Sirs,
RE: The Proposed Tamar Pulp Mill
Contrary to media and logging industry propaganda, the communities opposed to your mill are not environmentalists or tree huggers. We represent instead, a broad cross section of the community at large with access to considerable talent and resources worldwide. We are the lawyers, accountants, shopkeepers, business owners, workers and others that you, and your company, rely upon to deliver services and products.
The time has come to advise you to rethink your pulp mill proposal for the benefit of your company.
You have embarked on a course that has entirely ignored the impacts of your proposal on tens of thousands of people; and on the economy of the state; and on Australia’s strategic ability to feed itself.
You have relied instead on a relationship with a state government that is now so much on the nose as to be hated. A government that is letting the community down on virtually every aspect of service, but most noticeably in health and education. These are the people you have chosen to support your interests.
While your actions in leaving 70% of impacts from consideration may have seemed to be justified at the time, they have now left you blinded to the reasons for community anger, while simultaneously creating a massive surge of opposition to your proposal, and to every level of government that has supported you.
Make no mistake, you are now facing an organised and informed resistance to your proposal. A resistance that is comprised of the very taxpayers whose monies you rely on to fund MIS programs, road and bridge repairs, Forestry Tasmania activities, various grants, infrastructures for the pulp mill and so on. Without our money, your company will collapse.
Regardless of how distorted our political system becomes, the community is not going to tolerate watching their relatives die in pain while hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing to your industry to line the pockets of silvertail investors.
The adversarial attitudes presented by your industry spokespeople are incompatible with building a strong forward financial commitment with the population. If you want public money, you are going to have to work for it instead of making cosy deals with inept politicians.
The message is clear. Change the direction and focus of your company now, or face the consequences, both personally and as a corporation.
It is dangerously foolish to put your company into so much debt while facing a hostile population that is growing in size and determination with every blunder by the state government and every adversarial comment by your spokespeople.
The legal and financial shelters that you have relied on for so many years are going to be ripped away, if you continue with this exercise.
We advise you to reconsider and end this now.
There is room in Tasmania for a forestry industry that is making a real contribution to our community. But yours is not doing that, instead you are taking money needed by our sick, disabled, injured and dying, and needed by our children to provide them with a competitive education. Your toxic chemicals, smoke plumes and road hazards are making us sick. Your mill proposal threatens much worse.
Gunns could be a force for good in Tasmania by engaging in positive development plans but at every opportunity you show your colours by treating even your own people (e.g. contractors) with contempt.
This is not the 19th century. We are not living in the dark ages. Our community is educated, informed, inter-connected and active. We could all be helping Gunns to succeed, we could all be your customers and your investors. Instead, you are making us your enemies and that is not in your interests.
We hope that you, and the other people who are pushing the mill proposal, can realise the risks that you are taking and, more importantly, start thinking of new and better ways to work with the community to build a 21st century organisation.
As with federal politics, it is time for a change of attitude on your Board. Perhaps it’s time to bring in some younger talent with new and progressive ideas. Either that or you could start following a new and progressive course for your company yourself.
Yours sincerely,
Informed members of the community who want a clean Tamar, indeed a diverse, rich and healthy Tasmania.
NOTE: You will note that we have not named ourselves in this communication. This is because you have forced us into secrecy with your ill-advised action against citizens who are trying to tell you any of the many things that you do not want to hear.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Interested community members can print off this letter and send it to their favourite Gunns director, or financial institution. You can add your own comments if you wish.
NB. Gunns directors might need a snail mail version as they're technologically retarded.
Every concerned citizen should send this kind of message to Gunns and their deluded investors. It’s time for a change in the way this company conducts its business and the ways that government supports it with huge amounts taxpayers’ money. If Gunns are conducting a viable business their shareholders do not need our money as it really needed to better fund hospitals, schools, etc.
..well done, great letter. will be sending it to my favourite gunns director!...
I've sent my message with this foreword.
I fully support the open letter below and make the following points as a foreword:
1. The proposed pulp mill is predicated on a proposition that the resources it will exploit are being value added when the contrary is the case. In fact, the resource would be put to almost the dumbest use imaginable with a poor employment outcome in relation to the real value of the resources.
2. The pulp mill is far from cutting edge technology in a 21st Century context.
3. The project depends upon taxpayer subsidies and if this were not the case it would not be an economically viable project. Thus it would be more economic for government to withdraw all subsidies in all forms and thus allow Gunns to reconsider their investment in open competition with other suppliers internationally in a free marketplace.
I'd love to hear from the hundreds of dis-gruntled Gunns employees, the safety officers who have been dismissed for airing their concerns, the contractors who have been forced out of contracts, the shift hands who have been replaced by automation or simply terminated because of cost savings, the farmers swindled from their land, or driven off because Gunns bought the land around them, field workers effected by poisons who become sick and instead of being provided for are sacked. Their names are only known by their mates who still are employed, their families and their friends and the paymasters and accountants, so tight-lipped they fear for their jobs.
Wake up fellow Tasmanians . . .
signed whatever
With the spectre of a Rudd Razor Gang possibly looming, and it with an agenda to save more money for health, education, environmental mitigation etc. in an conservative economic environment, you would have wonder about a couple of things.
Firstly, what if it started to look at government subsidies flowing to carbon emitting industries … forestry industries included?
Secondly, what if such a gang of bean counters took a look at the value for the dollar involved in subsidising forestry MIS schemes?
Thirdly, what impact would the removal of taxpayer subsidies to Gunns enterprises have on the company’s bottom line should that eventuate?
Fourthly, what due diligence have the directors taken into account in regard to this kind of scenario?
The word is that the timber communities people think that this blog is a load of nonsense and a spoof. When I was told about it I agreed but now that I have read it I have to wonder what a change in government might mean for Gunns. It would probably be a whole new ball game and if they start looking for ways to save money, goodness knows. Come Monday it might be worth doing a bit of a think about all this again.
John Gay seems to think that because Gunns pay a lot of taxes it is entitled to receive taxpayer subsidies. And Gunns directors do not seem to be willing to answer questions on the subsidy issue. Well there is the issue of the differential between taxes paid and subsidies received. There is a figure floating about that seems to suggest that Gunns benefits from taxpayer subsidies to the extent of 200 million dollars a year. That seems to be an extraordinary amount if it is true. What is Gunns total tax payout? It would be extraordinary if taxes paid were in fact less than the subsidies received whatever the amount. It is probably time to do a public audit and clear this issue up once and for all!
I am told that the Federal conditions imposed by Turnbull are so severe, Gunns may have to rethink anyway, as they may be impossible to meet. Let's hope so.
Post a Comment