Timeline of Deceipt.
RPDC Commissioner, Mr Cooper told Premier Lennon: “it had been intended to send this letter on 9th March (a Friday), but it was not sent, at the request of the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet.”
So the RPDC didn’t send the letter to Gunns Ltd but in the week beginning 5 March DPAC were aware of the full details contained in Justice Wright’s unsent letter. Disturbingly we now know that the Premier himself received his own personal copy of this unsent letter for his information; sent courtesy of Mr Cooper on 23 March 07.
In the following week, certainly by 8 March, the Head of Premier Lennon’s department, Ms Hornsey, had contacted Gunns Ltd (by phone) and informed them of these matters. In particular the pulp mill proponent would have been made aware of the significant concerns the RPDC had about the inadequacy of Gunns’ Supplementary Information.
On 14 March (a Wednesday), five days after this RPDC letter had been due to be sent to Gunns Ltd, the company announced, in a release to the ASX and media outlets, that it was “formally withdrawing from the Bell Bay pulp mill project from the RPDC pulp mill assessment process” citing unacceptable delays caused in the assessment process as its principle reason.
The next day, 15 March, the Premier of Tasmania, Paul Lennon, announced his government’s intention to immediately prepare a bill to fast-track the assessment process so that the assessment would be completed by the deadline ultimatum set by Gunns Ltd (end of August). [Lennon recalled State Parliament on Tuesday 20 March to debate the new legislation.]
Over the following weekend (17-18 March 07), members of Gunns Ltd Board of Directors and their company lawyers met with the Premier, Deputy Premier and senior government officials to begin the drafting of the bill to present to Parliament; the bill passed the House of Assembly on Thursday 22 March.
At no stage has Premier Lennon volunteered, to either the Parliament or the people of Tasmania, that:
1. His Department was formally made aware in early March that the Gunns IIS was critically deficient or that even after Gunns Ltd had provided the RPDC with Supplementary Information on 16 February — 16 days late — the information was still deficient.
2. The Head of his Department — DPAC — had intervened in the RPDC’s intention to send a letter to Gunns Ltd on those matters.
3. Unbeknown to the RPDC, DPAC had communicated to Gunns the concerns contained in the unsent RPDC letter; this secret communication occurred in the period between 2nd and 14th March
4. The Premier’s own department had alerted Gunns Ltd — the proponent for the pull mill — of the conclusions made by the RPDC at that time (namely that the information provided by the company was critically non compliant).
Edited version of Henry Melville's article in Tasmanian Times.
