gunns 20
28 Jan 2010
Gunns 20 Case Goes To Trial
Should a corporate bully be allowed to silence criticism using the courts? Next week's Gunns 20 trial should be watched closely by anyone who cares about free speech, writes Liesel Rickarby
After more than five years, the Gunns 20 case finally goes to trial next week. It will be the biggest case of its type in Australian history and is an excellent example of a SLAPP suit. (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation)
In December 2004, Tasmanian logging company Gunns issued 20 writs against three environmental organisations and 17 individuals, totalling almost $6.4 million in damages. The 20 defendants included the Wilderness Society and its executives, Senator Bob Brown, Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt, two filmmakers, two university students, a doctor, a dentist and a grandmother who builds kitchens. You can read about the background to the case here and here.
Bob Brown was being sued for writing to Japanese paper companies (at the time 80 per cent of Tasmania’s woodchip exports went to Japanese paper production) and disputing Gunns claims that their woodchips predominantly come from plantations rather than native forest.
Dr Frank Nicklason was being sued for writing about the possible health effects of decomposing wood chips in Gunns’ export chip piles.
Adam Burling, along with the kitchen-building grandmother Lu Geraghty, were accused of orchestrating a blockade to stop logging in their community.
After much legal wrangling and millions of dollars in costs, cases against 16 of the defendants were dropped. The trial for the remaining four — Burling, Geraghty, Brian Dimmick and the Huon Valley Environment Centre — will begin in the Victorian Supreme Court on Tuesday.
When corporations take legal action against their detractors, the
effects often reach far beyond those sued. The spectre of well-financed
litigation is enough to strike fear into the hearts of those who might
otherwise add their voices to the chorus of critics. Individuals and
whole communities can be silenced, fearing they could be next. For the defendants themselves, time and resources are channelled into their case and away from their initial concern of public interest.
Legal co-ordinator for the Wilderness Society and author of Gagged: The Gunns 20 and other law suits, Greg Ogle explains the ramifications of the Gunns 20 case:
"There were certainly examples of people pulling out of activity protesting Gunns’ pulp mill, and of others being afraid even to put submissions into government assessment processes … The litigation also impacted on public debate simply because of the many hours required to address the case. These were hours which were not available for the defendants to spend on the protection of Tasmania’s forests."
The Gunns 20 case sent a chill around the island state and across Bass Strait. With what might be termed "instructive" timing, Gunns announced their proposal for a $2.5 billion pulp mill in the Tamar Valley north of Launceston just days after issuing the 20 writs.
Although the north of the Tamar is no stranger to industry, the valley is also populated by viticulturists who produce 40 per cent of Tasmania’s cool climate wines. Looking at how the wine industry has responded to the pulp mill — and to the Gunns 20 case — illustrates the ways in which SLAPP suits reach beyond particular defendants.
Wine and tourism are the Tamar’s chief industries: the 58 kilometre Tamar Valley Wine Route boasts 19 boutique wineries and the Valley has over 40 in total. The area’s mainly owner-operated and family-based tourist ventures — restaurants, cafes, bed and breakfast accommodation — are worth approximately $300 million annually. These businesses are certainly likely to register the effects of the mill.
It is projected that the mill will pump some 30 billion litres of liquid effluent into Bass Strait each year. And daily, it will release 300 kilograms of particulate air pollution into the Tamar Valley — an output which will include so-called "non condensable gases", which human nostrils up to 55 kilometres away may mistake for the aroma of rotten eggs. The Tasmanian Government has helpfully exempted the pulp mill from adhering to national air pollution limits.
Aghast at the potential loss of so much fine wine, the Victorian Sommeliers Association (VSA) wrote to its members about the proposed pulp mill. The VSA also considered orchestrating a boycott against Gunns; alongside their timber interests Gunns also has a stake in Tasmania’s wine industry, owning the labels Tamar Ridge and Devil’s Corner. However, the VSA decided against the boycott. President Ben Edwards said the decision was based less on the likelihood of losing a court case against Gunns, and more on the prospect of being dragged through the courts for years, regardless of the outcome. Edwards said the decision was directly influenced by the Gunns 20 case.
Another example of the chilling effects of the Gunns 20 case could be evidenced in the pages of the University of Tasmania’s student magazine, Togatus. While the folks who advise us on what red to drink with our tagine may not be renowned for their political activism, student-run publications have a reputation for just that.
When Wilderness Society volunteer Paul Oosting submitted an article likening Gunns’ description of the pulp mill as "world’s best practice" to Orwell’s ‘newspeak’, Togatus refused to publish it for fear of retaliatory litigation.
Oosting eventually published his pulp mill article on the Tasmanian Times website. He also got the job of pulp mill campaigner for the Wilderness Society and can be heard frequently on Tasmanian radio vehemently criticising the mill and its owners. Even so, Greg Ogle describes the Togatus episode as bringing home to him the adverse effect the case has had on free speech.
The Gunns 20 case is the most high profile of a new breed of lawsuits, which direct industrial and commercial law at environmental and community protest, using charges of ‘conspiracy to injure’, ‘hindering trade’ and ‘unlawfully interfering with trade and business’. While some of the alleged actions in the case involved a direct stopping of business, most of their case against the Wilderness Society and Greens politicians were about broader political processes like the lobbying of business and government or making statements to the media.
Ogle argues that law reform, along the lines of anti-SLAPP legislation in the US, is needed to protect the public’s right to participate in political debate and protest: "Legislation must be framed around a positive right to public participation, not around a question of whether a case is an abuse of process, although outlawing such abuses may be part of the legislation. The right to public participation must be paramount."
The Gunns 20 case signals the urgent need for Australian legislators to introduce measures to protect community
activism from the wrath of corporations scorned.
This is the first in a two-part series on the Gunns 20 case and the legal issues surrounding public protest and advocacy. Tomorrow, Liesel will look at the history of Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation suits.
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This is perhaps the most important environmental/political rights issue in the country, yet the Rudd govt. does nothing to defend the basic right to protest. All that corporatist hypocrisy about transparency, protecting the environment etc…Rudd et al are imitating Lee Kuan Yew and the noxious Singapore regime.
The green movement appears distracted by climate Armageddon: time to deal with the real environment again.
And who’s paying for the victims? I note that Bob Brown, richer than all of them, whistled up big dollars last year to pay his costs…not for the first time I believe.
I watched the Bannockburn Yellow Gums group in Victoria screwed by Frank de Stefano’s libel action in the 90s: the same de Stefano who was recently released after 8 years in prison for massive thefts. De Stefano ran Barwon Water for Kennett- he was Kennett’s hatchet-man in Geelong. De Stefano tried to sue me for libel ten years earlier when we were both Geelong City councillors. So what are the politicians doing about SLAPPs?
Gunns’ intimidation of the people is supported by Tasmanian government and the actions of an inept police force that gives no thought to public relations.
Many people are not prepared to take part in protests that will risk their arrest, or voice an opinion out loud, or mention these emails in government emails.
I do know of one government employee who was warned by her superior for signing a petition requesting the government hold a royal commission into the approval process. This was shameful, unethical and misuse of authority.
Frank - I think you’ll be comforted to know that all the money received by Bob Brown for the Gunns 20 trial, the Senator passed on the Gunns 20 organisation, Friends of Forests and Free Speech. He then bypassed accessing the collective account and paid for his part of case out of his own pocket. He got most of that money back off Gunns when they dropped him from the case, but was still left over $10, 000 out of pocket.
Long after he was dropped from the case Senator Brown continued to help fundraise for the remaining defendants.
All the Gunns 20 defendants I spoke to while writing this and other stories on the case, had been personally supported by him during the most difficult times in the case.
The Wielangta case, for which he ended up making his public plea for help with the costs, was not so much his case, as a case taken up by him in the public interest. Senator Brown gave all the left over donations from the Wielangta case to forest campaigns.
If the abuse of process and misuse of authority in the Gunns 20 case or the Barwon Water case makes your blood boil, you should read about the Wielangta case.
Frank,you won’t get much,if any action from the Rudd government to support public particpation in any matter.This government is well and truly in the camp of big business.This has been true of any government post WW 2.
As for the green movement being distracted by the climate change/pollution problem.This is a very important issue and certainly not a distraction.There are plenty of people in the invironment movement who are involved in lesser issues.
Unfortunately there is one issue that the green movement is fast asleep on,in the main.That is population overshoot in Australia and our insane immigration policy.Population is at the bottom of all environmental problems caused by Homo Saps.
Yes thanx Liesel I am comforted by that info. The media (mainland anyway) gives scant coverage of these issues. It’s important that Brown et al be as transparent as possible re money matters.
The bottom line is that developmentalist ideology in Tasmania has scarcely been dented by decades of activism. Now we have Kevin “I want a big Australia” Rudd. Rudd is a Qld Philistine, congenitally unable to grasp the questions of water, urban sprawl etc. All ALP govts are essentially the same, moderated by Green influence here and there, from both inside and outside the ALP. At best they can manage ameliorative, temporary and ultimately self-defeating fixes (eg override councils on local planning to increase density, desal plants, marginal additions to Nat. Parks…)
The “carbon pollution” hypothesis, now in deep political and empirical trouble, has been treated by Greens and their allies as a short cut to suppression of capitalism’s environmental rapacity. Slashing the Gordian knot seemed like such a good idea at the time- CO2 as a proxy for all environmental evils. The Greens must face reality- politically, the strategy is dead in the water. Thirra is too optimistic- the real environmental battles are now not even on the agenda, because of the CO2 red herring. Sure, some activists fight on, but they get little publicityand less traction. The growth-at-all-costs mentality rules, reinvigorated by the failure of the CO2 coup-de-grace.
On the local scene, many Left commentators predicted a permanent split in the Liberal Party when the feral Right rolled Turnbull. I said on Crikey they were wrong- that Turnbull had to go because Rudd was in effect colonising the Libs via the ETS and (more broadly) adherence to AGW belief. The Libs didn’t split and won’t. We can expect the ALP to continue retreating from AGW “reform” , protesting their faith as they do so. If they don’t Abbott will reap the electoral rewards. Rudd may be a Philistine, but he’s no fool. He has a deep and abiding love of power.
So like it or not AGW policy from now on will be a sham. Therefore Greens should focus once again on the life and death struggle to preserve (not to mention enhance) the environment.
If Gunns hoped this case would silence the people of Tasmania then they badly misjudged the situation. Because it isn’t the only Gunns-related legal case before the courts at the moment. The cases of the 50+ opponents of the proposed pulp mill are also being prepared. These are the people who have so far twice been arrested for peacefully protesting outside Parliament House in Hobart, and also outside a school in Beaconsfield, where a State government Community Cabinet was being held, about the the iniquitous Section 11 of the Pulp Mill Assessment Act. Gardening personality Peter Cundall and his wife among them. The fast-tracked PMAA was the infamous piece of legislation that former premier Paul Lennon rammed through parliament after Gunns withdrew from the RPDC assessment process. It knew the RPDC was about to reject the mill due to being judged ‘critically non-compliant’.
Supporters of Pulp the Mill are prepared to be arrested again
over the corrupt government approval process of the pulp mill, and the corporate bullying and thuggery that characterises Gunns attitude towards the community in which it operates and does business.
See http://www.pulpthemill.org/index.html
“We must all have a great sense of responsibility and not let things
happen because everyone takes the comfortable view that someone else
is looking after it. Someone else isn’t looking after it.” - Rachel
Carson, 1962
Now this case has been settled! Wonderful news.
But there is still the Triabunna 13, some of whom were arrested for trespass at the Triabunna plant, so perhaps gunns think they have a better case there. And then there are those mentioned by Misty, who were arrested for standing on the steps of Tasmania’s parliament, that great supporter of jobs for mates and their families, of corruption, of anything but democracy or the people.
SLAPP legislation should have no part in a democratic country, as a country is not a democracy unless the people have full participation in decision-making - which would make the actions that Tasmanians are having to take to protect forests, their jobs and their own health and safety, unnecessary.
With the Tasmanian ‘Government’ OWNED by Gunns (both major parties) and Krudd heavily on Bartlett’s wagon for some unknown reason, other than both being ‘labor’, we can not expect any changes to SLAPP rules, either State based or Federal. These ‘leaders’ all support the crushing of free speech and non-violent protest, as they all are “Little Hitlers”. Just look at Brumby in Victoria, Capt’n Bligh in Queensland, yes, Bartlett in Tasmania, Barnett in WA, the Labor Far-Right Faction controlling NSW (what puppet have they got at the moment?). Only the ACT seems to stand away from these (and Krudd and Co. love hitting them) and possibly (I do not know all) SA, with Rann a bit of a mystery.
Fascist and draconian Government seems to be on the increase World wide, with fearful (both from economic panic and from the continuing and very successful ‘terrorist’ fear campaigns) people supporting ultra-conservative parties into power.
I would refer you to an article by Peter Harcher in today’s Fairfax media on the electoral success of Krudd in following the ultra-conservative Howard method of winning and holding power in Australia.
Howard was a disaster for Australian society, with a lasting effect that is going to drag us down to lowest common denominator for decades to come, especially when other aspiring leaders see his formula as the only way to win, and continue it, as Krudd has done, and it would seem intends to continue to do.
There will be no new thinking in Australian politics. Business As Usual (even if that is guaranteed, within 50 years, to destroy us, as a society and perhaps even as a species) is the order of the day.
And in order to do this, discontent has to be managed (public -purse paid for PR and Spin campaigns), public opposition discouraged strongly (SLAPP writs by assisting Corps.), and censorship of information available to the public has to be installed (Conroy and the Internet).
You only have to look around the world to see that all this is on the increase, even in supposedly previously Democratic countries.
Ordinary people must NOT BE ALLOWED to have and maintain agendas dangerous to ‘good, STRONG government’.
I shudder when I hear Governments talking that way.
I know what they have in mind, and it is not to my benefit.
It would appear that Governments are likely to change in Tasmania, and Queensland, (and certainly NSW eventually) soon, but the likely alternatives are Far Right conservative Lib/Nat co-alitions, which will make things worse, not better, if that is possible.
Already Barnett in WA is selling his entire State to Global Corporations and China Inc., ensuring that there will be massive environmental degradation, and eventually nothing left to sell or survive on. NSW, Vict. Tas and Qld. follow poste haste, with all working to dig up and sell off every ounce of COAL and minerals in the land, never mind that all that is left is total land and water degradation, and less chance for humans or animals to survive long term.
It is said that we all get the Government we deserve, because we ‘elect’ them. Well, the ‘election’ bit is subject to a lot of manipulation, and most people are ‘sheep’, and vote according to
PR and ‘spin’ campaigns, but besides all that, voters are very conservative, and HATE change. While we are like this, expect no better. DUMB voters, DUMB Governments, DUMB results.
Gawd, just look at America!
I think this an excellent paper By Liesel Rickarby & I have to strongly agree (again) with Dazza’s statement.
The internet is being suppressed along with everything Dazza just stated & even though they call it a democracy, what most people don’t understand is that the democracy is being run by capitalism. A capitalist democracy that is now being run by government/s that refuse to separate the two. Suppression is also being used by government as well as the big money corporation’s & I’m not aware of anyone that isn’t feeling the strain of it all.
Your right Dazza, a species that has just about seen the end of it’s day’s because these thing’s can’t see past their beliefs. They refuse to face the fact’s & address the obvious for fear of their own inadequacies.