State News - October 2006
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11/10/06 Firefighters turn to ocean, The Age 10/10/06 Suspicious blaze burning in Prom Reko Rennie, The Age 10/10/06 Gala Performance: Miss Management and Scott Free, MEDIA RELEASE Friends of the Earth Melbourne
09/10/06 Perth dreaming, Kenneth Nguyen, The Age Western Australia ; Victoria;
07/10/06 Heatwave to sweep Australia next week AAP
05/10/06 Grampians blaze might be arson, Reko Rennie, The Age Central Uplands
05/10/06 Power plan: credits, where they are due Vanessa Burrow, The Age Business
05/10/06 Cardboard war gets more intense on several fronts
04/10/06 Union ruffled by Amcor 'A-team'
03/10/06 Amcor steps back from green-spy accusations, Michael Bachelard, The Age
02/10/06 Climate Change brings more bushfires EV Media Release
02/10/06 Revealed: spying on Greens, Michael Bachelard, The Age, Lead Article
02/10/06 The chips are down for old-growth forest sector, Rod Myer, The Age, Business, Lead Article
01/10/06 Popularity of cardboard king warps under scrutiny David Potts The Age Business
October 11, 2006 - 9:19AM,The Age
Firefighters will today use sea water to soak containment lines around a fire that has destroyed remote bushland at Wilsons Promontory National Park in Victoria as a warm spell descends on the state.
Gusty northerly winds and temperatures in the low-to-mid 30s are expected across Victoria, the first of three predicted warm days that could keep fire services busy, Department of Sustainability and Environment state duty officer Andrew Graystone said today.
A fire burning in remote country near Larkins Cove, on the south-east tip of the Wilsons Promontory National Park, was contained about 7pm (AEST) yesterday, Mr Graystone said.
The fire destroyed about 25 hectares of bush, Mr Graystone said.
About 35 firefighters will work today to strengthen containment lines around the fire, he said.
"Today we will be hosing the lines, using water pumped from the ocean to saturate the containment lines," he said.
"We'll have people there for a few days. There are quite deep fuels where the fire is burning."
Fire weather warnings have been issued across northern Victoria today, with more severe weather predicted for tomorrow, Mr Graystone said.
"For October, it's quite serious. We are worried about strong winds from the north, which bring the hot weather. Conditions are expected to worsen tomorrow," he said.
"Any fires that begin today could cause problems for us tomorrow."
AAP
Reko Rennie, The Age
October 10, 2006 - 2:54PM
Fifty emergency workers are battling a suspicious fire burning in remote bushland at Wilsons Promontory.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment is investigating the fire, near Larkins Cove and Refuge Cove on the eastern coast of Wilsons Promontory.
DSE emergency coordination manager Rachaele May told theage.com.au the fire has burnt 20 hectares of bush in an area that is inaccessible by vehicles.
"It's located in a really remote and inaccessible part of Wilsons Prom — so remote, in fact, we can't get any vehicles down there and we've had to take crews in by motorbike, helicopter and boat from Welshpool."
Ms May said an expected wind change and tomorrow's warmer conditions are a concern to emergency workers fighting the blaze.
"We're expecting a wind change later and that would push the wind in a north to north-westerly direction into unburnt country, which could give us some difficulties because the fuel loads are higher there," she said.
"Because it's so inaccessible we've only got crews working by hand, so that means they have to do a really good job with their hand trails. They're putting in a dirt track around the fire."
Temperatures across Victoria are expected to exceed 30c tomorrow and Thursday.
The difficult terrain has slowed efforts to contain the fire.
"Firefighting without vehicles not only hampers our efforts to actually put the fire out, but it means that we have to be very careful that we are not risking the safety of our crews," said Ms May.
DSE has informed walkers and campers of the possible fire risks in the area but has not had to evacuate anyone.
theage.com.au
MEDIA RELEASE
Friends of the Earth Melbourne
Environmentalists will stage a slap-stick circus performance for Premier Bracks today, in which beauty pageant winner Miss Management plays the government’s star red gum forest manager. Scott Free will be on hand to wipe away cases of illegal logging blunders with his trusty internal inquiries.
"Illegal logging blunders have become commonplace in the Barmah Forest, and yet all we get from the Bracks government are inquiries recommending more inquiries – it’s farcical," said Friends of Earth Spokesperson Jonathan La Nauze.
"Our red gum forests are being mismanaged by a reckless department, and the Bracks government seems reluctant to reign them in," said Mr La Nauze.
Friends of the Earth have been urging the Environment Minister to meet them regarding the management of red gum forests, but he has failed to respond.
"Our red gum forests can’t wait for another breach and another inquiry – Bracks must protect these forests from logging now," said Mr La Nauze.
Contact: Jonathan La Nauze 0402 904 251 or emailjonathan.lanauze@foe.org.au Jonathan La Nauze Barmah-Millewa Campaign Coordinator Friends of the Earth Melbourne 312 Smith St / PO Box 222 Fitzroy 3065 melbourne.foe.org.au Ph: +61 3 9419 8700 Fax: +61 3 9416 2081 Mob: +61 402 904 251 Office Hours: Tues-Thurs 10-6
Perth dreaming
October 9, 2006, The Age
The Federal Court has awarded the Noongar people native title over Perth and surrounding areas. With politicians ramping up the rhetoric and the decision set to be appealed, Kenneth Nguyen examines the findings and implications of the landmark case.
Q: What is all the fuss over?
However, we should put this decision in context. It's not the first time that native title has been established in an area considered "settled". Indigenous Australians have previously established native title claims in towns and cities, including Broome and Alice Springs.
Q: What does the decision mean for the Noongar?
On land where native title survives, the Noongar will be able to conduct traditional activities. These include:
- Accessing and living on the land.
- Conserving and using the natural resources of the land.
- Hunting, fishing and food gathering.
- Maintaining and protecting significant sites.
- Teaching about the land and the laws and customs pertaining to it.
- Learning about the land.
- Controlling the access of Aborigines who seek to use the land for traditional purposes.
Like all native title holders, the Noongar do not have any right to sell or lease the land, or to develop or use it for any non-traditional purpose. (In other words, there will be no Aboriginal casinos like those seen on some Native American reservations in the US.) And of course, they don't have any rights over land where native title has been extinguished.
Q: Where has native title been extinguished? Are backyards under threat?
Native title is wholly extinguished by freehold grants, most Crown leases and the vesting of reserves, among other things. Native title will be partially extinguished (that is, to the extent of any inconsistency) by the grant of other titles, such as mining titles.
In his judgement, Wilcox wrote: "Having regard to the extent of urban development and intensive farming in the claim area, the result is that a large proportion of the land within the claim area (the Perth metropolitan area) is unaffected by (the claim)."
Law firms agree with Wilcox's analysis. In a brief paper for its clients, corporate law firm Deacons has advised that "the native title rights of the Noongar people over Perth will have little to no impact on West Australian residents". Similarly, toptier firm Freehills have written that: "The rights of holders of validly granted titles will prevail over any native title rights and interests, and the holders of those titles are entitled to exercise those rights without interference from the native title claimants."
Q: So why are the Federal Government and the WA Government so worried?
Q: What about public land? Is it true that Aborigines with native title rights might be able to exclude others from some parks and beaches?
But Ruddock has also made the point that "it's unlikely that exclusive native title rights can be found over areas which have been specifically reserved or dedicated for public purposes".
That is likely to be the situation for practically all beaches and certainly all national parks. For example, one might look to Broome, where native title has been established by theYawuru people. The beach is certainly safe for all there, with the Federal Court clearly stating the Yawuru has no exclusive possession over the beach.
Q: What are the governments doing now?
Q: Are the politicians right? Is Wilcox's decision inconsistent with the High Court's precedent?
The Noongar people, however, could show continued observance of their laws and customs, albeit in modified, attenuated form since Crown sovereignty. Same principle, but different facts, and hence a different outcome. Still, time will tell as to whether there was any less obvious inconsistency in Wilcox's decision.
Q: What does this all mean for Melbourne?
Moreover, circumstances in WA gave the Noongar some unique advantages in establishing their continued traditional connection to the land, which won't hold true in other locations. First, Crown sovereignty came relatively late to WA, in 1829. Second, there was a wealth of written material left to contemporary historians by Europeans who visited the Noongar's claim area from the time of settlement through the later 19th and early 20th centuries; this material established the Noongar traditions.
Wilcox wrote: "The cumulative effect of these writings is to provide an insight into Aboriginal life, including Aboriginal laws and customs, in and about the date of settlement, which is possibly not replicated elsewhere in Australia." One might note that "elsewhere in Australia" includes Melbourne.
The upshot of all this? Some Aborigines may be encouraged by the Noongars' success into bringing a native title claim in Melbourne. But their chances of successfully establishing such a claim are as remote as ever.
THE HISTORIC NATIVE TITLE CASES
October 7, 2006 - 9:30PM, AAP
Australia's southern and eastern states should prepare for a heatwave next week, meteorologists say.
Temperatures will soar into the 30s in Western Australia early in the week, especially along the west and south coasts, forecaster Weatherzone said in a statement.
South Australia will bear the brunt of the scorching conditions on Wednesday, with temperatures climbing into the low 40s, it said.
The heatwave will move across to NSW and Victoria on Thursday and Friday, with temperatures in the low to mid 30s expected, Weatherzone said.
Meteorologist Matt Pearce said the heat had been building over the Pilbara in recent weeks, with mid-40s temperatures.
"Northwesterly winds will then drag this hot air down across the southern and eastern states next week," he said.
"It is possible that some high temperature records will be broken, especially in South Australia on Wednesday and NSW on Thursday."
Reko Rennie, The Age
October 5, 2006 - 2:00PM
Victorian firefighters are investigating the possibility that several of this week's fires in the the state's north were deliberately lit, amid warnings of a difficult summer ahead.
Country Fire Authority deputy chief officer, Craig Lapsley told theage.com.au the Department of Sustainability and Environment was investigating the cause of yesterday's fires that burnt 117 hectares of Grampians National Park.
"On Sunday there was a number of fires started north of this fire that was yesterday in Roses Gap (near Hall's Gap), they were being investigated as being deliberate and there's no conclusive evidence of that at this stage,'' Mr Lapsley said.
"So it appears that Sunday's fires had a look about that someone had lit them and yesterday's fire was from a previous burn that's being investigated.''
More than 100 DSE and CFA volunteers fought the fire, which started yesterday as a total fire ban came into place in the state's north-west, the earliest in the summer season that such a ban has been imposed.
Yesterday's weather conditions increased the chance of fire and emergency services battled high winds and heat through the night to contain the fire. The fire was one of more than 100 fires throughout the state.
A cool change late yesterday and overnight helped emergency services control the fire and by 6am today the fire was under control but emergency services intended keeping a close eye on it until it was extinguished.
The CFA and Department of Sustainability and Environment expect five days of a cooler conditions, until next Wednesday when there is a forecast of north-westerly winds and a high of 27.
Long, hot summer
Weather, vigilance and reducing fuel are the key factors to reducing fires in the state over the summer months, Mr Lapsley said.
The CFA deputy chief officer said 10 years of drought conditions hasn't helped. ``It's climatic and it's long term, it's not just one season and we've noticed the fire intensity, the fire behaviour, is more erratic ... a lot harder to control and also become more unpredictable as a fire.
"We've certainly noticed that from 2003 and again last year with the Grampians fires they were erratic fires and on the high fire danger days, we suffered a lot of losses, a lot of country was burnt, and all of our efforts didn't control them on those really bad days.''
Yesterday's fire north of Hall's Gap - close to the site of last year's fires - took more than a 100 emergency services to control.
"So the message from that is people need to be very vigilant. We certainly rely on the community to be very vigilant about reporting fires as well, so small fires are reported and don't become big fires,'' Mr Lapsley said.
DSE overnight incident controller, Phillip Timpano said: "It's just amazing having a total fire ban in the season so early and I suppose a very timely reminder for people to have a bit of a look around their properties and yards and start doing that spring clean."
theage.com.au
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Greenhouse emissions are sky-high.
Photo: Rob Homer
Renewables scheme on track despite price drop
Vanessa Burrow, The Age Business
October 5, 2006
CLEAN energy retailers and brokers will tap into a new source of income from January 1, when renewable energy trading begins in Victoria.
Under the Victorian Renewable Energy Target scheme (VRET), companies generating environmentally friendly energy will earn credits, worth an estimated $35-$43 each, that electricity retailers must buy.
Clean-energy suppliers will earn credits for each megawatt hour of clean energy they generate. Once they have accumulated a quantity of certificates, they can them sell them to electricity retailers such as Australian Gas Light or Origin Energy.
The certificates provide renewable energy companies with a source of income in addition to what they gain from selling electricity.
Under VRET, unless retailers buy 10 per cent of their electricity from clean suppliers they face a Government-imposed penalty, initially set at $43 for each missing certificate.
By 2016 the Government wants 10 per cent of the state's electricity consumption to be met by wind, hydro and other environmentally friendly power generation methods, reducing greenhouse emissions by about 27 million tonnes.
AGL emerging markets manager Marc Barrington said few consumers knew what VRET or the Federal Government's Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) schemes actually did. And Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) executive director Riccardo Brazzale said that — despite the relative success of existing carbon markets and the introduction of Victoria's renewable energy market — more had to be done to manage global warming.
"We need to be more ambitious because the schemes we have in place are a really good start, but they're not even stabilising greenhouse emissions yet — greenhouse emissions are still rising," he said.
In its 2006 Carbon Markets Report, the BCSE said the VRET legislation passed by the Victorian Government places an obligation on electricity retailers to buy electricity from renewable sources. "The legislation is largely a carbon copy of the federal MRET legislation," the report stated.
Marianne Lourey, of the Department of Infrastructure's energy and security division, said that since VRET was locked in there had been announcements about four wind farm projects planned for Waubra, Naroghid near Camperdown, Mount Gellibrand near Colac and a community project in Hepburn. An announcement has also been made about a hydro-electric power station at Bogong in the state's north-east.
Once completed, these projects will begin earning VRET credits, which can then be sold on to energy retailers.
The latest polling from the Lowy Institute shows Australians care about climate change. Two-thirds of respondents said global warming was a "serious and pressing problem".
Amcor says it hasn't seen the writ yet.
Photo: Peter Morris
Leonie Wood, The Age Business
October 5, 2006
VISY Industries has launched a new legal battle against arch-rival Amcor with explosive allegations that the paper and packaging group, via a former Visy employee, unlawfully obtained confidential information about Visy's operations.
The new case, initiated yesterday in the Federal Court, alleges that former Visy manager John Morriss, who became a senior Amcor manager in 1998, relayed information about Visy's business, customers, pricing, sales, costs and contracts to senior executives at Amcor from 1997 until he quit Amcor in January 2000.
Visy alleges the information was used in 1998 by senior Amcor executives in the corrugated fibre packaging business, including Peter Brown and Jim Hodgson, and that four years later Mr Hodgson relied on it when he lobbied Amcor's board to restructure the cardboard box division, close factories and retrench staff.
This is the latest in an increasingly complex series of cases that have entangled Australia's two biggest packaging groups since 2004, when Amcor told the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that for four years it apparently had participated in a price-fixing cartel with Visy.
On one front, the ACCC is suing Visy, its founder Richard Pratt and two other Visy managers for price fixing, although the case is not likely to begin until next year. Visy denies that it participated in a cartel, and claims that whatever actions or words it relayed to Amcor managers during that four years, and that have been interpreted as participation in a cartel, were merely a ploy to throw Amcor off its trail.
Revelations of the cartel activity emerged in 2004 when Amcor obtained court orders to raid the premises of five former employees — Mr Hodgson, Trevor Barnes, Christopher Bayley, Albert Mihelic and Ian Sangster — who planned to set up their own consultancy to the packaging industry.
Amcor's lawyers seized many documents during the raids, and
unexpectedly discovered recordings of conversations that apparently incriminated the company in deals where Amcor and Visy co-operated on fixing prices and agreed not to compete for certain customers.
Amcor sacked several executives at the time, including then chief executive Russell Jones, Peter Jones and consultant Peter Sutton.
Visy's new claim alleges that Mr Morriss, who was in charge of Visy's Victorian operations from 1989 until he resigned in January 1996, breached his fiduciary duties to Visy by leaking information to Mr Brown before he secured a new job at Amcor in January 1998.
Visy claims that senior Amcor executives used the secret information in presentations to former Amcor CEO Mr Jones and the Amcor board.
Mr Morriss said last night he did not know anything about Visy's claims and had not seen the writ.
Visy's writ alleges that on September 8 it asked Amcor to confirm or deny that it had obtained confidential Visy information from Mr Morriss and to hand it over. It says that six days later Amcor replied, saying it did not accept Visy's allegations.
A spokesman for Amcor last night said the company had not yet been served with the writ.
Separately, Mr Hodgson, who was nudged out of Amcor in August 2004, is suing Amcor for wrongful dismissal. He recently filed documents suggesting it was Amcor, not Visy, that initiated the cartel.
On yet another front, Amcor is facing a damages claim related to its cartel behaviour. Jarra Creek Packaging yesterday obtained permission from a Federal Court judge to access certain affidavits, exhibits and closed-court transcripts that emerged in Amcor's original bid of two years ago when it stopped the five former managers from using what it said was confidential information about Amcor's pricing structures and customer contracts.
As well, revelations emerged this week that Amcor secretly commissioned a team of employees to infiltrate environmental groups in its bid to influence government decisions about forestry access and help it secure long-term hardwood supplies.
Michael Bachelard, The Age
October 4, 2006
THE close relationship between packaging company Amcor and the timber workers' union that formed the notorious "A-team" fell apart over three years because of increasingly acrimonious disputes about policy and power.
Documents show tensions first arose in 1996 over the use of imported Indonesian wood pulp at the Maryvale paper mill, and ended in about 1999 with the union refusing to co-operate with the A-team.
The ABC's Four Corners revealed on Monday that the A-team, co-founded by the company and the pulp and paper division of the CFMEU, infiltrated the ALP, green groups and forest protests, and that its leader, Derek Amos, had engaged in bribery in Indonesia to shore up the company's supply of native hardwood.
Documents also reveal that the A-team was not the only group Amcor funded: two other lobby groups, Pact and Taspeac, were given a total of $190,000 to lobby on behalf of workers and the company in Tasmania.
The documents show the rift between the timber union and the A-team started over the team's policy regarding the import of Indonesian pulp. The former Maryvale secretary of the CFMEU's pulp and paper division, Graeme Morley, complained to A-team spokesman Chris Moody in July 1996 that his position on the issue did not reflect union policy.
"You are … directed to consult with the union at all times on issues of significance before making public releases of any nature," Mr Morley wrote.
But Mr Moody said he believed the union was attempting to "take control of the A-team committee, direct its operations and use the group as an extension of the union".
By early 1997, a subsequent union secretary, Ian Moule, was threatening to withdraw support from the A-team. By this stage the unions were also fighting. One letter shows that the engine drivers' division of the CFMEU was alarmed at the pulp and paper division's "disruptive action", saying it could "jeopardise our common focus and ruin a united lobby group".
In August 1998, Mr Moule refused to co-operate with the company on initiatives such as resource security and anti-dumping. At the time, the CFMEU was in dispute with Amcor over job security provisions in an enterprise agreement.
Amcor's paper operations were spun out into a new company, Paperlinx, in 2000. The A-team dissolved in 2001.
Michael Bachelard, The Age
October 3, 2006
MULTINATIONAL packaging company Amcor has refused to admit any involvement in corporate spying on green groups in the 1990s, saying the so-called "A team" was set up under previous management.
The A-team, funded and supported by Amcor and the forestry division of the CFMEU, ran a decade-long "elaborate covert campaign to spy on and sabotage environmental groups, to infiltrate political parties and to damage Amcor's corporate competitors," the ABC's Four Corners reported last night.
Documents show Amcor paid out $300,000 a year to fund the group, which ran public and covert operations out of offices supplied by Amcor at the Maryvale pulp mill.
Two former Amcor chief executives, Stan Wallis and Russell Jones, declined to comment about the group their company set up. Mr Jones said: "I'm out of that, I've got no comment," and Mr Wallis said: "It's a long time since I was there." Forestry union secretary Michael O'Connor also ducked questions about the group his union supported and his members staffed.
A former forest campaigner with Environment Victoria, Dr Barry Traill, blamed Mr O'Connor and his relationship with the employers for a "lost decade of conflict" in the forest debate.
"There has been more conflict, more logging, and slower movement to go to plantation logging," he said. "But mills are still closing down … the alliance between the CFMEU and the employers has been at the heart of it."
Dr Traill was in charge of Environment Victoria's forest campaign when the A-team's spy, a young woman named Tracy, was acting as a volunteer.
"Originally we were a bit puzzled because she was a working-class girl, and we mostly get middle-class volunteers," Dr Traill said. "More particularly, there was no obvious connection with the environment — she would say, 'I just like it'."
However, Dr Traill said, Environment Victoria was "very conscious of the A-team and its operations".
"It was very clearly and publicly an industry and union alliance which I thought especially dodgy. Why is the union overtly seeking to oppose and publicly
intimidate community groups?"
Climate Change brings more bushfires
Monday October 2, 2006:
Climate change is already impacting Victoria with Premier Steve Bracks today extending the declared bushfire season.
Formal fire danger periods and fire restrictions will be introduced in about a fortnight – a month earlier than last year – in the wake of CSIRO predictions we will face a 25 per cent increase in extreme risk days by 2020.
Environment Victoria has welcomed the announcement which acknowledges the impact of climate change and the need for action.
Executive director Marcus Godinho said human-induced climate change was causing higher temperatures, drier forests and stronger winds which add to our risk of bushfires.
"We welcome Premier Bracks’ acknowledgement of climate change. Now the test of his leadership lies in his party’s policies to tackle our climate crisis.’’
Environment Victoria is calling on all political parties to adopt strong mandatory targets to reduce Victoria’s greenhouse pollution 20 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050.
``To reduce our global warming pollution all parties must adopt strong energy saving measures. More greenhouse pollution comes from producing electricity than any other source in Victoria.’’
Mr Godinho said Victorian homes and businesses enjoyed the cheapest electricity prices of any OECD country.
``We need to start saving electricity in the same way we save water. If we continue to use high amounts of power and water, we are condemning our children and grand-children to the impacts of dangerous climate change.’’
CSIRO also predicts climate change will reduce water in Melbourne’s catchments up to 35 per cent by 2050.
Michael Bachelard, The Age
October 2, 2006
MULTINATIONAL packaging company Amcor stacked the Labor Party, infiltrated environment groups, sent people pretending to be greenies to forest protests and paid bribes overseas to secure its supply of native hardwood in the 1990s.
Company documents obtained by the ABC's Four Corners show that, for more than a decade from 1989 to 2001, the company funded its staff, through the so-called "A-team", to spy on and sabotage its opponents.
The union, the pulp and paper workers, which later joined the forestry division of the CFMEU, co-funded the A-team.
It was led by Derek Amos, a former state Labor MP and shadow minister for energy, and Victoria was the epicentre of the group's activities.
At its height in the late 1990s, A-team representatives were in the majority on the state ALP's environment policy committee, hindering any discussion of forest policy in the party.
They had got their places on the committee by working through the union, but also by taking over the Traralgon branch of the ALP.
"Oh, it was stacked, there was no doubt about that," the Labor MP for Morwell, Keith Hamilton, told the program.
A-team spokesman and mill worker Chris Moody became the branch's president and Mr Amos' daughter, Leanne Martin, the secretary.
"We would sit around a table and the A-team would sit in a group together; they were extremely well organised," former environment policy committee member Kerry Baker said.
Another member, Cheryl Wragg, said "any time that people other than the Amcor A-team mentioned forestry policy, they would be yelled out of the room". Calls by non-A-team committee members to ALP head office for an investigation fell on deaf ears.
But in the lead-up to the 1999 state conference, an election year, something was finally done. The environment committee drafted a forest policy, which would have opened up 40 per cent of Victorian old growth forest for logging, but, as non-A-team members threatened open revolt, ALP head office, under state secretary John Lenders, took the policy in and rewrote it.
Mr Amos has also confirmed that the A-team infiltrated the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Wilderness Society and Environment Victoria, where a spy, "Tracy", would get paid time off from her shifts at Amcor's Maryvale pulp and paper mill to attend meetings, photocopying any documents she could get hold of.
She took "copious notes" and filed written reports on Environment Victoria's discussions.
Some of those reports found their way to the then member for McMillan, Barry Cunningham, a Labor MP whom the A-team had helped to get elected to Federal Parliament. When he started quoting Environment Victoria minutes in Federal Parliament, the environment group realised they had been infiltrated.
Mr Amos said this was part of "a program to discredit environmental groups" through "covert operations which included the planting of volunteers as bogus greenies in targeted environmental organisations".
A-team players were active on the front line of the 1990s environment movement: the forest protests.
In 1993, the team's members joined in as the green protesters set up camp in Goongerah, East Gippsland, to protest against woodchipping in national estate forests.
According to veteran green campaigner Jill Redwood, the two spies, "David and John", turned up at the camp in "a big, clean, white four-wheel-drive ute" and "nice neat clothes".
The spies' report to Amcor says the protesters were "unkempt" with "matted hair and dishevelled clothing, similar to early '70s styling".
Mr Amos claimed success, through the help of federal Labor MPs, in convincing the Keating government in 1995 to institute a more pro-logging policy. He also admitted to international bribery, saying in a document he had paid the customers of Amcor's competitors to find out commercially sensitive information.
The A-team was disbanded in 2001 after Amcor's paper-making operations were spun-out into a new company, PaperlinX. Amcor went on to further notoriety when its executives were sacked two years ago for their part in a cartel to fix prices for cardboard boxes.
The chips are down for old-growth forest sector
Rod Myer, The Age, Business, Lead Article
October 2, 2006
Old-growth woodchips don't stack up any more.
Photo: Bruce Miller
AUSTRALIA'S emerging plantation-based woodchip export industry has negotiated higher prices for its product this year while the native forest-based industry is suffering flat prices and falling volumes.
Woodchip export prices to the major market, Japan, have traditionally been negotiated by Gunns, the Tasmanian giant, with about 80 per cent of the export market. The nascent plantation sector has ridden on its coat tails and used that price as a benchmark.
However, this year for the first time, the hardwood plantation sector negotiated on its own and won higher prices while Gunns copped a freeze in price and a cut in volume. Exports of Gunns' native forest woodchips were down 20 per cent.
"This year the plantation guys went out and negotiated their own prices and got a small increase," said Andrew Crowther, an analyst with Linwar Securities.
Robert Eastment, director of economic research group IndustryEdge, said the Gunns benchmark price this year was $162 per dry metric tonne from Japanese buyers, the same as the year before. The plantation sector normally gets around 10 per cent more than Gunns for its export chips but this year, said Timbercorp forestry chief Tim Browning, the sector got a $2 rise to $181 per dry tonne as well as volume increases, while the native-forest sector got no rise.
Timbercorp, as the sector's largest exporter, did the negotiations. The difference between the two negotiated outcomes was simple, Mr Browning said: "We've got better wood."
That result for plantation producers comes at a time when the chip market is difficult.
Greg McCormack, president of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, said the exchange rate and international competition were working against the industry. "The Australian dollar has been unsustainably high for the last three to four years," he said. "It needs to be between (US) 60 and 70¢, not between 70 and 80¢."
Demand for woodchips has been growing because, as with other commodities, the Chinese market is growing dramatically. Mr McCormack said that a few years ago China consumed the equivalent of 15 kilograms of paper products per head of population a year. That figure is now 40 kilograms.
Despite the Chinese growth, chips are not in short supply as plantations in Chile and South Africa come onstream and, ironically, can produce bluegum chips more cheaply than Australia. Lately, Mr Eastment said, the balance had moved a little in Australia's favour. The dollar has fallen and high oil prices and Japan's proximity to Australia, when compared with South Africa or Chile, mean the differential in transport cost is in Australia's favour.
This abundance of woodchips has made buyers more selective, and the losers have been those chips coming out of native forests, particularly old-growth forests. Major buyers such as Mitsubishi have said they no longer want to take old-growth chips, and some of this reluctance is affecting regrowth forests as well.
As a result, regrowth forest chips were increasingly being marketed as "seeded plantations", Mr Eastment said.
The decline of the native-forest chip market is due to a mixture of political and economic factors. The campaigns of environmentalists against old-
growth logging have been heard in Tokyo, making both paper mills and their customers wary about buying products from that source. "Nobody wants it," Mr Eastment said. "It makes awful pulp, it doesn't look good on your books and producers get a very low price for it."
But old-growth chips are not really the issue because they make up only about 5 per cent of chip exports. The bigger issue economically is regrowth chips, which, despite their better environmental credentials, still come off second best.
"Native forests have trees of range species and ages while plantations consist of uniform species and ages," Mr Crowther said. "That results in a consistent fibre length, and younger trees have paler wood, so native forests have higher bleaching costs."
Add to that the fact that plantation timbers have about 55 per cent wood fibre content compared with as little as 45 per cent for old growth, and plantations look even better.
Native-forest exports have their advantages, however. Harvesting costs are perhaps 33 per cent of plantations, and Gunns has a strong record in efficient operations. As a result there is likely to be a market for lower-cost native-forest chips. Gunns is setting up plantations and planning a $1.5 billion pulp mill in northern Tasmania.
At the end of the day woodchips were a commodity, Mr Eastment said. Unlike mineral resources, they have had no price kick-up in recent years and so have been declining in value in real terms. The sun now shining on the plantation sector might soon turn to shade as a looming oversupply cut prices, Mr Eastment said.
Mr Browning disagrees, saying Chinese growth will help the sector prosper.
Gunns was not available for comment.
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October 1, 2006, David Potts The Age Business
Amcor's had a hard time, writes David Potts.
AMCOR, the cardboard packaging and bottle maker, could do with some packaging itself, considering it rated as Australia's least admired company in a survey by the business magazine BRW. Yes, even behind Telstra.
It won't be helped as the ACCC inquiry into price fixing in cardboard boxes grinds on to its conclusion.
Mind you, it also serves as a reminder of how dominant Amcor is in its markets, rivalled only by Visy. In fact it is one of the world's biggest packagers and has 240 factories around the globe.
But this is one stock that has paid the price of the commodities boom. It's also surprisingly vulnerable to weather shocks: Cyclone Larry hit the corrugated box business by wiping out the North Queensland banana crop, and so the need for boxes. Now, frost has destroyed Victoria's pear and apricot crops.
The rocketing price of oil has been a triple whammy for Amcor. First, oil has pushed up the prices of resin used for plastic bottles faster than Amcor can claw back the cost.
Second, as with any manufacturer, it pushed up the costs of running a factory.
The third hit is more indirect: rising commodity prices push up the dollar which reduces overseas earnings.
Although oil prices seem to have eased off, higher costs haven't fully flowed through the pipeline. They would need to drop well below $US60 ($80) a barrel before making a real difference to Amcor.
At least its new chief executive Ken MacKenzie has been well received by the market, and suggestions Amcor is vulnerable to a Coles Myer type private equity bid has helped the share price no end.
Especially since local fund managers have been caught short after bad mouthing, not without reason, Amcor for so long.
The market thinks Amcor needs to change from a production to a consumer-oriented company - the same challenge, if you'll pardon the comparison, that Telstra has been trying to meet.
Unfortunately its biggest customer is the food and beverage industry - clients include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestle and Kraft - where fashions can change quickly. Amcor is known to want to offload its local food tin can business, but there don't seem to be any takers.
Still, Amcor is well managed, is a global player and has a history of keeping costs under control and dispensing with under-performing assets. It also benefits from the removal of the 15 per cent withholding tax on repatriated US earnings.
For better or worse, Amcor has also jumped on the China bandwagon, buying a sizable minority interest in K Laser China for its holographic material packaging.
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
VERDICT
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