Gunns chairman John Gay’s retirement has plunged the future of the controversial pulp mill proposal into serious doubt.
Gunns shares jumped 12 cent, or 44 per cent, for the day, to 39.5 cents. Turnover was a record 138 million shares, or about 31 times the average daily trade over the past year.
Gunns announced Mr Gay’s retirement from the woodchipper’s board late yesterday and he won’t become chairman of subsidiary Southern Star Corporation Ltd as planned.
The Wilderness Society (TWS), which has campaigned vehemently against Gunns’ proposed pulp mill in northern Tasmania, said it was now ‘‘dead in the water’’.
‘‘The community does not support economic growth at the expense of the environment, and clearly, neither do investors,’’ TWS executive director Alec Marr said in a statement.
The Tasmanian forestry industry has been struggling to cope with falling global demand of late, with the Wesley Vale pulp mill and a paper mill in Burnie announcing their closure in the past six months.
Two weeks ago Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett made available $3.6 million in emergency assistance funding for forestry contractors.
He is also trying to organise a roundtable involving the industry, unions and the environmental movement to work out a way forward for the sector.
In paying tribute to Mr Gay, Mr Bartlett was quick to reassert the government’s commitment to the pulp mill.
‘‘The state government will continue to work with Gunns’ new leadership team to help it realise the pulp mill project,’’ he said on Thursday evening.
Opposition treasury spokesman Peter Gutwein’s response was almost identical to the government’s.
‘‘The Tasmanian Liberals remain 100 per cent behind a clean, safe pulp mill being built at the Longreach site,’’ Mr Gutwein said on Friday.
Liberal senator Eric Abetz went a step further and blamed the environmental movement for the current crisis in the Tasmanian forestry industry.
‘‘If not for Green misinformation, Mr Gay’s vision for a pulp mill in Tasmania would likely have been achieved already, and the Tasmanian forest industry would not be facing the difficult situation it currently is,’’ Senator Abetz said.
But Greens senator Bob Brown said Mr Gay’s legacy was one of ‘‘heartbreak and destruction’’.
‘‘It’s the end of the old chainsaw-driven, logging estate of Gunns,’’ Senator Brown told reporters in Hobart. ‘‘If governments carry this through, this is the beginning of a new epoch.
‘‘John Gay with his need to turn forests into dollars, no matter what the costs, has gone into history.’’
AAP
