Yes Peter you are right. Those of us who live in the Tamar valley have been sacrificed to the great god of "Gunns". It seems that our businesses, homes and health don't count as long as BIG business does well. The Pulp Mill Assesment act and especially section 11 are totally disgusting and an offence to those of us who have our homes and/or livelihoods in the district.
This is why myself, 2 neighbours and Environment Tasmania are taking the State government to the supreme court. We wrote to the state government , via our legal representatives, and asked why they approved the PMAA. We were told that because of section 11 "they don't have to answer us. EXCUSE ME!
To find out more about this case visit www.et.org.au and check out the section on the legal challenge.

Thanks for the article and the link in the comment above. I am completely furious about the way our elected representatives seem to be totally oblivious of the needs and opinions of the people they are supposed to represent. They also seem to be entirely captured by big business interests for example Rudd's pathetic 5% target.

In Victoria we are also putting up with Brumby's ridiculous plans of:
- $38 billion spent on transport - mainly roads despite Melbourne's public transport creaking at the seams with desparate passengers.
- a desalination plant that will produce 1 litre of toxic waste for every litre of water
- a massive pipeline to move water from farmlands and communities in the north to Melbourne. At least it still rains in Melbourne and water tanks and sensible stormwater solutions would work much better
- the commercial introduction of GM canola this year despite there being no studies showing it is safe to eat. It is also wind pollinated and in Canada it only took 3 years for most canola to be polluted with GM.

In all of these cases massive public opposition is ignored. Also superior alternatives are ignored. Do we really live in a democracy?

When will onlineopinion stop republishing such poorly researched and biased articles from Tasmanian Times?

Its credibility is severely tested when you only have to look at the Tamar Valley voting booths for 2007 federal election to see democracy is alive and well in the Tamar Valley and those voters supported the political parties and candidates that support the approved pulp mill.

An approval that was given by both the State Parliament and Federal Government using two assessment processes that involved both expert scientific advice and decision by elected representatives of the people.

In the Bass Electorate, the polling booth for George Town south, the nearest to the mill’s site in the Bell Bay Heavy Industrial zone, we see the lack of support for the mill’s opponents. Sven Wiener the anti pulp mill candidate received 27 of the 1254 votes cast.

At Georgetown, 83% voted to support parties that had backed the modern environmentally friendly mill.

In an election advertisement the Greens warned that a vote for the Liberal or ALP was a vote for the mill, even in the Senate where voting did not make scrap of difference to who formed Government, about 80% voted for the mill.

In Lyons, the other side of the river, the ALP’s Dick Adams, pro forestry and a strong supporter of the mill was easily returned despite having a high profile Liberal defector who stood as an independent on an anti pulp mill platform. Even combining this vote with the greens in the booths opposite the mill failed to see the anti mill vote reach 40%.

40% is an important figure in the Tasmanian forest debate; it is the amount of forest locked up by the Regional Forest Agreement in 1997. A figure 4 times that set in the Convention of Biological Diversity and endorsed by the IUCN and WWF. This means a million hectares of wild old growth forest will never be harvested and is off limits to the pulp mill.

Let’s get real, despite the rantings of Tasmanian Time contributors, the mill has been approved by Governments lawfully and democratically elected.