Is the Rudd Government playing an eco-version of "pass the parcel" with the Gunns pulp mill? Round and round the game goes, with more reports, delays, court applications for secret documents and much speculation over whether construction of the giant $2.2 billion pulp mill can proceed now that 13 of the 16 “modules’’ – that’s sections, in non-weasel speak – of the environmental conditions have been approved.
Federal environment minister Peter Garrett has given Gunns a two-year extension to compete hydro-dynamic modelling of effluent dispersal from the mill into Bass Strait. The new deadline is March 3, 2001 which, as Greens Senator Christine Milne said, puts the mill “smack bang in the middle of the 2010 Federal election.
Some commentators are taking the extended deadline as a sign that the pulp mill won’t be built, but Labor made no bones about its support for the mill in the lead up to the 2007 Federal election. “Federal Labor has always supported a world class mill for Tasmania that achieves best practice environmental outcomes,’’ Garrett said back then, and also described the pulp mill as “good public policy.’’ In an interview on the ABC’s “World Today’’ at the time, he said “the trick in Tasmania’’ was to protect jobs while “looking after’’ (not protecting, note) high conservation forests.
“It can be done, by the way. I'm convinced it can be done. It's going to be hard. It will take some compromises and some money, but it can be done. I think a pulp mill is a part of that solution,’’ he said.
In radio interviews this week, Garrett peddled the line that he had “inherited’’ approval for the mill from former Howard Government environment minister Malcolm Tunbull, perhaps seeking to give the impressions that all be could do was fine-tune the operating conditions.
But he also told the ABC that even when he was president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, he supported the Visy pulp mill in Tumut in NSW “on the basis that it was world’s best practice standards.’’
Deputy Prime Minsiter Julia Gillard has said the mill will be built, and the go-ahead appears to be firmly locked into Labor policy, despite community and scientific opposition. Could that be because of the party clout weilded by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy union?
In his recently published book “Ten Commitments’’, Australia’s leading forest ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer has called for an overhaul of Australia’s forestry research and forest management practices. He argues that in the case of the Gunns Tamar Valley pulp mill, the wood needed to run the mill is in addition to that required for Tasmania’s export woodchip industry, the sawmilling industry and for proposed biofuel plants. “The large quantities of additional wood needed to run the pulp mill will affect other forest industries,’’ he writes, adding that “a proper analysis’’ of the mill’s environmental impacts should have included “a comprehensive examination of the forest resource commitment.’’ His point is that the mill is over-committing Tasmania’s forest resources, with potential impacts on the state’s water catchments.
As for the mill in Tumut that Garrett quoted as a shining example of “world’s best practice’’, Lindenmayer is also working on research to wind back environmental damage caused by a $450 million expansion to feed anticipated demand from global pulp markets. That demand will involve clearing remant woodlands across southern NSW, with regional extinction of bird species. Or should we say world’s best practice land clearing, leading in turn to world’s best practice regional extinctions?
Instead of playing pass the parcel with the Tamar Valley pulp mill decision, good government policy might be to convene a Senate inquiry into Australia’s foresty management, with a string of expert witnesses and public submissions. The future of the Tamar Valley should be decided on public good issues, rather than stubborn party support for entrenched policy positions.