Permits expire to end pulp mill saga

ONE of Tasmania’s most controversial issues, a proposal for a $2.5 billion pulp mill at Bell Bay, is finally over.

Permits to build the pulp mill, originally proposed by fallen timber giant Gunns Limited, lapsed yesterday.

A spokesman for Gunns Limited receivers, Korda Mentha, said the firm would not contest the lapsing of the permits because there was no prospect of a developer being interested.

He said Korda Mentha would instead try to sell the land at Bell Bay.

The spokesman said Korda Mentha had been obliged to wait until the permits lapsed before proceeding with an attempt to sell the land.

“Receivers will now be able to start serious discussions with parties who expressed an interest,” he said.

The land, with or without the permits, has been for sale for more than two years.

Gunns spent about $230 million doing research and getting the pulp mill permits in place before collapsing in 2012.

The spokesman said conditions in the international pulp market meant a sale would not occur.

The pulp mill saga started in 2005 and involved huge opposition from environmentalists and political drama during the approval processes. Gunns’ banker’s ANZ Bank would not finance the mill and Gunns attempted to bring in partners without success.

The company was haemorrhaging money on the pulp mill proposal amid declining cash flow from a collapsing woodchip market.

Markets For Change spokeswoman Peg Putt said the State Government should repeal the Pulp Mill Assessment Act — the enabling legislation that gave the project parliamentary approval after it failed to meet assessment standards as a Project of State Significance under the state’s planning system.

Ms Putt revealed plans for a pulp mill in parliament in 2003 after then-deputy premier Paul Lennon was spotted having dinner with Gunns chief executive John Gay, with a folder containing pulp mill plans.

“That must be the end of this toxic, ill-conceived project,” Ms Putt said.

Greens Member for Bass Andrew Dawkins said the party would move to repeal the Pulp Mill Assessment Act in the next session of parliament.

The failure to establish the Bell Bay pulp mill was a case of history repeating itself after a previous proposal for one at Wesley Vale also met huge opposition in the late 1980s and did not go ahead.