Bob McMahon TAP The letter was sent Priority Post on June 2nd 2008. As yet there has been no reply.

“We apparently have a Prime Minister who doesn’t understand English, asserted TAP spokesperson, Bob McMahon. “Therefore, we have written to him in Mandarin, a language in which he is reputedly fluent.”
TAP Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill
MEDIA RELEASE June 24 2008

TASMANIANS WRITE TO THE PRIME MINISTER IN CHINESE

As a last resort Tasmanians have written to Prime Minister Rudd in Chinese.

“We apparently have a Prime Minister who doesn’t understand English, asserted TAP spokesperson, Bob McMahon. “Therefore, we have written to him in Mandarin, a language in which he is reputedly fluent.”

“No matter how often we write to him or his ministers in English concerning the socio-economic, political, legal and environmental impacts of the proposed pulp mill, we are sent bizarre forest industry propaganda and information sourced from the pulp mill proponent, by way of reply. Does Kevin Rudd have any idea how insulted the people of Tasmania are at this behaviour of Federal Labor?”

“There is a chance that Rudd’s advisers and ministers are blocking our correspondence to the Prime Minister in their effort to run an unseemly and ill-informed pro-pulp mill line. If that is the case, we
are informing the Prime Minister that he has been led astray. That is why we have written to him personally, in Chinese, so as to circumvent his advisers and ministers.”

The letter was sent Priority Post on June 2nd 2008. As yet there has been no reply.

“There has never been a full assessment of the Gunns pulp mill proposal. The disenfranchised people of Tasmania are, in this letter, demanding that one be undertaken,” said McMahon.

Many independent groups and individuals have expressed severe reservations about the risks, potential hazards, location, costs and supposed economic benefits of the mill. They include CSIRO, ANZ Bank, RPDC (Resource Planning and Development Commission), former RPDC pulp mill expert Dr. Warwick Raverty, National Toxics Network, Beca Amec and 128 independent scientists.

None of the serious concerns raised by these groups and individuals have been assessed, nor have any steps been taken to protect the public from the identified hazards.

“There can be no way forward in Tasmania unless Federal Labor and State Labor understand that the huge risks the Tasmanian communities have been exposed to represents a massive breach of faith between our paid representatives and the taxpayers who pay them,” said McMahon.

“We want equal treatment with Gunns and the forest industry. For too long they have had many favours supplied at taxpayers’ expense, from legal and resource cost exemptions to huge and unaffordable subsidies.”

“As long as one group is treated differently under the law and provided with preferential access to the ear of government, there can be neither fairness nor equity in Tasmanian, or Australian society.
Remedy this situation, Mr Rudd, or lose Tasmania,” concluded Bob McMahon