Mill: Workforce shrinks, timeline blows out

Kim Booth

“What is surprising is that Gunns, Labor and Liberal parties were happy to trumpet the projected employment figures when justifying legislation being rammed through Parliament, but now there is a 50% reduction to those numbers, there is not a peep from any of those players, with the George Town council being left to break the news.”
PULP FICTION EXPOSED AS WORKFORCE SHRINKS AND TIMELINE BLOWS OUT
Employment Figures Used to Justify Mill being Rammed Through Parliament – Yet Gunns, Labor & Liberals Now Silent
Kim Booth MP
Greens Opposition Pulp Mill spokesperson
Thursday, 20 March 2008
www.tas.greens.org.au

THE TASMANIAN GREENS today said that the revelations that predicted job numbers for the proposed Gunns’ Long Reach Pulp Mill construction workforce had shrunk by over 50% and that the construction timeline had blown out, demonstrates yet again the perfidy practised upon the Tasmanian community to justify the ramming through of this project without sufficient scrutiny.

Greens Opposition Pulp Mill spokesperson and Member for Bass, Kim Booth MP, said that these reduced job numbers seriously undermine confidence in any figures previously produced by Gunns or the Lennon government in relation to the project, and both the Labor and Liberal parties have serious egg on their faces for using Gunns’ projected figures as part of their justification for their support for this controversial project.

Mr Booth also said that these latest changes once again brought into the spotlight the rubbery claims that Gunns had made about the project and associated time lines in the first place, as well as the alleged reasons upon which the company justified withdrawing the project from the Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC) process, and were also used by the Premier to justify ramming through the Parliament his Pulp Mill approval legislation.

“Now that Georgetown Council announced for Gunns that the Pulp Mill construction work force would shrink from 2900 to 1250 and also that the timeline had blown out for construction from 24 to 30 months, the public is once again confronted with the fact that all the pro-mill hysteria justifying why the State could not afford to lose the proposed mill once Gunns had abandoned the RPDC process was just hot air,” Mr Booth said.

“It is not surprising that Gunns had shrunk the work force and blown out the timeline, given that the original figures had been queried by submitters to the RPDC as potential exaggerations but they were never able to be examined once the proposal was pulled from that independent umpire.”

“What is surprising is that Gunns, Labor and Liberal parties were happy to trumpet the projected employment figures when justifying legislation being rammed through Parliament, but now there is a 50% reduction to those numbers, there is not a peep from any of those players, with the George Town council being left to break the news.”

“This discredits Premier Lennon’s previous boasts of the job numbers surrounding the project when he rushed into parliament 12 months ago, acting as a proxy for Gunns, claiming that this project, amongst other things, would employ nearly 3000 workers on site during construction and take 24 months to complete.”
“Now that Gunns has revealed that employment has shrunk to 1250 jobs and the mill will take 30 months to complete it throws a big question mark over the project and its viability.”
“Premier Lennon gave Gunns a fast track, watered down assessment and spooked the Liberals into supporting it on the basis of Gunns’ commercial needs and the promised huge number of jobs – now shown to be inaccurate as warned at the time.”

“Now that this has proven patently to be false the Tasmanian people are owed an explanation as to what has changed all of a sudden.”

“It is also a chill warning to anyone who believed the Lennon government and Gunns about this project not to invest any time soon in equipment or anything else that might depend on the proposed mill.”
“Had Gunns’ delays before the RPDC not been rewarded by Premier Lennon’s quick and dirty fast track parliamentary approval, then all of these matters would have been exposed to proper scrutiny during the public hearing phase.”

“It sounds to me that the project is now on a stage managed shrink to oblivion, something that will be welcomed by the majority of Tasmanians,” Mr Booth said.