ADANI DRAMA

The Adani coal mine controversy in Queensland has the hallmarks of the conflict over Gunns Ltd’s plans for a pulp mill that divided Tasmania … but Professor Quentin Beresford says the massive project’s power politics are just one concern

Professor Quentin Beresford deems the geopolitics of coal and energy policy in Australia makes the Adani coal controversy a major political issue

Q uentin Beresford remembers how gracious state leader Will Hodgman was when awarding him the 2015 Tasmania Book Prize at an awards ceremony for the Premier’s Literary Prizes. Given the contentious content of Professor Beresford’s winning title, he thought it might make for a few awkward conversations on the night, but he says the Premier was the embodiment of diplomacy as he congratulated him on his achievement with The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd, which was chosen by an independent judging panel.

Beresford was impressed. After all, he’d mauled politicians in his chronicle of the failed timber giant and here he was getting a pat on the back. In return, he wanted to show his gratitude to the Premier for his $25,000 book prize in a meaningful way.

“So I offered any expertise that I had arising from researching the Gunns book and my role as an academic political scientist to provide advice that would assist in increasing transparency and accountability within the Tasmanian Government,” the author tells TasWeekend.

Nearly three years later, Beresford has given up waiting for the Premier’s call. And he is not holding out for a response to his call for a Royal Commission into circumstances surrounding fasttrack legislation for the Gunns timber company when it sought to build one of the world’s largest pulp mills in the Tamar Valley, and the roles played by senior members of the Lennon govern- ment, former Gunns chief executive John Gay, the Gunns board and other powerful figures in that process.

Beresford gets plenty of other calls from Tasmania, though. And it’s not just friends and family ringing the former Mercury journalist, who left the state nearly 30 years ago and now lives in Perth, where he is professor of politics at Edith Cowan University. They are from concerned citizens reaching out to him across the country, hoping he can look into things on their behalf.

“It took the campaign against Gunns to show how the power politics is actually working,” he says.

“Through my research for that book, I ended up with connections to people who feel much the same power dynamic is hap-