Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Yesterday I asked the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Campbell, to explain the failure to produce the documents relating to the proposed pulp mill in Tasmania which were sought on 12 May last year, and then in a separate order from the Senate on 14 June last year. Then there was a third motion, which is not mentioned in this statement, to do with deductible gift recipient status for environment groups on 21 June. These are eight or nine months old and the government has not responded to the Senate order for the production of those documents—and it should. By the way, the minister told me before question time that he expected that he would be making a statement at the end of question time. He did not and that is why I was not here. I waited for it but he did not make it and here we are at half past five in the afternoon with the statement landing without further warning to me.

The documents that the Senate required from the minister were all the correspondence from January 2002 to the present between the minister, his staff and department, and Gunns Pty Ltd relating to be proposed mill in Tasmania. That was repeated on 14 June. What we have here is a very simple operation, that is, a presentation to the Senate of the documents between the minister, his staff and department, and Gunns Pty Ltd and then, in the second matter, between the Prime Minister and Gunns Pty Ltd. Amongst other things, the Prime Minister has committed $5 million to Gunns Pty Ltd regarding the pulp mill. The original statement was that Gunns would get this after the go-ahead for the pulp mill for various matters to assist Gunns. However, there has been no go-ahead for the pulp mill—the matter is still under assessment and will be at least until next year. But in the run-up to the election the Prime Minister repeated the offer of $5 million and he has now paid half of it with no conditions attached, so far as I know, and none to be forthcoming.

What is more, when we look at the gift register that was published at the start of this month we see that some tens of thousands of dollars—I think it was $40,000 but I stand to be corrected on that—went to the Liberal Party at about the same time. We have got a ‘no strings attached’ gift from the government of $5 million of taxpayers money to Gunns, the biggest company in Tasmania with a billion-dollar turnover and last year more than $100 million profit, and $40,000—if that is the correct figure—going from Gunns to the Liberal Party. I ask you, do we not need a public explanation to avoid the clear implication that this is a corrupt process that has been entered into here? When the government says: ‘We won’t show you the documents,’—the correspondence between the Prime Minister and the CEO of Gunns and principal private shareholder that is, John Gay, or the board—you have to wonder what it is the government does not want open to public scrutiny. The minister says it is a fishing expedition. That completely besmirches the Senate process whereby we have this ability to seek documents from the government on matters of important public interest, and this is one of them.

The documents should be brought into the open air. There is a stench about this process and it needs to be cleared up. Today’s cover-up by the minister on behalf of the Prime Minister will not do. It simply adds to the appearance that there is something fishy, something that stinks, about this process and it is public money that is involved. It is not as if there is some process here where accountability is needed from a parliamentary outcome. No, this is not a parliamentary outcome. Nobody in this place has voted for this largesse to Gunns. The Prime Minister made that decision personally in the run-up to the election, and Gunns made a decision at board level to give the Liberal Party quite a handsome gift at about the same time. Now they say that they will not show us the documents. We do not even know when the Prime Minister met Mr Gay or other board members or representative of Gunns. They are not planning to show us that let alone what the past Minister for the Environment and Heritage did, because it was Senator Hill who was in that portfolio at the time this request was made.

Yet there is this arrogant dismissal from the minister of this proper request for information by the Senate. It is not just about the money that has changed hands here; it is about due process. It is very important, because the government has given support to a pulp mill before public consultation and the proper process involving the Resource Planning and Development Commission in Tasmania have anywhere near run their course. The public has a right to see how the government has come to the decision that it will support this massive pulp mill, which is going to destroy old growth high-conservation value forest in Tasmania. That is what is on the agenda here: the destruction of the very forests that the Prime Minister indicated to the public of Australia at the last election he was going to protect. The announcement consequent to the election showed he was going to do nothing of the sort. He is not protecting forests in the Great Western Tiers, the Blue Tier, the magnificent Upper Florentine Valley and the Styx Valley, which the Premier of Tasmania says he saved. Today they have entered into a new part of that national heirloom with their bulldozers and chainsaws under the aegis of this Prime Minister, who told the public that he was not going to do that.