By Sid Walker
While many aspects of the Coalition's Fightback 2 document have come under challenge, there is one piece of misinformation that has not yet received any attention.
A section entitled "Accelerating stalled investment projects" lists 24 projects allegedly stalled due to "red tape" (read opposition from the environment movement). Unblocking these investment projects would, Fightback 2 asserts, earn $2630 million in foreign exchange and create an estimated 4500 jobs during the construction phase.
A closer look at the four "stalled" projects in NSW alone reveals that it is simply untrue to claim that these projects are being held up by environmentalists.
The claim that two Australian Newsprint Mills (ANM) projects in Albury-Wodonga are being held up was news to ANM. ANM management has stated that one of the projects cited is not planned to begin for several years, while the other — a "newsprint-brightening" plant — had received environmental approval on June 19, 1991, and was already proceeding.
ANM issued the same corrective in July 1991, when the Brisbane Courier Mail listed two stalled ANM projects in an article headed "Bans That Cost Us Millions". While there was no doubt that some projects had been held up in the past, it said, it was totally legitimate that the community have its say prior to any project going ahead.
"In most cases", wrote Graham Ogilvie, ANM's managing director, "the technology is readily available, albeit at a cost, for new developments to proceed without any adverse impact on the environment ... there can be no short-changing the environment. Any shortcuts today will result in massive future penalties to the companies concerned and the community at large."
The second of the four NSW projects listed in Fightback 2 is Daishowa's Grafton pulp mill. It is highly unlikely this project will proceed. There are major concerns over the resource base and market conditions for the project, quite apart from the potentially appalling environmental consequences of a world-scale bleached kraft eucalypt pulp mill on the Clarence River.
The project is so unpopular among the local community that the National Party candidate for Page disowned statements made by opposition leader John Hewson on February 17 that the mill would go ahead under their plans to "fast-track" stalled projects.
To add to the confusion, National Party leader Tim Fischer stated on February 22 that the Coalition's proposal was not for a world-scale kraft pulp mill after all but for a "boutique, environmentally friendly paper making mill" — a proposal entirely different from back 2.
It seems the confusion among members of the Coalition is closely matched by the indecision of Daishowa itself. A document recently released by the Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency reveals that no firm proposal on the mill has come from Daishowa. The company has taken no action since conducting a feasibility study some two to three years ago. The proposal has not come before the Commonwealth and does not have the active support of the NSW government.
The final "stalled" investment project in NSW is listed as one for methane gas extraction by AGL/Amoco. It would seem that this is a reference to the newly dedicated Nattai National Park and to supplies of marsh gas which may be present in the region.
Yet when Nattai was declared a national park on Terry Metherell's initiative in late 1991, special "State Recreation Areas" were created adjacent to the new park. Coal gas exploration is permitted within them, while the core area of Nattai is more fully protected. Amoco manager Bill Moehl is on record denying the importance of Nattai National Park to his company's project. "Nattai doesn't represent a problem to us", he told the Sydney Morning Herald on December 16, 1991. "It only represented a small fraction of the potential reserve."
If the NSW projects listed by Fightback 2 are anything to go by, the other 20 "stalled" projects should be subjected to closer scrutiny. Is the inclusion of such inaccuracies due to incompetence? Or is it rather a convenient and calculated distortion that allows the Coalition to play on the widespread concern about unemployment to present environmental and heritage protection as the obstacle to the creation of investment and jobs?