Crikey

Now that the Federal Environment Minister has given the pulp mill conditional approval, Gunns must decide if it is going to proceed with the project knowing it will cost them time and money to comply with another 24 guidelines. Is it a deal-breaker, as Gunns has promised?

Gunns has used the growing expense of the mill as a threat before. First it was the delays and later the impact of greater constraints on the mill’s environmental outputs, particularly the dioxin release. The difference is, now there is no-one left to threaten – no independent Resource Planning and Development Commissioners, no state premiers, no federal environment ministers.

Back in March, after Gunns withdrew from the independent process established by the Tasmanian government citing time issues, John Gay said:

How can I feel confident that any process is going to deliver an answer while we are spending money every day of the week, every month of the year? We’ve been spending large amounts of money trying to get a project up in Tasmania, and no one can give me any answers.

Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon dutifully added:

Based on the latest indications from the RPDC, of November 2007 at the earliest, a six-month delay imposes an additional cost on the project of approximately $60 million.

In August, Gay announced the project had ballooned in cost from $1.2 billion in 2005 to $1.9 billion now. The Mercury reported:

Mr Gay has indicated any delay beyond September in Mr Turnbull approving the pulp mill would once again put the entire project in doubt…

“I think (Mr) Turnbull is meeting his timelines; he might be a few days out (but) we definitely need to start (construction of the pulp mill) in the first week of September,” Mr Gay said.

“If the state or the federal government is not finished their processes by then, it does give us a lot of concerns.”

By early October, Gay started issuing public warnings to the Federal Government. This from The Mercury, 2 October:

“I can’t work with any tougher permits. This mill, as it is, meets the science. I can guarantee that.”

“I wouldn’t think there is anything in the Peacock report that we should be worried about because the mill is world class. It meets all of the science that the environment requires, totally,” Mr Gay said.

“I would expect Peacock’s report would only be glowing about the science of the mill.”

It’s alleged that Gunns saw the report shortly after it was received by Malcolm Turnbull on Monday 24 September. The Wilderness Society has claimed his department promptly shared it with Gunns.

What prompted those comments from Gay on Tuesday? Is he preparing to tell Tasmanians, the voters of Wentworth, Bass and Braddon, and other interested Australians that Turnbull gone too far, that the conditions are a deal breaker? With nobody left to threaten, was it the opening salvo in a blame game?

Or was it a last gust of windbaggery ahead of ordering in the construction crews, pronto? All eyes are now on Gunns … and the ALP.