorough federal process to be conducted?
FEDERAL Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull is now front & centre in the sights of proponents and opponents of the Bell Bay pulp mill. The issue is proving to be torrid for the major political parties at both the State and federal levels. None of the big players has blinked yet!
Former prime ministerial adviser, prominent businessman and government appointee to the Telstra board, Mr Geoffrey Cousins has now joined the pulp mill debate – much to the chagrin of Paul Lennon.
The Premier was asked to respond to Cousins’ comments on the pulp mill process: “And I think he’d be far better advised worrying about the things that are in his domain rather than stuff he knows nothing about.”
Mr Cousins is both articulate and persuasive. It also wrong-footed Malcolm Turnbull who had to resort to calling him a “rich bully” and a person not fit to certificate on a public company board; a rugged call from a Sydney silver-tail and one of the richer Liberal members in federal politics.
In a recent 7.30 Report presenter, Kerry O’Brien put this to Mr Turnbull: “Geoff Cousins accuses you of trying to have it both ways that you want to criticise the State Government for failing to meet their responsibilities in this matter while doing much less than you should to protect the environment.”
Mr Turnbull replied: “Kerry, I don’t know what Geoffrey Cousins wants. Geoffrey Cousins has never written a submission. He tells me he’s writing one today. That will be good. That will be good to see actually what he wants. We have a process where people have the opportunity to write in, to let us know what their criticisms are, what their concerns are, if they feel the process should be dealt with in a different way to let us know.”
Malcolm Turnbull sits on a narrow margin in his Sydney seat and Mr Cousins outspokenness in Sydney Town will perhaps do more to focus the mind of Malcolm (and his future political prospects) than faffing around in the corrupted politics of the Apple Isle. The question is: Will Malcolm blink and allow a thorough federal process to be conducted?
Clearly Malcolm needs to buy Howard and himself some time and save face.
On Wednesday night’s 7.30 Report Mr Turnbull was outlining the strategy.
‘Well, let’s be quite clear, what I have done in assessing the pulp mill, and I have not completed our assessment by the way, but I’ve not made a decision to approve the pulp mill, but what the process I’ve undertaken is one strictly in accordance with the environment Act, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and that has been found to be in accordance with the Act by the Federal Court. So the process we’ve undertaken has been very diligent and thorough. There have been two periods of public consultation to date and what I have done over the last few days, what I announced over the weekend, is almost without precedent in terms of additional public consultation.
“What I’ve done is taken the advice that I’ve received from my department on the proposed, the approval they proposed, and the conditions they propose and all of the reasons for it and I’ve published them and I’ve invited public comments and feedback for 10 business days. So, in other words, I’ve taken the people of Tasmania and Australia and said, “Sit next to me at the Environment Minister’s desk and look at all of papers presented to me. You review them like me.”
In addition to that, I’ve asked the chief scientist of the Commonwealth to give his views and assemble a panel of scientists – his choice and not mine – to give an independent decision.’
The game is not over yet folks. Keep sending those emails and letters to: [email protected]
