Australia: Pulping democracy
This week,
the Tasmanian Parliament will debate Gunns' proposed pulp mill
at Bell Bay in Tasmania. If built, the US$1.4 billion project
would need four million tonnes of logs a year. It would double
Gunns current rate of clearcutting in Tasmania's native forests.
The pulp mill would produce large amounts of toxins, polluting
the air and Tasmania's Bass Strait.
The day before
the Tasmanian Parliament started its discussions, Australia's
Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a "draft
decision" to approve the pulp mill.
The approval
process has become a multi-million dollar sham. In July 2006,
Gunns submitted a Draft Integrated Impact Statement on the proposed
pulp mill to the Resource Planning and Development Committee (RPDC),
an independent statutory body. The Tasmanian Government, meanwhile,
spent millions of taxpayers' dollars on a "Pulp Mill Task
Force" to promote the pulp mill.
In January
2007, two members of the RPDC resigned, complaining about political
interference in the assessment process. When Gunns threatened
not to build the mill if they didn't receive approval within six
months, Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon met with Gunns' chairman
John Gay and told him he would be "working on the process
to do his best to make sure the pulp mill is built". In March
2007, Gunns withdrew its application to the RPDC and asked Premier
Lennon to change the law on assessing the proposed pulp mill.
The next day, the government announced that it would fast-track
the assessment process. After meetings with Gunns' lawyers, the
government produced new legislation, which was duly passed by
Parliament as the Pulp Mill Assessment Act 2007. Under the Act,
a decision on the pulp mill must be reached before the end of
August 2007. Instead of the independent RPDC assessment process,
the Tasmanian Government appointed two consultants to recommend
whether Gunns' pulp mill should proceed.
The government's
choice of consultants is revealing: ITS Global and SWECO PIC.
ITS Global was set up by Alan Oxley, an Australian academic, free-trade
lobbyist, and climate change sceptic. Among ITS Global's clients
are Malysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau, whose destructive
logging operations and human rights abuses in Papua New Guinea
have made it amongst the most controversial logging companies
in the world. In July 2006, ITS Global put out a series of reports
praising Rimbunan Hijau. Not surprisingly, ITS Global decided
that the "net benefit for Tasmania overall" of Gunns'
proposed pulp mill is "positive and high".
SWECO PIC is
a Finnish consulting and engineering firm. In its report to the
Tasmanian government, the company notes that since its creation
in 1971, "SWECO PIC has specialised on serving the pulp and
paper industry." This is precisely the problem. SWECO PIC
is not independent from the pulp industry.
SWECO PIC was
hired to assess whether the proposed project complied with Tasmania's
emission guidelines for new pulp mills. SWECO PIC found that the
proposed mill was in breach of eight of the guidelines, but recommended
that "the project can proceed to further consideration by
the Tasmanian Parliament".
I asked Rune
Franzén, SWECO PIC's Director Pulp and Paper and the team leader
for the Gunns assessment, some questions about his company's involvement
in promoting this project. I asked Franzén whether his company
won the contract after an international bidding process. I asked
Franzén whether his team had met any representatives of local
communities, environmental organisations or any members of the
RPDC. I asked for Sweco PIC's response to Professor Andrew Wadsley's
calculations which indicate that Gunns underestimated the emission
of dioxins from the proposed pulp mill by a factor of 1,400. (SWECO
PIC's report does not deal with the issue.) I asked how SWECO
PIC addresses accusations of conflict of interest, since several
of SWECO PIC's past (and potential future) clients are working
on the Gunns project, including Andritz and Pöyry.
Franzén declined
to answer any of my questions. SWECO was hired only to assess
the proposed pulp mill, he replied. "SWECO is not involved
in any matters of public discussion or debate." Franzen forwarded
my questions to Rebekah Burton of the Department of Premier and
Cabinet in Tasmania.
I wrote to
Burton and in addition to the questions I'd asked SWECO PIC, I
asked for a copy of SWECO PIC's terms of reference and asked how
much the Tasmanian Government paid for SWECO PIC's assessment.
In reply, I received a letter signed by Daniel Leesong, Chief
of Staff at the Office of the Premier. Leesong also declined to
answer any of my questions.
"In April
this year Parliament passed the Pulp Mill Assessment Act 2007
to establish a rigorous and thorough assessment process for the
pulp mill proposal," wrote Leesong, apparently oblivious
to the fact that the only reason that the Government wrote the
Pulp Mill Assessment Act 2007 was because Gunns asked them to
do so.
The Tasmanian
Government has attached 1,100 pages of permits and operating conditions
to the final pulp mill approval motion which Parliament is now
discussing. Gunns was allowed to see the draft permits and operating
conditions and could suggest changes. On 28 August 2007, Tasmania's
parliamentarians will vote on whether to approve the proposed
pulp mill. Unlike Gunns, they will not have the opportunity to
amend either the motion or the permits and conditions attached.
In June 2007,
Matthew Denholm of Tasmanian newspaper the Mercury revealed that
Gunns had already signed a contract with construction firm John
Holland to start building the pulp mill "in the first week
of September". Delay beyond this time will cost Gunns almost
US$1 million dollars a day. Either Gunns knows in advance what
Parliament's decision will be, or they are stupid. No wonder Tasmanians
call the Government the "Gunnerment".
By Chris Lang,
email: http://chrislang.org,
http://chrislang.org
Tell Environment
Minister Malcolm Turnbull not to approve the pulp mill - visit
www.wilderness.org.au
to send him a message.
