Roger; lets play the devil’s advocate and see how well you researched some points in this article. Beware; I reckon cinders write writes a pretty good line when he gets his block into it. “Richo” times were pretty frightening for the all the dedicated developers and their side kicks as the F111 zoomed in.

Ashbarry goes mything with a flapjack stack of misinterpretations and misrepresentations? Guess what?

Our TCA actually believe in all the Gunns stuff as it was dished up because they had to. These people as Roger says were not in the P& P biz like say AMCOR who now make REFLEX after the demise of APPM. Six decades of experience at Maryvalle is only half of it though.

I reckon Long Reach is OK since it’s close to Gunns HQ and other residences given lots of extra employment is the No 1 state issue. 780 public submissions are almost outnumbered by new jobs given half were for it. More hearings were hardly necessary. Bugs impacting on windscreens is a red herring and who needs delays when the refined pulp market is so brisk?

Where is Hampshire? I note the UK seems to have lost 700,000 tpa P & P manufacturing recently. Perhaps Hampshire moved to South America while we were debating the pros n cons of another Kraft Mill. The John Paul combo making pulp or paper at Hampshire is a total myth. Either of them ducking through the woods there at night is just too hard to contemplate! Knocking down trees out of bounds is another thing they don’t do.

And what’s the bet Malcolm can’t find dioxin anywhere?

Roger: We have to give that combo a chance to put a crack team together

Thanks for the useful and informative article and all the interesting links.

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I wonder in Mark Latham would have backed the pulp mill to the end? In "The Latham Diaries" he wrote that if the project had been announced before the 2004 election the extra jobs could have defused the orchestrated backlash against Labor for its plan to reduce woodchipping and fund alternative employment and he would have been in power today.

It would have been an interesting stiutation. He would have been committed to one policy that would have been good for the environment and another that would have been terrible.

I think he would have jumped the right way in the end. Whatever, the situation could not have been worse than it is now.

Miraculous post by dagget. For my part first time have read this, but the article just seems to reinforce the impression I have of the whole thing being an absolute travesty. Labor or Lib?
Arsenic or cyanide?

funguy,

Do you dispute that the environmental movement would have been in a far better position if Labor had won in 2004?

This is not to say that Latham was perfect, but steps to commence winding back of woodchipping would have commenced. In any case, the environemntal movement would not have been obliged to have been subservient to Latham should his policies have fallen significantly short of what was necessary.

The simplistic equating of Latham's Labor party back in 2004 with the Liberal Party has become a self-fulfulling prophecy. The real differences between Labor and the Liberals over woodchipong that existed have now largely disappeared.

In spite of this it is very necessary to boot out Howard in 2007 and vote in Rudd.

Are you seriously indifferent to the prospect of having a government which both helped start the Iraq war and allowed AU$290 million in bribes to be paid to Saddam Hussein's regime stay in office?

Just a few comments in reply to Taz - firstly, you make the assumption that half the 780 submissions received by the RPDC were in favour of the Gunns proposal - this is wildly innaccurate. I made a submission and I also made a count of 'for' and 'against' submissions. There were around 80 submissions in support of the proposal and many of those were template submissions (even down to the same spelling and grammatical errors) that emanated from TCA sources. The other approx 700 submissions were against the proposal, and many of those submissions were of very high quality from respected scientists and economics experts.
Secondly, your point about jobs: yes there would be around 280 direct jobs at the mill, and arguably maybe 1000 -1500 or so more flow-on jobs, but this would be at the expense of many thousands of already existing jobs in the Tamar Valley, as it is almost certain that many of these horticultural, fishing, viticultural and tourism jobs will go. These industries are simply not compatible with a pulp mill in this valley. I haven't even got onto the notorious Tamar air inversion.
I don't think is is up to Mr Turnbull to find 'no dioxin' - I think that job will be left to the Chief Scientist and his team, whom I trust far more to get it right than Gunns or this travesty of a state government we have here.
Great article, Roger.

Sooz

What's the bet that if the Chief Scientists's report is favourable for the mill proceeding you will still oppose it and complain of political interference or some other conspiracy. The problem is that all you bleaters against the mill are being dishonest about your position - and that is you are against the mill regardless of the science or any other good points. I just wish you (and all the other opponents) could be honest with me, honest with yourself and more importantly, honest with everyone else and just admit that fact. No matter what is presented in favour of the mill, you will oppose it instead of hiding behind the charade of claiming your opposition is due to undemocratic processes, poor science, Gunns/Labor in bed together, and all the other conspiracies.

Having lived and breathed this issue for more than two years now, Tragedy, the tragedy is that I know that democracy HAS been trashed here by Lennon's 'fast-track' process - the people who stand to lose most from this development (namely most of the population of Tasmania, and especially those in the Tamar Valley) have not been listened to at all, which is why we are 'bleating' as you put it. I don't know how au fait you are with the Pulp Mill Assessment Bill 2007, but it is pretty awful stuff, if this development gets approval and then something goes wrong. There is absolutely NOTHING that affected parties can do in this case - that is written into the legislation. There are all kinds of exemptions for smells and airborne particulates.
This issue is much more than simply a pulp mill development in an inappropriate place. It goes to the core of democratic principles, when the majority of the population (as shown by EVEY PUBLISHED POLL) can be so arrogantly ignored on such a vital issue. And don't come back with the 'mandate' issue: what people voted on in the last state election was not this monster, but a smaller, closed loop chlorine-free mill in an appropriate location. There was no 'mandate' for this.
Yes, we WILL fight tooth and nail to prevent this disaster, and this is not simply a 'greens' versus 'development' debate as many try to paint it. We are fighting for our lives, our livelihoods and our beautiful valley.

Sooz; you can’t take my first post too seriously cause I play the devils advocate a lot. Problem is, even my mate reckons I was not my best at that time, switching views all through.

It’s a joke! A lot of stuff written on this pulp mill issue comes from folks who just visit or read books on process plants. I freelanced in major industry as the calibration and commission tech in all sorts of systems. Behind the scene I recruited trades for the boss whoever. Only a handful remained at start up time.

In DC, AC, superheated steam engineering, haz chem. etc just staying smart goes way beyond the books. Clever dicks from academia singed my whiskers more than once while running the plant on pure calculation. In the end, only the same band came in at the end of each new project. Good consultants recruited internationally.

Note: Sudden de-watering of pulp is never mentioned! Trouble shooting a pulp& paper process begins here, science can’t help in the mop up. H2S is your regular companion.

Automation kills jobs but only when it works. Hardly any plants run to their original design on day one. Mods are a big part of an installation stage and this may be due to feedback from a pilot plant. Scaling up can still get ugly though. My last job was in the cross fire before and after our GSM system rollout. When system protection from interference is seen as another art, negotiations are easy. Governments rarely slip into that role properly without a great deal of practical input.

Back to Gunns proposal: This mill is too big for its boots as planned. Tasmania needs several independent operators competing for pulpwood with at least partially guaranteed domestic paper making outlets to secure reasonable volume long term. As the Cinderella state Tasmania can expect a full golden slipper in return for a three way consortium on each.

Tasmania’s vast timber resource is a valuable to the Commonwealth as the old Snowy hydro electric scheme particularly at election time.