Do Not Read This Title

A big surprise to everyone involved, I'm sure.


Greens fail in bid to stop bypass bridge

A last-ditch attempt by the Greens to have work halted on a controversial road bypass near Hobart has failed.

The party claims Labor's steps to protect the Jordan River Levee site do not go far enough and amount to cultural vandalism.

The Greens Leader and Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Nick McKim, moved a motion yesterday to block the construction of a bridge over 40,000-year-old Aboriginal relics, north of Hobart.

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Aborigines step up bypass protest

Aborigines trying to block work on a section of the Brighton road Bypass near Hobart are digging in after their first protest since construction permits were approved.

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Continuing my intermittent series of updates :)

Yesterday morning:

Pulp mill's final hurdle today

Tasmania's forestry industry is anticipating a critical green light for the pulp mill planned in the state's North.

The Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, will release his decision today about the $2.5 billion project's effect on marine life in Commonwealth waters More


Gunns wants 'tougher controls': decision delayed

The Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, has extended the deadline making a decision on the proposed Tasmanian pulp mill by another week.

Mr Burke says the Gunns company contacted his department yesterday asking for tougher environmental controls.

He says another week is needed to examine the changes the company has requested. More


Today:

Green MP threatens Tas Government over mill

Bass Greens MHA, Kim Booth says he will withdraw support for the Government if it offers to underwrite the project, or seeks to support it in other ways using public money.
...
"Were Lara Giddings, for example, as Premier to provide support for the mill either covertly or overtly by legislation or funding for that project then that government would be a Dead Man Walking because ultimately a no-confidence motion ..I would support a no confidence motion in that government because I could no longer support them," he said. More

The deadline for public comment on the Brighton Bypass was last Friday. Have not seen anything in the news since then. Latest news coverage is from last Wednesday

Aborigines in bypass camp protest

"It is the first time we have come down here in 200 years and enjoyed the site and it is spiritual," [Trudy Maluga from TAC] said.

"It was a magnificent feeling and it has given us the strength to fight from this site until the end."

The Brighton Bypass is the four lane highway being constructed the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources (DIER) to bypass Brighton, the last town on the Midlands Hwy. I assume the grand plan is to eventually bypass all the towns along this route. The central towns were passed by a couple of decades ago and now they're working on the southern bit.

Aboriginal heritage investigations across the Brighton Bypass alignment commenced in 1990s. However the site at the Jordan River was not identified until late 2008 when it was described as a surface scatter of approximately 20 artefacts with potential for subsurface values due to the nature of the landscape feature.

A subsurface investigation on the Jordan River levee commenced in early August 2009.

DIER's consultants completed an archaeological investigation of the Jordan River levee in February 2010. A final report on the investigation was made available on 2nd August 2010.

From DIER's "Fact Sheet 4: Archaeology & Definition of the site" (PDF).

The report that came back said things like:

However, the real value of the JRL sequence is that it provides a rare insight into a period of human history during the Last Ice Age, of which little if know, either in Tasmania or on the Australian mainland. This is particularly the case at open sites with nearly all older Tasmanian sites being rock shelters

and

The JRL site was utilized by highly mobile prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups. The lack of locally available raw material forced groups to bring their own raw material to the site, to conserver these raw materials and to continue to transport those items that were not exhausted for future use elsewhere. The primary activities undertaken at the site were tool maintenance and rejuvenation, with very low levels of manufacture also present. … The presence of Aboriginal flaked pieces of glass at the JRL site provides evidence of a connection between Aboriginal and European occupation at the site during the historic period. This site with its sound stratigraphic profile and dates extending from ~41,000 years through to the European contact period is remarkable.

(Both quotes from Final Archaeological Report - Executive Summary(PDF))

DIER claim that by moving a couple of pylons here and using different transport techniques there and using light vehicles to do this bit, they can still build their bridge with hopefully minimal disturbance to the site and the baits used won't affect the bird life-- oops, different department. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) aren't impressed by that solution. They've submitted an application (PDF) to the Minister for the Environment, to have the site protected, which has some interesting reading in it. One bit:

While Aborigines today still proudly honour their cultural past, the full manifestations of Aboriginal existence for the tens of thousands of years before 1800 are relatively unrecognised. The site has the potential to reveal some of these stories and important information about traditional practices and elements of the daily lifestyles of the people who camped, made tools, hunted, gathered resources travelled through, met other Aboriginal groups, traded, and so on in the Jordan River valley.

According to their website, similar content was used in applications for World Heritage Listing and National Heritage Listing, and an application for entry to the Tasmania Heritage Register was made. If any of those are successful, it should resolve the issue. Heritage trumps most arguments.

It seems there are alternative routes that could be used, but of course they'd cost more. Earlier this month, the Federal Infrastructure Minister visited the site.

"I have been calling for months now that this site be granted National Heritage listing and the road alignment be adjusted a little to leave this site untouched."
Independent Andrew Wilkie

"We can put a road alignment, a bridge, elsewhere. We cannot replace this internationally significant site."
Greens leader Bob Brown


DIER's and other documents are available here
TAC's documents are available here

Probably a headline that most people wouldn't think twice about but... !!!

Gunns to stop using 1080 poison

LJ isn't letting me select photos to post so to fill in the gap, some news stories! Exciting! Yes!

OK :) But one comes out of yesterday's post, one is an update on an ongoing topic and one is a ! news story.

I haven't been posting on the pulp mill lately because it's been the same-old, but this develops further it could be interesting.

Claims pulp mill under threat if boss resigns

A shareholder push for the resignation of Gunns chairman John Gay is being seen by analysts as a threat to the company's proposed northern Tasmanian pulp mill.
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When I wrote yesterday's post, I was wondering if there was anything like this about. Well, it worked last election!

Labor hangs up on anti-Green phone ads

Contradictions have emerged within the Tasmanian Labor Party about whether the Premier was aware of automated phone calls to voters warning them about the Greens.

The pre-recorded message, dubbed a robocall, says the Greens want to legalise heroin and give violent criminals the right to vote.
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I wish I could find the original news story for this:

Pizza delivery attack ends in jail

A Tasmanian man who attacked a fast food delivery driver with a plastic cricket bat and took his pizzas has been sentenced to nine months in jail.
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We have flooded rivers. Not bad flooding fortuntely, but interesting.

The bridge in the photo on that article is the same one as here.

In today's news:

Forest workers counter anti-pulp mill ads

The forest workers union in Tasmania has launched an international campaign to help secure finance for Gunns' $1.5 billion pulp mill.



But at the bottom of that story, is a few paragraphs on last week's Legislative Council* election for Windermere (East Tamar & part of Launceston).

Mr Frame [spokesman for CFMEU I think, story is a bit ambiguous] also says the re-election of pulp mill supporter Ivan Dean shows there is broad community support for the mill.

Mr Dean won almost 40 per cent of the primary vote in the Upper House election for Windermere last weekend.

"I think the election results from Windermere in the Legislative Council on the weekend indicate that really they want this development to proceed, and they want to bring a sustainable value adding employment opportunity to Tasmania."

That the incumbent got less than half the first preference votes shows that there is broad community support for an issue that wasn't brought up (that I noticed) during the campaign? Yep, that would be my conclusion too.

It doesn't even get a mention on the Green candidates' leaflet. Actually, I brought said leaflet inside and read it, and tossed it aside because it was vague about what he actually stood for. It wasn't until I got to the polling booth and they gave me a bit of paper with the five candidates names on it, that I discovered his affiliation. On looking at it later, there is the party's logo in one corner. Very low key. (Mr Whish-Wilson possibly needs to rethink his advertising material if he ever stand for election again.) The whole damn election was low key. That the incumbent was returned isn't much of a surprise. That he got not much more than 1/3 of the vote on first preferences does suggest there is some dissatisfaction among voters though.


*State Upper House, elections are held every 6 years but only 2 or 3 districts each time

Gunns still optimistic in finding mill partner

Tasmania's timber giant Gunns has indicated it is still searching overseas for a joint-venture partner to build its controversial pulp mill proposed for the Tamar Valley.

Gunns' latest statement to the Stock Exchange says it expects to announce finance for the $2 billion project by the end of this month.

In February, Gunns chairman John Gay told the stock market construction of the pulp mill would start as soon as financial closure was achieved.

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You can probably guess what the local (state) news is all about now. See!

And this story in particular doesn't promise that it's going to get any quieter in a hurry. :\

This story was also interesting, in a different way.