I’d be very wary of any writing that suggested that the Tasmanian Resource Planning and Development Commission had any integrity at all!

The RPDC has ruled that there will be no ‘overt’ protection provided for rural residents from the effects of toxic spray drift of dangerous pesticides.  Along with our poisoning, the RPDC has presided over overwhelming and unprecedented levels of native forest and wildlife destruction for (at least) well over a decade.

Bureaucrats in commissions are not the way to make critical decisions about our future (or lack thereof) in a democracy.  In the case of Tasmania we have solid and sustained proof that such a system does not work.  Along with a parliamentary system that places thugs and criminals in decision-making roles.

http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj

The RPDC, like many quasi government bodies usually comprise of experienced people who, I presume, are picked and expected to produce results which are in line with Government policy.
The pulpmill pipeline steering committee is a case in point.

For a brief period in time, we had a RPDC panel that thought independently, had integrity and said it as they saw it. They recognised Gunns as ‘cowboys’ and they were going to give the project the thumbs down.The endorsements and support that Lennon and Forestry gave them disappeared almost immediately.

They went from being ‘experts’ and in Raverty’s case,from a “Top pulp mill scientist” to a “cardboard box specialist”; (Chipman & Edwards from memory).

I believe that the panel, restricted in what they could assess, was trying its best to perform a thorough assessment, without outside interference. It tried to be open, transparent, scientific and above all be independent.

This is what the rally will be about on Friday.

The problem with the RPDC is that it is supposed to be an independent planning body which is there to advise the government on planning procedures, etc. In reality it is a government funded department that is used as a smoke screen by them to prove their openness. Basically it is a farce.

However, they over-stepped the mark when they engaged an eminent judge and a few scientists to sit in judgement over the mill. These people refused to be compromised and the head resigned, rather than be pressured into making decisions which favoured Gunns and was against the outcome predetermined by the government.

To counteract this indepencdence from one of their own departments, the government then set up its own rival advisory board called the Pulp Mill Task Force, whose sole purpose was to sabotage the independence of the RPDCs and put forward alternative solutions that suited the government, forestry and Gunns. In this they succeeded, and when the head of this commission could take it no longer, he resigned, and shortly afterwards, the whole thing was abolished when Gunns itself pulled out of the assessment on the excuse that they could not wait for the RPDC report as it compromised their planned start date of January 1st 2008 to commence building. In reality, it was because it was becoming more and more obvious that this RPDC committe was uncovering too many social and technical problems and were unlikely to approve the mill in its present state and position at all.

John Gay then pulled the plug and withdrew from the process. Paul Lennon just happened to be in New Zealand at the time on a secret and unexplained mission, and ‘only heard of this 15 minutes before John Gay made the announcement’, where he promptly rushed back and set in motion the fast-track process.

Gunns then wrote their own brief as to what should be examined and how the assessment process should work, excluding all public imput into the process. The firm of SWECO Pic that carried out this assessment on ‘material supplied to them by Gunns’, also happens to be the consulting firm for both the designers and the builders of the mill. Neverthewless, the report was judged ‘sufficiently independent’ to be acceptable and they received their fee for this very fast assessment, never having left Sweden. Perhaps if it had been critical of the process or Gunns, it would have been rejected for bias?

In the meantime, the RPDC has sunk back into mediocrity and bothers itself only with such things as details of the PAL Act and other mundane matters.

It blew its moment of glory!

I have a little concern about fridays rally inasmuch as i hope there is a good turnout ! reason being that if there is NOT ! the protaginists can say with some conviction ! that interest in the issue shows signs of waning.
     
      In my opinion a small rally can do more harm than good ! as both the last Launceston and Hobart rallies were highly organised and advertised before the event and as a consequence drew huge crowds,  which will leave anything lesser a meal for the media.

      I hope that i ‘m wrong !
                    d.d.

The PAL policy is not mundane and, if the RPDC has anything to do with it, you can almost bet that agribusiness will be favoured and Tasmanians will be disenfranchised.

But I could be wrong, they might recommend the return of all lands bought using MIS subsidy and the establishment of family-scale free range chicken farms, vege farms suitable for supporting Simplot’s organic vege venture, grass fed beef and a return to the dairy production of days gone by..

I am sure that a bit of family-scale support until international markets and infrastructure are assured would be a better use of the subsidy than a $200 billion liability from the pulp industry. C’Mon RPDC…real development, real protection of agricultural land.

I think you have the wrong idea about tomorrow’s action outside Gunns, Don. This is not a ‘rally’ as such, but a ‘memorial service’ commemorating the anniversary of the death of due process in this state - the day that Gunns walked away from the RPDC, thus giving Lennon what he thought was ‘mandate’ to implement the fast-track legislation. Being a working day we can probably expect up to five hundred people there to listen to what Warwick Raverty has to say (bless his cotton socks for not going silent!). There will be another surprise speaker as well.

When we organize our next rally proper it will be held on a Saturday for obvious reasons.