For those seeking comment upon on the accuracy of ABC pulp mill stories then a place to look is in the Public Reports on Audience Comments and Complaints available at http://www.abc.net.au/contact/public_reports.htm

A good example can be found this years April to June report “The 7.30 Report on 5 June 2007 was found to contain inaccuracies. The complainant sought a detailed on air apology. The CRE’s review agreed with the initial finding that the item gave the impression that there was a scallop fishing industry in Bass Strait when there was not at that time."

Also in the same report
A listener complained that during the Issue of the Day segment, the presenter made an erroneous reference to the Tasmanian pulp mill using old growth forest.
Findings
The ABC agreed that the assertion regarding old growth forest should have been attributed to the Greens, not stated as fact.

These corrections also answer concerns that old growth forest will not be used, the feed stock for the mill will mainly be from eucalypt plantations, with initial supply from regrowth forest and a small quantity from pine plantations.

Details of the sustainable management as well as regeneration success in Tasmania’s public forest can be found in their sustainability report, at http://www.forestrytas.com.au/publications/sustainable-forest-management

Hopefully all these links work, however I noted my last post, the link to the EPBC Act assessment of the Victorian ECF Pulp Mill assessment was missing its final number 4, it can also be found at http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/epbc/epbc_ap.pl?name=current_referral_detail&proposal_id=2234

In regards to greenhouse gas emissions the IPCC in its 4th assessment report found “In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.

By processing that fibre from sustainable forests the pulp mill will save about a million tonnes CO2e a year in shipping and will provide enough renewable energy to power a city the size of Launceston.

Cinders
Fair comments I've relearned a important lesson don't comment on things I have no real knowledge of.
I still wonder at the stories that
- Show breaches of forestry in coupes.
- give clear indication of Gunn’s abuse of power
- Are getting the OG at bargain price.
- and programs from Europe and USA about legal level chemicals combining to form un anticipated problems. All different programs even channels.
I’m still not convinced that world best practice means anything. 3mile island was in operating standards until something went wrong. Tailings dams in the NT leaked polluting into the environment, Fly River gold polluted an entire rivers system but presumably they all complied with ”world’s best practice” of the time. Different industry true but Business still sees rules and regulations as inconvenient speed bumps.
I still ask given the cost per job to the Australian public should we be involved in a polluting sunset industry/technology and are there any sun rise opportunities.

Notwithstanding this I take your point and wonder in silence. I have neither the ability to wade through processes or the scientific knowledge to comment further. Clearly this is a case of who do we believe?
Thank you for the info very illuminating.

I have been following the plantation versus old growth carbon sequestration debate waiting for a single word to be mentioned:

BIODIVERSITY

Old growth logging eliminates the habitat needed for native flora and fauna. It kills many species.

Pine plantations do not provide anything approaching a suitable habitat. And native tree plantations are too little too late - the plant and animal species cannot and are not transplanted along with the planting of plantation eucalyptus.

Preserve native forests now. Gunns will have to diversify if it wants to continue and this is not an option its practices offer our native flora and fauna.

There are viable alternatives to old forest logging. There is no need for this discussion.

All this argument over whether carbon sequestration is higher in old growth forest or plantations is missing the entire herd of elephants - BIODIVERSITY

Examinator

You appear to be aware of Australia’s third world regulatory standards.

Allow me to ponder on a few catastrophic events in recent years:

1. 2001: Largest chemical fire in Australia’s history at hazardous waste plant. The Department of Environment and Conservation failed to enforce conditions, granted the operator $100,000 of taxpayers’ money and the place blew up.

2. 2004 An audit of the construction of Newcrest's gas pipeline from Port Hedland to Telfer last month found more than 6,500 animals died in the trench dug for the project within six weeks. EPA admits it should have placed tighter restrictions on a mining company in the state's north to prevent thousands of animal deaths.

3. 2007 Australian uranium mining company Energy Resources Australia has been fined AUS$150,000 after being found guilty of a series of contamination breaches at its Ranger mine.

Twenty-eight workers fell ill after drinking and showering in water contaminated with 400 times the legal limit of uranium. A total of 159 workers were exposed to the contamination.

4. 2007 December A flawed decision by the Department of Environment and Conservation, to lift a bushfire roadblock in the West Australian goldfields sent a convoy of up to 15 trucks into a firestorm, killing three men and leaving a trail of devastation on the road.

5. 2007. Ongoing. The lead poisoning of the people of Esperance by Magellan Mines. 9,500 native birds dropped from the skies.

Parliamentary committee concluded: “The Committee has identified major failings in DEC’s industry regulation function and shortcomings in other regulatory agencies – exposing workers and the community to unacceptable and avoidable health and environmental risks."

6. 2008. Class action against Xstrata. "Lead poisoning of Mt Isa. According to the latest annual National Pollutant Inventory data, the Xstrata-owned operation pumped out more lead, sulphur dioxide, copper, zinc, cadmium and antimony than any other single operation in the nation in 2006-09." And the DEC? Invisible!

There’s enough to fill a small book Examinator – but you get the message, I’m sure.

Cheers

Examinator,

I agree that in the end with most of these big business versus the environment debates it boils down to whom you believe.

I choose unequivocally NOT to believe big business and their mouth pieces (including our governments who care not a hoot about the environment) until a weight of generally independent experts pronounce in their favour (ie big business').

I choose not to take seriously the coal industries claims in the climate change debate nor Gunns' in their effort to advance their pulp mill.

Garrett's decision to grant a postponement of the deadline for Gunns is in any case unpardonable given the overwhelming public opposition to the mill in the first place.

And a somewhat unrelated point - if indeed additional employment is a motivation of the government for allowing the mill to proceed it needs to be put it in the context of the retrenching of staff that will happen as the result of recent bank mergers that governments have allowed without protest - mergers that have markedly reduced competition in the already monopolistic banking sector.

DICKIE
Thank you for the additional info. You're right. However we differ in quantitative terms on the size of the book….Bloody huge comes to mind.

Pollution Standards etc aren’t necessarily based on what is best for people/environments but a compromise of what business will accept.
Examinator’s law of negotiation: “the one with the with the biggest clout sets the agenda and the questions asked. Any doubt who ultimately benefits?
In truth it’s a bit like asking “How many razor blades can we fit in a baby’s mouth before it kills them?” When the Question should be “why put any in there at all, isn’t there a better way of selling bandaids?”

KULU
I think jobs are a secondary issue, the real issue for the political parties is that the number of seats at stake in Tassie that could influence who would form govt.

Hence the govt isn't as acutely interested in the bank retrenchments...they are spread over a number of electorates (both persuasions).
Jobs are the issue to the Taswegians and why wouldn't it be BUT at what cost both in $s and to the environment?

From what I've now read (thanks to Cinders) I can see that the issue is largely beyond the lay person and has not been well communicated (spin included). It seems to me Gunn's have set the desperate and curmudgeonly up to fight their battle rather than attempt to reasonably approach the wider public. It is the “Why” that is instructive as to the nature and true intent of Gunn’s.

Corporations to me are like guns (they are both a tools [amoral] and/or means of plunder [immoral}).
Put guns into the hands of protected, greedy and self-interested individuals without sufficient restraints and invariably you get carnage and plunder.
As I have said elsewhere it behoves us to challenge every line of any Corporations utterances until the business culture is forced to change. Sadly concepts like ‘cash cow’ economics and “Charge the most for the least” regardless of the circumstances they will continue to behave like a hoard of marauding latter day Mongols in a cathedral.