Case study
Probity issues connected with the Tasmanian pulp mill
Authors:
Tom Baxter (University of Tasmania) and Roland Browne (Fitzgerald and Browne Solicitors)
Speaker:
Tom Baxter
Lecturer, School of Accounting and Corporate Governance, University of Tasmania
Abstract:
Tasmania has a pronounced and colourful history of environmental disputation, which regularly captures the nation’s attention. Examples are the flooding of the iconic Lake Pedder in the early-1970s and, a decade later, the failed attempt by the Tasmanian Hydro Electricity Commission to flood the magnificent Franklin River. In the 1990s, the nation looked on as Tasmanian forest companies proposed a massive chlorine bleached pulp mill at Wesley Vale in northern Tasmania. Today, Gunns Ltd proposes a $2 billion chlorine based pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston. The nation is again watching.
Tasmania has a Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC) to conduct an independent and integrated assessment of large scale projects, and with the ability to conduct public hearings and to enable community members to involve themselves in the process. It is the only body in the state that can assess major projects.
The Gunns Ltd pulp mill was proposed in 2003. It began its life as a chlorine free proposal. In November 2004, the Tasmanian Government referred the project to the RPDC and in 2007 the Australian Government exercised its powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act 1999 to require an assessment of the project. In doing so, the Commonwealth utilised the RPDC as an accredited state process, for the purposes of the assessment, under the Commonwealth legislation.
Gunns Ltd is the largest corporation in Tasmania. Its directors include a former Liberal Premier. It owns huge tracts of plantations in Tasmania, together with construction companies and a winery. It is the largest customer of Tasmania’s state-owned Forestry Corporation.
In March 2007, after the RPDC had been assessing the Tamar Valley pulp mill proposal for approximately two years, Gunns Ltd withdrew from the process. Almost immediately afterwards, the state government introduced legislation into the Tasmanian Parliament that had the effect of transferring the assessment of the pulp mill from the independent RPDC to the floor of each house of the Tasmanian Parliament. The assessment of the pulp mill was no longer to be conducted by an impartial body which was to hold public hearings and which was subject to the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Rather, the assessment of the pulp mill was to be carried out by members of Parliament. This assessment excluded public involvement, while none of the MP’s were qualified to assess the project. Further, the Parliament excluded the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Tasmania.
The decision of the Tasmanian Government to introduce the Pulp Mill Assessment Act 2007 – and its ratification by the Parliament of Tasmania – has had and continues to have profound legal, political and social consequences.
This presentation will examine how Tasmania’s major project assessment system was subverted by Gunns Ltd. It will examine how it came to pass that Tasmania’s much admired integrated assessment system was bypassed for the sake of expediency because, it was asserted, delays in the project would cost the proponent about $1 million per day. This issue is especially relevant given that as of early-May 2009, not a sod has been turned on the development site, notwithstanding the passage of two years since Gunns Ltd made these claims.
Major project assessment systems exist for a number of reasons, including ensuring public confidence in the assessment system and providing significant distance between the assessment and our political representatives. For each justification that exists for an independent project assessment system, the Pulp Mill Assessment Act is the converse. It has corrupted Tasmania’s democratic process, damaged public confidence in government and, even today, continues to reverberate across the political landscape.
