Sydney sticks its nose in Tasmania's problem

It is increasingly common for the rich and famous in Sydney to tell the rest of us what we should and should not do.

Most recently, well known Sydney business, Geoffrey Cousins, publicly accused the federal Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, of fast-tracking the proposed $2 billion Gunns pulp mill, proposed for the Tamar Valley in Tasmania.

Apparently, Mr Turnbull is a fair target because he has the power to quash the development and at the same time, his seat of Wentworth has been pushed into inner-city areas such as Kings Cross and Darlinghurst, where voters are even more concerned about environmental issues.

But the pulp mill has not been fast-tracked -- rather, many obstacles continue to be thrown in its way.

On 10th August, after The Wilderness Society alleged the Federal Government failed to take into account the potential adverse impact of sourcing timber from Tasmanian forests to supply the pulp mill, the Federal Court confirmed the Assessment of Tasmania's proposed pulp mill was fair and reasonable.

Like farming, growing timber in Australia is an increasingly controversial and unfashionable business.

The Greens often accuse the Tasmanian industry of converting too much of its forests to wood chip, which is exported to Japan for not much money.

Interestingly, the same lobby that criticises the export of wood chip, is also against the building of a pulp mill which would allow the wood chip to be converted to paper in Tasmania rather than Japan.

On 21st August, the Tasmania Minister for Planning, Steve Kons, tabled two independent consultant's reports to parliament in Hobart.

One assessed the project against the environmental emission limit guidelines for any new bleached eucalypt kraft pulp mill in Tasmania and concluded 92 per cent of guidelines are met by the project with the remaining able to be addressed through permit conditions.

The other report is a review of the net social and economic benefits of the proposed mill, concluding that the mill will add approximately 2.5 per cent to annual Gross State Product, which in lump sum terms is equivalent to $6.7 billion in net present value terms to 2030.

The pulp mill is also assessed as broadening and strengthening the industrial base of the Tasmanian economy.

The Tasmanian parliament should be left alone to decide on the merits or otherwise of the proposed mill based on this expert information but this is unlikely to ever be the case when it comes to new developments in rural and regional Australia.

Indeed, it is almost as thought the further away an issue is from Sydney the more Sydneysiders feel a right to intervene.

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