Dave Groves
28.10.11 4:56 am
It was early 2005 when Bob Gordon sat in the dining room where I lived in Kayena, an idyllic locale just a stone’s throw from the still proposed pulp mill site at Longreach. An affable man, Bob was there to discuss the newly announced “world’s best practice, greenest pulp mill”. I had a list of questions and when they were answered, I knew that this proposal was to be a disaster for Tasmania’s long term future. From that revealing conversation, nothing over the last closing seven years has lifted my spirits…
Human Rights And Public Protest
Greg Ogle, writing on New Matilda, HERE
15.02.10 1:40 am
The Gunns 20 case has shown how noxious SLAPP suits can be. Greg Ogle looks at whether a Human Rights Act would discourage such litigation and protect public protest
It was their democratic right to protest
Dr Frank Nicklason, Formerly Defendant 19 in Gunns20 case.
30.01.10 3:54 pm
It was their democratic right (perhaps their responsibility?) to do that. The defendants are widely admired in their community and by many others for their brave stand and, now, for their success.
A SLAPP in the face for free speech
Liesel Rickarby, New Matilda.
30.01.10 5:59 am
Most importantly, however, the chilling effect refers to the overall silencing of dissent in a community, as individuals and groups become afraid to voice their opinions for fear of being sued. …
Nicklason: Above and beyond cant and media cowardice
Peter Henning
12.10.09 4:32 am
If you really want to see how a Tasmanian newspaper can fail utterly in its responsibility to ethical journalism you don’t have to go past the Launceston daily – the thoroughly and completely misnamed Examiner. It examines nothing. Absolutely nothing.
But it has outdone itself in spades with its report of the outcome of the unforgettable and outrageous SLAPP* suit by Gunns against Hobart physician Dr Frank Nicklason. The “Gunns 20” SLAPP suit has already irretrievably enshrined Gunns as a corporate bully without parallel in Tasmanian history, but the suit against Nicklason made a complete mockery of any of their claims to social responsibility – period.
21.03.09 8:31 am
Andrew Darby The Age
HEIDI Douglas today doesn’t owe Gunns a cent. That’s a monumental change for a woman of modest means whom the timber company sued for $464,313. Read more here
17.03.09 10:21 am
Age
A MULTI-MILLION dollar claim by Gunns Limited against the Wilderness Society has collapsed after four years, with the timber giant ordered to pay the society $350,000 in legal costs. Read more here
29.01.09 4:02 pm
Gunns
”... the company is now in a very strong position to move forward with the project ...”
Download Gunns announcement: mill_is_all_good.pdf
Check the share price: Here
Please drop this subliminal accusation of mindless greed.
29.01.09 3:28 pm
Chris Harries A response to: My question is ...
THE LAST TIME I held a dialogue with a tsunami the tsunami won. There are some forces that are not amendable to polite dialogue.
David, I know you mean well but you have not been witness to the four decades of endless ‘dialogue’ that have transpired over logging since the state of Tasmania was initially carved up into five forestry concessions and handed over to logging companies in the early 1970s. That dialogue has never stopped.
19.01.09 5:43 am
Jodie Campbell
Peter Henning A Politician & A Journalist: Voices for the People?
Which brings us to Fiona Reynolds and the role of the Examiner in northern Tasmania. It is informative that Ms Reynolds’ focus is on one politician, and one only, when she suggests that “Perhaps Ms Campbell needs a briefing from Gunns and the other stakeholders”. All other Tasmanian Labor and Liberal federal MPs, MHRs and senators, are all unequivocal supporters of the pulp mill, whether they have been briefed by Gunns or not. Obviously they don’t need a briefing from Gunns, and probably never did. They supported the project because they were told to. Are there any exceptions? Perhaps the Examiner could find out and let us know.
Does Tasmania need a Statue of Liberty
19.01.09 1:59 am
Garry Stannus
You tell people in New York about that little island called Tasmania, to the south of ‘Australia’ and many of them know about the Devil, from the cartoons. You try and explain the fact that the majority of people on the island don’t want this thing called a pulp mill in their Tamar River estuary. You describe how in spite of the results of the surveys, the opinion polls, the public demonstrations and ongoing opposition drawn from the whole diverse population on the island, the Bill and Ben political parties have been hand in glove with the big playground bully, a company called Gunns.
17.01.09 8:23 pm
Mike Bolan
Citizens yesterday launched a blistering attack on Bryan Green over the Florentine forest destruction. Mr Green must send a clear message to the forestry industry that he doesn’t support the subsidised destruction of our remaining forests. When our hospitals are underfunded, and Tasmanians wait for years in pain for medical services, it is unconscionable for governments to pay nearly $300 million a year to the forestry industry as MIS grants, cash payments, free plantation water, under market resource prices, reduced rates and taxes, free roads and bridges and a whole range of other exemptions and favours. Bryan Green’s continuing silence can only be interpreted as acceptance of the extreme agenda being forced upon him by forestry subsidy recipients, the community concluded. The silence is deafening and it shows the extent to which Mr Green is being dictated to by the forestry industry. BTW This comment proudly ignored by the Mercury. Read more, Comment here
17.01.09 8:12 pm
Charles and Claire Gilmour
We request Mr Bryan Green, as one of our supposed Braddon representatives, to stop calling environmentally concerned citizens names, such as extremists, radicals etc. We take exceptional offence to it. You are deliberately trying to create division and trying to sir up hatred. Why have you not said a word about the vandals who are illegally defacing public property, (signs/ rock faces etc) in the name of continued forest destruction? Why have you kept silent on those who attack peaceful forest protesters? Does your silence on those mean you approve of those illegal activities? Maybe anything that serves the Labor/Gunns accord eh! Mr Bryan Green doesn’t support ANY type of forest protest legal or not. Unless of course it was by the forest destroyers. Bryan Green would rather ‘deny’ the public honest representation. And that’s based on direct experience with the man. The State Labor Government’s contempt for the public has reached an all time high by scrapping the bottom of the barrel’s back benched, and using Bryan Green as a spokesman for the ‘lawful’. Pleeease! They might as well just spit in our eye. The government should have saved that one for April fool’s day. Read more, Comment here
17.01.09 6:31 pm
Pictures: Matt Newton: http://www.matthewnewton.com.au/
Ula Majewski Still Wild, Still Threatened
“As activists continue to prevent the destruction of ancient forest on the ground in the Upper Florentine, others have brought the issue directly to the Tasmanian Government” said Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Ula Majewski. “Forestry Tasmania has forecast that the value of production from coupe FO044A is around $2 million. It is difficult to see how this can be achieved given the low stumpage price charged by Forestry Tasmania for woodchips, the investment of taxpayer dollars into roads and planning, and other costs incurred during the operation,” Ula Majewski said.
17.01.09 7:20 am
David Killick Mercury
ANTI-logging activists are predicting a massive turnout of protesters in the Upper Florentine Valley this weekend. Ula Majewski, of the group Still Wild, Still Threatened, said she expected hundreds of people to head for the forest flashpoint tomorrow. “This will be the biggest forest rally for a number of years. People have been very fired up,” she said.
Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley said the Florentine operation would lose money. “What I’ve heard coming from within Forestry Tasmania is that, (with) this new aggregated retention, this new logging, they log at a loss,” he said. Read more here
Comment here
Ula Majewski …
17.01.09 7:14 am
phill Parsons Manly
Certainly there are extremists working on the southern forests. These extremists have spent their time in positions of power ensuring that Tasmania’s remnant ancient old growth forests are destroyed, mostly for woodchips, which once exported are used to make paper which is then thrown away. Read more, Comment here
17.01.09 7:11 am
Laura Robertson Melbourne
I, and many others from Melbourne will be back at the end of the year, after we have finished our studies, to give our time, energy and heart to saving these precious, magical and amazing forests. We will never give up. Read more, comment here
16.01.09 7:12 am
Ula Majewski
Early this morning, a new tree sit – the ‘Scales of Injustice’ – was erected in the Upper Florentine Valley and a forest defender locked onto a feller buncher machine, colloquially known as an ‘axe whacker’. A blockading structure has been set up across Forestry Tasmania’s new road. This structure is attached to both the ‘Scales of Injustice’ and the ‘Lungs of the Land’ treesit, where an activist has been perched since Monday morning’s raid by police. with updates
Worldwide pulp downtime tops 2 million tonnes
15.01.09 9:34 pm
RISI From, here
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 8, 2009 (RISI) - As producers around the world grappled with weak demand and an oversupply of pulp, the list of firms taking market-related downtime grew to include every grade made in the industry. According to a RISI poll, global producers curtailed more than 2 million tonnes of output over the last four months of 2008.
15.01.09 10:35 am
Forestry Tasmania’s alternative to clearfell is an alternative in name only. Selective logging or Silvercultural spin. This aggregated retention or modified clearfell is within 2km of the world heritage area, on 2 sides. Coupe FO42F in the Upper Florentine. Vica Bayley
Vica Bayley Wilderness Society MR
“A total of $36.1 million dollars of taxpayers’ money could be used to access and log new areas of forest such as those in the Upper Florentine, where Forestry Tasmania have admitted that up to 90% of the timber ends up as low-value products like woodchips.”
15.01.09 10:20 am
Gerry Mander
5. ‘Can you imagine the squeals if the forestry industry’s welfare payments were cut?’ If Forestry were closed down and all the workers compensated at a proper and decent rate, the state would literally save multi-millions every year. Maintaining our forests intact would generate more money and jobs than Forestry and their destructive policies will ever do. We are caurrently paying a fortune to have them destroyed. We don’t need Forestry and their corrupt practices with its annual losses and subsidies, which do nothing at all for Tasmania and everything for offshore corporate investors. This is the most destructive force the island has ever seen … Read more here
Today
• Travels around Tasmania with some latte sippers • Bobby-z ... and the Miners of Potosi • MIS growers felled again • Ancanthe ... all that will be lost • Writers, artists, journalists ... how to foment a (peaceful) revolution
Nobody with any sense takes advertising too seriously. Always check the facts for yourself rather than relying on ads.
…