Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Minchin. Given the Prime Minister’s support for the Gunns pulp mill proposal and the federal government subsidies provided to support it, is he aware of the strength of community opposition in northern Tasmania against the proposed pulp mill as evidenced by the 11,000 people who participated in a protest against the mill last Saturday? If so, is the government aware that the opposition to the project is not only because of its environmental impacts but also because of the blatant political interference of the Lennon Labor government, which has kowtowed to Gunns’s demands for a rubber stamp approval process?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the honourable senator that overwhelmingly the people of Tasmania are in favour of downstream processing of their raw materials. The people of Tasmania do not want to see, and they have seen it time and time again, a campaign of misinformation against this particular pulp mill on the basis that its creation would make the snow caps of New Zealand melt, increase police corruption, increase prostitution and other social ills, and that all this could be overcome if it were all of a sudden to become a chlorine-free pulp mill. All the ills and evils would be overcome. That is where the Australian Greens have come unstuck with the Tasmanian community.

What the Greens have done—quite rightly, I must say—in recent times is latch on to the dissatisfaction of the Tasmanian population with the way that Premier Lennon has handled this situation, especially with the RPDC. We as a government have been on the record time and time again to indicate that we regret that which has occurred in Tasmania but acknowledge that the Premier and the state parliament have to deal with those issues that fall within their bailiwick as we as an Australian government are dealing with those matters that fall within our bailiwick. What I can say to the Tasmanian people and the Australian people is this: that which we needed to investigate and look at has not required any change of legislation on our part and we are continuing on with business as usual. The Tasmanian people, and I dare say the Australian people, have to make a decision about this pulp mill.

Not one single extra tree is going to be harvested as a result of this pulp mill. The only thing that will occur is that the woodchips will be either processed in Tasmania or, using fossil fuels, shipped to a pulp mill in Japan, dirtier than the one that would be established in Tasmania. Using more fossil fuels, the material will then be shipped back to Tasmania to be made into paper. Now, most Australians who have common sense and who have the environment at heart say that if it is not going to cost an extra tree, if you can reduce fossil fuels in cartage and if you can get a cleaner mill, then that is an environmental trifecta that deserves support, if the pulp mill meets the strict environmental guidelines, which has always been the important caveat that we as an Australian government have put on this project.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. It seems that Senator Abetz is speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister today, so I will direct this to him. Is the Prime Minister aware that Premier Lennon knew that the Gunns project would not get the go-ahead from the RPDC which was set up to look at stringent guidelines and that is why the Premier colluded with Gunns to set up an alternative, inferior process that would approve the mill? Doesn’t that mean that the Commonwealth is endorsing this corrupted process by providing funding to Gunns and by providing the cover of another federal assessment when the original joint assessment was signed off by the Commonwealth and this new Commonwealth assessment does not meet the same guidelines?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What Premier Lennon knew or did not know is not for me to comment on. All I know is that he does not know much. Apart from that, whether Mr Lennon knew what the RPDC had in mind is, if I might say, a terrible slur on the RPDC, because it suggests that the RPDC leaked the outcome to the Premier prior to the end of the hearings. That is an assertion that I am not prepared to accept. Whilst the Greens go around spreading their conspiracy theories, as they are so wont to do, they do their cause no good. Of course, on that basis I would encourage them to continue.