Gunns has finally been outed as a company that transforms subsidies into income and bottom line profits sufficient up until now to persuade investors to part with their money. Those subsidies also include the financial smoke and mirrors of the MIS tax schemes that surely will begin to unwind if Gunns’ share price fails to hold up in current circumstances.
It is all beginning to look like the scam Eddy Groves of ABC Learning pulled supported by ever increasing amounts of inverted economics, subsidies and government largesse in the form of tax concessions.
It will all end in tears and embarrassment for both the State government and supporters of the pulp mill who have been conned into believing it was a project of state significance, earnings positive and job creating. Although many have argued in vain that this was a complete fallacy, hopefully the broader public will now see it for what it is, one giant rort to convert public assets into private wealth.

I have no sympathy for Gunns; in Queensland, they profited for decades as their prime source of timber, the state government, under-priced its supplies and protected it from competition, e.g. by 50-year timber allocations at far below market prices and requiring potential competitors to buy (and close) unviable mills in order to get access to their supplies. (I wrote an NCP report on the Queensland timber industry in 1999-2000.)

However, the carbon claim may not be ridiculous: regrowth sequesters far more carbon than does mature forest.

Where there are no demonstrable economic or social reasons for government support, yet the support goes on regardless, one has to wonder about corruption. The Tasmanian government has had several decades in which to explain why it continues to support an industry which is neither profitable, socially desirable or environmentally responsible, but we are still waiting for an answer.

I hear all about how Gunns subverted the process to get their project approved.

What I think is atrocious is the way the hearing dragged on and on with no end in sight.

The Tasmanian gov had two choices:
- 1 give in to the greens and allow them to continue the hearing indefinitely until Gunns was bankrupt and with it their reputation for managing developement, or
- 2 Cut short the process and limit the damage.

I am all for due process, but there needs for any investigation, to be a time and cost limit, or no one will ever commit to the open ended cash drain that is an "environmental" hearing.

A period of 6 months should have been the limit for submissions, and a decision made one way or another at the end of it.

Tasmania has only itself to blame if no one in their right mind wants to spend money investing there.

Jon J - if you truly believe that there is corruption in Tasmania because the government continues to support the forest industry, then how the hell do you explain governments locking up the most productive forests coveted by the industry since the mid 80s?

It is the fault of the governments (both Federal and State) that have pandered to the urban elites, who had never even visited Tasmania, that have reduced the profitability of the industry.

Graeme Richardson boasted to a fellow Minister that "environmental policy was easy in my day. The Greens told Richo what they wanted and we gave it to them…”

The eco-extremists (masquerading as greens) were allowed to completely bedevil the rational utilisation of our sustainable natural forest resources, when independent arbitrators were unanimous in confirming Tasmania leads the way in world-best practices in our forests following 8 legislative scientific enquiries between 1984 and 1991.

What is forgotten in the forestry conflict, because of an emotive and substantiated misinformation of the extremist elements in the community, is the scientific fact that timber is clearly one of the world’s most ecologically friendly building resource materials available with our young regenerating forests actually serving as biological filters, absorbing carbon dioxide gases from the atmosphere as they grow.