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

I ask the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, who in his last answer called for practical, well thought out solutions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, how on earth this government could be contemplating one of the most greenhouse dirty projects this century in Australia or elsewhere—that is, Gunns’ polluting pulp mill. Is it true that this pulp mill will consume some 200,000 hectares of Tasmanian native forests and belch out 110 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in its 25-year lifetime? Does the minister believe in the principle of ‘polluter pays’ or will this be free pollution of the nation’s atmosphere by Gunns?