The new Tasmanian premier, David Bartlett, today said the future of the state's key project, the pulp mill, was in the hands of its proponents and their financiers.
His predecessor, Paul Lennon, tied his political fortunes closely to the mill, which appears to have failed to gain the backing of the ANZ bank.
Read more here: http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/article/777041.aspx
Of course there has been a sustained environmental campaign against the mill from the Tasmanian Greens and others.
Pulp mills are dotted across Europe but are to be excluded from Tasmania because of the prejudices of some.
I guess the same activists will soon be back to campaigning against the export of product to pulp mills in Japan?
So this is where all the rednecks hang out. Jennifer seems to be suggesting that pulp mills are the victims of prejudice. Thats novel Jennifer. I wonder if Jennifer would be "prejudiced" against Gunns putting a pulp mill in Tasmania if she was a Tasmanian resident - like myself - and had borne witness to the many years of corruption in Tasmania - which the logging industry that she is so enamoured by, have been up to their necks in. The trashing of nature, justice and due process by the raw power of the alliance of unions like the CFMEU and the Australian Labor party. As Mark Latham once said
"No policy issue or set of relationships better demonstrates the ethical decline and political corruption of the Australian Labor movement than Tasmanian forestry."
In November 2004 when Jennifers favourite logging corporation Gunns Limited, proposed constructing their so-called pulp mill in Tassy and undertook to do feasibility studies on two potential sites: the Tamar Valley (one of Tasmania's prime wine-growing and tourist regions, that 100,000 people call home) and Hampshire (35 km south of Burnie at the centre of 100,000 hectares of eucalypt forests with almost no residents) and the assessment of the proposal was given to Tasmania's independent planning authority - RPDC) and the majority of Tasmanians were happy.
But when that poor innocent logging corporation Gunns failed twice (on 25 October 2006, and 22 February 2007) to satisfy the RPDC that they could build such a facility in the Tamar Valley without adverse impact on the environment and the community and then in March 2007 - in cahutes with Paul Lennon - Gunns wriggled out of the RPDC assessment process after being tipped of by the Premiers dept that they were headed for a fail mark. Rather than rejecting the proposal at this point, the Tasmanian Government invited Gunns's lawyers to assist in drafting legislation for a 'fast-track approval process' that failed to assess many of the important factors, bad smells among them, associated with kraft mills. Overnight, Tasmanians who had been happy became very unhappy.
It is not a matter of Tasmanians being prejudiced against pulp mills it about Tasmanians having the ability to smell bullshit.
Clearly Jennifer it is you that cant see past your own prejudices
As they say in the trade, Lennon had a face for radio and a personality for the print media. He knew this perfectly well before he reluctantly took the job. He understood that, in the long term, the party would need a face and profile that the punters could "feel-good" about.
To seriously believe that swing voters make their voting decisions on the depth of policy and grasp of the brief is just plain delusional.
"Show me your ID and I'll show you mine" reminds me of kids playing under the desk between lessons at primary school.
Good post WJP, it seems "my" job is worth saving but "your" job is disposable. Or is it more the case that bimbopolitan jobs are sacred while rural and regional jobs are throw away items of zero consequence.