DON'T PULP OUR FUTURE!

Media release from the Tasmanian Greens
Received by email today from TAP (Tasmanians Against the Pulp Mill):


URGENT ACTION NEEDED ON THIS ONE PLEASE!

There is a very small window of opportunity to act on the information contained in this media release, so please find a moment or two this evening (if you read it in time), or tomorrow, to phone, email, write, or dispatch by carrier pigeon, your outrage at the latest skulduggery Paul and his cohorts want to ram through parliament in their effort to please Gunns, and ruin the lives of the rest of us.

I'm advised by Kim that the few previous occasions when proposals have been put to the Upper House before the Lower House, they have been equally potentially contentious, and hardly beneficial to the majority of the state's citizens.

It's really important to flood editorial inboxes with emails about this one, and jam Tim Cox's phone lines. Use Kim's quotes to really expose the breathtaking, blatant disregard for you, me, and every Tasmanian bar one. John Gay.

It's also important that you lobby all members of the Legislative Council - especially Kerry Finch.

Please spread the word to everyone you can and ask them to phone, write, email or shout from the rooftops.

And watch this space, 'cos Shreddergate ain't over yet . . . .

Power to your pens & keyboards folks.


WATER AND SEWERAGE REGIONAL AUTHORITIES PIPELINE FOR GUNNS

Government Must Rule Out Devious Scheme
Kim Booth MP
Greens Shadow Pulp Mill spokesperson

Tuesday, 15 April 2008

www.tas.greens.org.au

The Tasmanian Greens today called or the Lennon government to rule out that the two Water and Sewerage reform Bills, the Water and Sewerage Corporations Bill 2008 and the Water and Sewerage Industry Bill 2008, which have been tabled in the Legislative Council and are scheduled for debate this week, will be used as a back-door option to enable Gunns' pulp mill pipeline to be paid for by one of the new proposed Regional Authorities.

Greens Pulp Mill spokesperson and member for Bass Kim Booth MHA said that the Water and Sewerage Corporations Bill 2008 Bill, creates the three Regional Authorities which will take control of council sewerage and water assets, and have the power to borrow money and construct further infrastructure.

Mr Booth also called on the Legislative Council to scrutinise closely the legislation to examine the potential for the Regional Authorities to be used to provide Gunns' the pulp mill pipelines, and if so to amend the Bills to prohibit the use of public funds and acquisition for private projects.

"The government must rule out the use of the Regional Boards as a means of overcoming impediments to the construction of the Gunns' water pipeline to Long Reach and the effluent pipe to its Bass strait dumping ground of polluted pulp mill waste," Mr Booth said.

"This appears to be part of a carefully crafted and devious Lennon government strategy to overcome impediments to Gunns, with both access and finance solutions for their polluting mill proposal."

"The creation of an authority will give acquisition rights to resume private property for the benefit of a private project without any need to come before Parliament and without breathing a word about Gunns."

"The assets of the ratepayers of the region will also be available as collateral for a loan to finance Gunns' pipelines which will then keep it off the government's balance sheets and leave a debt swinging over the heads of the public whether the mill proceeds or goes belly up in the future."

"Even more serious is the transfer of liability to the public in the event of a pipeline failure or water shortage forcing the mill to shut down, which could then expose the public to compensation to Gunns for loss of production, or indeed closure."

"It also may well transfer liability for any pollution that emanates from the effluent pipeline into Bass Strait, particularly if any sewerage were added to the mill effluent."

"The government must rule out the construction of Gunns pipeline by the Regional Board and ensure that a specific amendment, outlawing the use of public funds and acquisition for private projects, is included in the Bill before it leaves the Legislate Council."

"If Lennon Labor is not prepared to rule out such a contrivance then this will simply prove the proposition that this has been a carefully crafted and devious strategy to facilitate Gunns project dressed up in the public interest, just as the Gunns' water supply was provided for at public expense through the Meander Dam," Mr Booth said.

The Greens have also called on the government to be open to still accepting necessary amendments to the Water and Sewerage reform Bills in the Lower House, should new matters of concern come to light after the Bills leave the Legislative Council.

The Environment and Me

I haven't received an email from the organiser of Blog Action Day who said in his blog hours ago that he was about to send them out to all registered blog owners. Does this mean I am not registered? Did he think I didn't write "real" blogs? (He said they would all be checked to see.)

Never mind, I'm doing it anyway. In fact I have now posted blogs on the topic of the environment at all my MySpace blogs and my other Blogspot (see links at right). And have been involved also in an amazing interview Andrew has posted on his Blogspot and linked to from his MySpace. I even made a connection to my latest post on Writer's Resource Center. Oh I do love jumping on bandwagons! When I believe in the Cause, that is.

I've posted poems, I've discoursed on the importance of cooperating with Nature, i.e. the nature spirits, and given instructions, I've reminisced about specific experiences on that score in both Texas and Australia, I've collaborated on the aforesaid interview which deals with both science and philosophy ... and now it's much later in the day and I just want to have a spontaneous rant.

I grew up in Tasmania. It was so freezing in winter that as a child I once fainted from the cold. It was so parochial that I've never stopped being glad I got away in my teens, albeit not by choice. Last time I was there, already nine and a half years ago, many places seemed so seedy and economically depressed, I was glad all over again that fate ensured I didn't end up stuck there forever. (Even though Merbein, near Mildura, was in many ways worse ... but that's another story, and after two years there I escaped to Melbourne and never looked back.)

And yet, Tasmania in my younger childhood was a beautiful place to grow up. Its natural wonders nourished me in so many ways! Friends who visit nowadays tell me it's still beautiful. I can only say, "You ain't seen nuthin'." We used to have a lot more forests. Now, as you drive along the roads, they appear to be running through forests; but penetrate only six trees in and you're confronted with barren wastes where all the trees have been logged, nothing left but bare earth and some timber debris. People still exclaim over the beauty of the Cataract Gorge at Launceston, my home town. I can't see it myself – that shallow trickle over the rocks, which has pertained for decades now, was once a frothing torrent, a mini-Niagara. Now THAT was spectacular! And then much of the water was diverted for hydro-electricity. The same old arguments were used – jobs, money, economic stability. Hmmm, not so you'd notice. Over the years, the lsland always seems to sink back into depression. The very ground looks tired.

I remember when I was little how the water near Burnie was highly coloured as if painted in reds and ochres, bright but bilious tints, as toxic chemicals were pumped out into it. And I can still hear my parents approving ignorantly of the reafforestation program the Government began when I was young, planting acres of pine saplings instead of replacing the slaughtered indigenous trees. It all started way back then. Protestors and activists, often behaving heroically, saved the Franklin but not Lake Pedder.

And now "They" want to build a pulp mill on the River Tamar! That's the river where I learned to swim. Surprisingly for an island-dweller, I'm no good in surf. I grew up on the banks of the Tamar, some way from the sea. Do I really have to contemplate those waters, those beaches, those shores polluted by a mill, the wild life habitat changing, endangered species dying out?

A media release from the Wilderness Society on 13 September speaks of the huge appetite the mill will have for forests all over Tasmania, millions of tonnes, "according to maps and tables buried deep within Gunns’ Integrated Impact Statement ". In a media release on 14th October, they are saying, "Very conservative estimates of the carbon emissions generated by the logging needed to feed the mill indicate over 10 million tonnes of CO2 would be emitted each year. This is equivalent to 2% of Australia’s emissions or an additional 2.3 million cars on the road each year. Once more studies are completed and more understanding is gained about the amount of carbon stored in Tasmania’s forests, net emissions are expected to be found to be 2–3 times higher than this." I'm angry. This is not progress!

There's no going home again – but what if home could go forwards? We really don't have to put up with being dictated to by the greedy and short-sighted. The election's been called; let's boot this mob out while we've got the chance. The Opposition is little better on this particular issue; let's make our views known vociferously. Tasmania used to be a Paradise. Can it be one again? I believe so. Not the old one but a new, regenerated one.

We need to start now!