National News - November 2007
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20/11/07 Uniting against the mill Richard Flanagan, The Age our highlighting
18/11/07 One who sees the wood and the trees Philip Hopkins, The Age Business
18/11/07 Gunns might yet find the miller's tale has an unhappy ending James Kirby, The Sunda Age Business
14/11/07 Our rivers and gum trees must not be allowed to die, The Age Editorial
14/11/07 Murray gums dying at a rate of knots Adam Morton, The Age
Plus
National Climate 11/11/07 Key questions to ask before judging climate change policies Brendan Mackey, The Age Our highlighing
Environmental activist berates John Howard Peter Williams, AAP / Herald Sun Northern Territory; Nov 07; our highlighting
National Climate 04/11/07 Watchdog sees red over claims Peter Weekes, The Sunday Age, Business Day
Illustration: John Spooner
Richard Flanagan, The Age our highlighting
November 20, 2007
MY FAMILY comes from the roughest street in what was then the toughest suburb in Launceston — Burn Street, Invermay. There are some great Invermay sayings my Dad used tell me. One is, "Crayfish to no man." No matter how big and dirty they are, no matter how frightening they are — get up, stand up, and fight.
We have come here today not to weep for the soul of our beautiful island home, but to save it. We can stop this mill, we must stop this mill and we will stop this mill.
We have watched our Tasmania raped as they chanted their lies. Rainforest has been redefined as wet sclerophyll, old growth as mixed growth, clearfelling as aggregated retention, pillage as progress, greed as good, truth as lies, patriots as traitors.
We now know that the mill failed to meet numerous Resource Planning and Development Commission guidelines and was never capable of meeting them. We now know that Gunns' own evidence was riddled with flaws and inaccuracies. We now know this mill is a monstrosity that threatens not only our health, but also our forests, our wildlife, our seas, our water, our economy, our future.
We now know Gunns can only make money if we pay for its profits with subsidies.
In the past 20 years, $1 billion of taxpayers' money — our money — has gone in subsidies to the Tasmanian forestry industry, an industry that destroys more and more, employs fewer and fewer and takes everything.The Australian Medical Association has warned Tasmania's political leaders that they will be personally responsible for any health problems arising from the pulp mill
. Only in Tasmania, instead of giving money to the hospitals to make the sick well, would a government give money to a company to make the well sick.They said they care about forestry jobs. But no Gunns representative, no government spokesman, no CFMEU brother stood up for logging workers last year when they went to the wall as Gunns slashed its contracts.
Nearly two decades after its then chairman Eddie Rouse's failed attempt to corrupt Parliament, Gunns now is so powerful that leading national politicians of all persuasions acknowledge that the real power in Tasmania is not the Government but Gunns itself. This goes beyond the sizeable donations Gunns makes to both main parties, in Tasmania and nationally.
As former Labor leader Mark Latham has ruefully said: "No policy issue or set of relationships better demonstrates the ethical decline and political corruption of the Australian Labor movement than Tasmanian forestry."
Who can blame even the powerful being scared? Former Tasmanian Liberal leader Bob Cheek recalls how "the state's misguided forestry policy was ruthlessly policed by Gunns", how fearful the politicians were of the forest lobby.
But Tasmania is not one company's fiefdom. We have suffered for too many years their seeking to make us forget that what joins us is always greater than what divides us, that forest worker and tree sitter, union man and greenie woman, southerner and northerner, Liberal and Labor and Green all share a great love for our island and our people.
We must come together, whatever our politics, and bring this rotten era to an end. Let us no longer support their crimes with our silence; let us no longer give succour to evil through our inaction; let us now act, for if we do not, we will, finally, only have ourselves to blame.
Tasmania is saying to the rest of Australia: we do not want this pulp mill. We want a royal commission, because nothing other than a royal commission will establish the truth, because nothing less can now clear away the stench that surrounds this project, and nothing less will allow Tasmania — it political parties, its Parliament and its people — to have a new beginning.
If you care about the heart of this great country on election day do not vote for any candidate of any party that supports the pulp mill. How can it be that you can be sacked by Kevin Rudd from the ALP for having a cappuccino with Brian Burke but if you have your mansion renovated by Gunns you can be promised over $80 million primarily to transport by rail the fallen southern forests to the pulp mill, as the Lennon Government recently was by Martin Ferguson?
How can Rudd claim to be concerned about climate change when he is promising more subsidies to a pulp mill that will burn half a million tonnes of forest a year in its electricity generator?
How can it be that the forest John Howard promised to save in 2004 is being logged today? How can it be that the forestry jobs Howard promised to save were sacrificed by Gunns when it slashed its contracts in 2005 and no one held Howard accountable?
It can be this way because both Labor and Liberal leadership dance to the donor — and Tasmania pays the cost with the highest unemployment rates and the greatest levels of poverty in the nation.
If the clearly expressed view of the majority of Tasmanians does not persuade the government that takes office next week, we will take the fight to Australia and we will take the fight to the world.
And if, in the end, all other avenues are denied us, if it takes standing on the road to the pulp mill site and placing our bodies between their machines and our home, we will stand there, in peace and with pride, joined in our love for our island. And if we are arrested and thrown in jail, then we will go to jail in our tens, we will go to jail in our hundreds, we will go to jail in our thousands, and Paul Lennon will have to build seven new prisons to house all the people who will come and who will keep on coming before they even attempt to pour the foundations of one new pulp mill.
Patricia Caswell.
Photo: Ken Irwin
Philip Hopkins, The Age Business
November 17, 2007
ENVIRONMENTALIST Trish Caswell still laughs when she remembers the reaction of her "greenie" mates when she decided to become chief of Victoria's native forest timber industry.
"Many thought, 'Trish has always been a bit odd, and we'll forgive her her misdemeanours, and anyway, it's got to be done'," she says.
Now, almost four years later as she prepares to quit as chief executive of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, Caswell is confident she has not lost too many friends. "I do feel sometimes quite lonely, although that's only fleeting," she says.
Changing course dramatically has been a characteristic of Caswell's career. Her old trade union mates were surprised when she decided to become executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation. She was representing Latrobe Valley power workers at the time. "They had to stand at the bar for many hours to get over it," she says.
If there is one theme running through Caswell's career, it's the growing realisation of the need for dialogue and alliances.
"When I went to the environment movement, I fought hard battles, as I did in the union movement, but more and more I was becoming weary of having everything as dramatic conflict to make progress," she says. "A lot of false conflict was created."
Caswell, a working-class girl from Queensland, started her career as a teacher in Catholic schools, later moving on to TAFE and tertiary teaching.
A stint as secretary of the Technical Teachers Union was the catalyst to 13 years in the trade union movement. "The union movement was fantastic to me. It taught me how economics and policy works, what leadership means," she says.
Working with the then ACTU leadership of Jenny George and Bill Kelty, she became more interested in the relationship between the environment, jobs and the community. "When I left the ACF, I thought, these issues have got to come together," she says.
Caswell spent some time with international aid and foster parents agency Plan International, working in Africa, South America and Asia.
"Plan is very good in the field. Welfare does great work, but it does not create economies. These countries will not survive just on aid," she says.
This experience also brought Caswell to a belief in the nexus between the environment and sustainability in all societies, but particularly the developing world.
She subsequently went to RMIT to set up the Global Sustainability Institute, which aimed to bring together the triple bottom line — economy, society and the environment.
"A number of people from industry came to me to help them get on the right sustainability track," she says. These included then WMC chief Hugh Morgan.
Despite initial suspicions, Caswell credits Morgan with leading the mining industry's dramatically improved environmental performance in Australia. In turn, this influenced world mining practices.
"That taught me that when people said they were going to change, they meant they were going to do it," she says. "It was not token or greenwash." WMC won environmental reporting awards in the 1990s.
BHP subsequently came on board, getting help from Caswell to extract itself from the disastrous Ok Tedi mine experience in Papua New Guinea, and getting involved with corporate social responsibility.
It was about this time that the approach from VAFI came. "VAFI wanted to rethink where they were, particularly on sustainability," she says, although they had already made much progress.
Caswell has driven the production of formal VAFI sustainability reports over the past three years, setting targets and subsequently checking whether they have been met.
"Hopefully, they now help people run their business differently, secure community support and understanding, and help the industry be open and transparent," she says.
"It's historically been seen to be doing secret deals about timber sales. That doesn't apply in Victoria any more, not that that's part of my doing, but it's part of the progress that's been made." However, she believes VicForests' auction system has huge thorns and must be re-examined. Timber supply is still restricted and the system favours the big bidders, meaning too many mills lose out.
Caswell hopes the many VAFI seminars, the website and the bulletins have helped reduce the isolation of the industry. Communications with federal and state politicians and seminars with people outside the industry, and a community council, have been guided by her experience from the mining industry.
Caswell says environment management systems are being set up in all the mills. "They are already good manufacturing sites. They recycle their water, they have almost no waste, they use their own renewable biomass for heating and sometimes even energy."
Caswell says the industry has changed massively over the past 20 years and its achievements have not been recognised. "We have significant reserve systems. There are very strict codes and benchmarks, but there will always need to be improvements, new methods that are environmentally sound," she says.
"The whole question of forest management, whether protected or production forests, needs to be part of the rethink. It's not just how timber is used, but how the whole forestry management is viewed. Forest fires are not going to go away, but forests have to be managed differently."
Caswell says one lesson she has learnt in the forest industry is that there is very little shared compassion for regional and isolated communities that do it hard.
"I find that troubling, and I think most people in the city would feel more compassionate if they could understand that family companies who have invested in forestry have done a fabulous job on all kinds of ways as the industry changes," she says.
Caswell plans to set up her own consultancy as a sustainability expert. "I do not want to be a big bureaucracy, I want to do projects I can contribute to in my own way," she says. "I'm keen to work with industry, but not by demanding of industry. It will be more advisory than anything like a management position."
Caswell says she will never forget the lessons she has learnt from the native timber industry. "I want to make it clear to other industries who think they will never be in the gun, but they will be, as it becomes clear it becomes clearer that everyone will have to change in a carbon-constrained world," she says.
Caswell has been evolving away from the conflict model personally and professionally for a long time. "My daughter goes on demonstrations, but I'm foot weary. There might be a couple of things that would get me on the streets, but they would have to be really threatening," she says.
"I want to do other things other than just shout and oppose. There will always be opposition and the high moral ground, but I don't want, as a professional, to spend the rest of my time doing that."
Born Brisbane, 1948.
Education Attended Western State School and a local high school before going to the University of Queensland, where she studied English and history and became involved in theatre and drama.
Marital status Married.
Job History At 20, became a teacher in Darwin, later teaching in WA and Victoria. Entered the trade union movement in about 1978, becoming a Trades Hall Council member and on the ACTU executive.
1992-95 Executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
1995-2000 With aid agency Plan International, working in Africa, South America and Asia.
2000-2004 Headed RMIT global sustainability unit.
April 2004 Became Victorian Association of Forest Industries chief executive, resigning in October 2007
James Kirby, The Sunda Age Business
November 18, 2007
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THE commercial logic of Tasmania's new pulp mill is crumbling by the day. If only Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull could have delayed his approval for the monster mill a few more months, he might have saved himself a lot of bother.
It's extraordinary really, but in the six weeks since Turnbull signed off on the application from Gunns Ltd, bankers to the mill are dithering, while the builder doesn't think it will go ahead.
While Gunns chief executive John Gay has been looking over his shoulder threatening court action against environmentalists, he should have been looking straight ahead, because some stockbrokers have been losing faith in the company and are now arguing the mill could be a flop.
The backlash against Gunns from inside the market is based on fears that current high pulp prices cannot be sustained; forecasters believe pulp prices will begin a steep plunge in two year's time, just as the mill is set to open.
Of course, most brokers are keeping their mouths shut tight in the lead up to an election where the mill is a controversial issue. But the stockmarket never lies. After a false start when Gunns stock jumped more than 10% in the wake of the approval, the stock has been drifting down from almost $4 to $3.65.
In fact, nothing is going right for Gunns. The rising Australian dollar makes our pulp exports dearer, while rising interest rates and a crisis in the credit market mean the cost of finance is getting stretched.
But worst of all, new suppliers — such as the world's biggest pulp company Aracruz of South America — are gearing up production in a move that will ultimately push pulp prices down from today's buoyant levels. Some forecasters believe pulp prices could fall from today's $US860 a tonne down to US$600.
Stockbrokers UBS suggest the delays and amendments prior to Turnbull's approval will cost Gunns an extra $200 million, while Charlie Aitken of Southern Cross Equities says: "There's a growing chance they commission the new mill right when pulp prices collapse. I think the Gunns board has taken a pretty big risk with the mill go-ahead."
Worse still, the sheer capacity of the proposed $2 billion mill means there is a strong argument that it will actually accelerate the collapse of global pulp prices.
Gunns management did not respond to my calls and I'm sure Gay will not pull the plug on his own project. But someone else might. ANZ — the lead financier — is having second thoughts. New ANZ chief executive Mike Smith has been flooded with email petitions from greenies urging him to reconsider a loan to Gunns and the bank is doing a special review of the deal. Smith could now mount an argument for backing out on financial grounds alone.
Meanwhile, Wal King — boss of the Leighton group of companies — speaking a few days ago at his own results meeting, said what many people might if they were brave enough. "There's lots and lots of time to go by before it's built, if it's ever built," said King. And he's supposed to be the mill's building contractor.
Our rivers and gum trees must not be allowed to die
November 14, 2007
The Age editorial
The drought is exacting its toll on the natural environment. Humans have a duty not to exacerbate the crisis.
IT IS A common enough expression — "I'm dying of thirst" — and one that is true enough in sentiment if not degree. Yet, as this newspaper has revealed, there are areas of Victoria where dying of thirst is not exaggeration but reality.
It is not the human species that is at risk but Eucalyptus camaldulensis, or the river red gum. A new report has found that less than a third of river red gums on the state's Murray River flood plain are healthy. The trees are suffering from lack of water brought about most obviously by drought, and less obviously by management of water resources. The CSIRO, in a paper on the river red gums, warns that the "loss of large tracts of the species in the Murray River corridor would have a major impact on the hydrology of the system as well as on vegetation communities and associated biodiversity".
The dry, hard grasp of this drought not only on Victoria but Australia is creating stress lines that run from creeks to kitchens. It affects the natural and man-made environment. It is to the latter — conceding that rain is in the hands of the gods — help must come. Another report in The Age this week raised the possibility of grave consequences for the Yarra River if it were denied further environmental flows. Huge numbers of fish deaths, and pollution, were possible, a Melbourne Water report forecast, if the river's health worsened. The warning coincided with the disclosure on Monday by state Environment Minister Gavin Jennings that from last Friday flow into the Yarra had been cut by 45 million litres a day. This was an emergency measure, which had been flagged a month ago. Water Minister Tim Holding, in a letter to the agriculture and environment ministers, said the Government would block 10 billion litres of flows this financial year to avert a move to stage 4 restrictions. The city is to remain on stage 3a until next June. Eighteen months ago the Government, rather more in hope than through realistic thinking, said it would maintain the Yarra's health by flushing 20 billion litres a year into it. Another 46 billion litres was to go into the state's other rivers.
The Government has found itself caught between a rock and hard place in a dry riverbed: to safeguard water supplies, it is sacrificing the rivers. Guarantees of environmental flows are meaningless unless these are available when water is scarce. Mr Jennings says the environment has to shoulder some of the burden during drought. He might also have said it has to shoulder all of the burden. Rivers and the biodiversity associated with them need environmental flows to survive. Once a river dries up that endangers all the flora and fauna that live off it. The CSIRO also produced recently an assessment of the Wimmera's water resources in which it predicted a 21 per cent reduction by 2030, compared with long-term averages. It is in that kind of reality that authorities now have to work.
A report due to be published on Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change will say that a rise in temperature of more than 2 degrees is now expected to occur before the middle of this century. If that happens, one-fifth of the global population will face the consequences of drought, cereal harvests will decline and the frequency and severity of floods will increase in other areas.
The report by the IPCC — comprising 2500 scientists — a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, says that if greenhouse gas emissions begin to fall before 2015 there will be a chance to stop global warming. But, given the rate of emissions, this was unlikely and, it says, 33 per cent of species may face extinction.
Good management is balancing human needs against those of the natural world. Human endeavours, especially in the business and industry world, can be adjusted to take into account this crisis. It seems that the hardest part for political leaders to divine is that humans are part of the environment. Therefore, they are part of the problem and the solution.
Murray gums dying at a rate of knots
Adam Morton, The Age
November 14, 2007
TWO new reports that paint a dire picture of the Murray River say 70 per cent of red gum forest on Australia's greatest waterway is in poor health and declining.
According to a leaked copy of the most comprehensive analysis of Victorian Murray River red gums undertaken, 54 per cent of the forest is in a deteriorating state, while 16 per cent is rated poor to dead.
Commissioned by the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment and four northern catchment management authorities, the report says rainfall and flooding levels are insufficient for gums to stay healthy west of Yarrawonga.
A second report, by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, found only 5 per cent of vegetation was healthy in the national park at Hattah Lakes, near Mildura, while 76 per cent was in a poor to degraded condition. The reports come to light just weeks after Premier John Brumby rejected draft recommendations by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council to flood the Murray with billions of litres of water.
Australian Conservation Foundation healthy ecosystems program manager Paul Sinclair said the reports highlighted the lack of political will to return water to the river, despite rhetoric at federal and state levels.
He slammed the Howard Government for pledging to spend $10 billion to return water to the Murray-Darling Basin but planning to spend only 5 per cent in the next parliamentary term. Federal Labor has backed the Coalition's pledge.
"Have we got a crisis or not? The Murray is world's best practice environmental disaster unfolding before our eyes, and our nation and state leaders are refusing to take the action required to fix the problem," he said.
The comprehensive analysis, headed by Monash University botanist Shaun Cunningham, surveyed 140 randomly selected river sites between June and October last year. Dr Cunningham said it showed long-term regulation of the Murray combined with severe drought had left the gums — mainland Australia's most widely distributed eucalypt — in dire condition.
He called for industrial, agricultural and domestic water savings to help the river.
"If they don't get more water than they are getting now, they are going to continue to decline," he said. The health of red gums has declined for 20 years, as Murray flows have fallen by more than 50 per cent.
The Murray-Darling Basin Commission's Living Murray program, established in 2002 to improve flows by 500 gigalitres by 2009, has failed to halt the river's decline but has had some results, improving aquatic vegetation at Hattah Lakes, providing for fish and waterbirds.
Murray-Darling Basin Commission chief executive Wendy Craik said some flows had been returned but the drought was taking its toll. "This year might be the straw that broke the camel's back," she said.
The Victorian Environment Assessment Council made draft recommendations in July that dying red gums be saved through the creation of four national parks, reducing logging and the injection of 4000 billion litres of water every five years. Mr Brumby said the Government would look to a "balanced outcome" but rejected the water recommendations.
A spokeswoman for Environment Minister Gavin Jennings last night said $600 million had been invested in Victoria's environment since 2002. "What is needed more than anything else is more rain," spokeswoman Stacy Hume said.