Hells Gates - holiday reading

I picked up Hells Gates by Paul Collins while I was in Hobart. I really do love a good second hand book shop, and the Imperial Bookshop in Collins St, Hobart, is a good one. I picked up this book to add to my collection of books about Tasmania, and Tasmanian history. This one tells the fascinating story of the convict, Alexander Pearce.


The title, Hells Gates, refers to two things. First, Hells Gates is the entrance to Macquarie Harbour on Tasmanias west coast. It's a narrow channel, and the tide roars in and out through it, across a series of shallow sand bars. It's a very dangerous crossing for any ships and so early sailors christened it Hells Gates.

Inside the harbour, though, is Sarah Island. This was the site of a convict station that imprisoned the worst of the worst convicts. It was one of the harshest convict regimes in colonial Australia, and the convicts called it a hell on earth. So Hells Gates was an appropriate name for them too.

The book follows the life of Alexander Pearce, from his early life and conviction in Ireland, through his transportation to Van Diemens Land and his continuing troubles with the law, to his exile at Sarah Island and eventual escape, recapture and execution. Along the way the author shows what life was like in colonial Tasmania. For convicts like Pearce, who could not adjust to the regime and serve their time, it was a very harsh existence.

The main event in the history is Pearce's escape from Sarah Island, a place that was supposed to be completely secure and isolated. The rainforests and mountains of the west coast of Tasmania were supposed to be uncrossable, and so provided the best prison walls available. But Pearce and his companions proved this to be wrong. But to do this, we also see what it cost them - they descended into some of the worst possible human behaivour. Only Pearce survived the escape attempt, and only by turning murderer and cannibal.

That's the heart of this book. It shows us how the worst of human nature can be brought out in people. It also includes a fascinating comparison between colonial and convict attitudes to the local environment compared to contemporary attitudes. The convicts and early settlers saw the pristine rainforests and rugged mountains as hostile and imprisoning, unnatural. Today we look at the same landscape and see beauty, unspoiled wilderness that inspires us. It's still the same place, almost unchanged, and still just as harsh, but how we look at it has changed dramatically. It's an interesting conclusion to the book, making us think about how society and people do change through time.

I think this is a good book, and I will be re-reading it at some point. It's a fascinating story in itself, and it combines that with being well written. Maybe it's just because I enjoy reading about Tasmanian history that I think this is such a good book, but I do think other people would enjoy it too.

3.5 stars, I think.

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Happy New Year 2008

I have had a very lazy holiday over Christmas and New Year. It's been great. But now I'm back at work, and trying to get into the swing of 2008.


I don't make new year resolutions. I really can't see the point in setting goals that I almost certainly will forget about. I've made resolutions in the past and pretty much given up on them within days. Or weeks at the most... So, no resolutions for this year. I'll just be concentrating on longer-term goals that I've already thought about.

Actually, I didn't stay awake long enough on New Years Eve to even see the new year in. How slack is that? I was in bed by 11 and fast asleep. I'll blame my friends for being too lazy to go out for the night - that's my excuse. I guess we're all a little bit over the whole party scene, dodging drunken teenagers on the waterfront or in the nightclubs. Anyway... (the new year is making me feel old, can you tell?)

The two weeks holiday itself was very good, though. I went to Tassie for 10 days, before spending a final few days at home in Brisbane before heading back to work this morning. As usual, the weather in Hobart was pretty average. A lot of it was cold and overcast, with a couple of good days over the weekend. It even broke 30 degrees on new years eve, so I jumped in the water and went swimming. The Tasmanian water is always so refreshingly cold, isn't it? But then on New Years day, for our family bbq, the temperature didn't even make it to 20. We still had a good time though - fresh salmon and sausages on the bbq, with some of mums salads and raspberry ice cream cake. Yum! It's just a shame we couldn't include a swim at the beach as part of the fun.

I love going home to Hobart for a holiday. I don't feel like a tourist there, and so there's no pressure to go off sightseeing, there's no list of attractions to see or activities to do. I spent my time catching up with family and friends, and then doing nothing. Just a few days of lazing around the house doing nothing, walking on the beach, reading or watching the cricket made for a fantastic holiday, a holiday that felt twice as long as it actually was. After what had been a pretty hectic couple of months leading up to Christmas I needed that break.

It was particularly good to see my grandfather again. He's looking quite a bit older and frailer than he did even a few months ago, unfortunately. Old age really is unfair, isn't it? It's certainly not his mind that's slowing up, but his body just can't keep up anymore. Still, he's doing pretty well, and is a lot better than many people his age. I just hope I take after him!

I also caught up with a few friends while in Tassie. If I was making new year resolutions, one would be to make more of an effort to keep in touch with these people. I really don't see them or talk to them often enough. I'm hoping that at least a few of them will come and visit me sometime this year.

So that was my Christmas. It was fun, the best holiday I've had for a while now. I just wish, really wish, I wasn't back at work this morning!

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Tasmanian Politics

I came across this site the other day. It's always interesting to keep up with whats going on back home in Tassie, and this looks like a good way of doing it.

Tasmanian politics might not rate much attention unless you live there, but I'm still concerned and interested in it. The current Tasmanian state government is a bit of a disgrace and the whole pulp mill decision process was disgusting. Anyway...

It'll be interesting to read this site as it develops.

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Great Gunns... again!

It seems like everyone is talking about the Gunns pulp mill now. There are reports in all the papers about it. The Australian has had a good run with the story, as have other media outlets such as the ABC. It's a bit late, though - the mill is virtually approved, and now the media starts talking about it... but better late than never.


I guess the main reason it's suddenly become a story is that Geoffrey Cousins is running a large publicity campaign about it in Malcom Turnbulls electorate in Sydney. The papers obviously don't think it's a story unless there's a Sydney angle, right? Anyway...

Still, the debate goes on. There is a vote due any time now in the Tasmanian upper house, giving final approval from the state. And there are reports of new environmental concerns. This latest report finds that the mill will not meet 15 environmental conditions. That has to be disturbing for anyone who's interested in the project.

There are even reports that Malcolm Turnbull might be considering telling Gunns to move the mill to another site (Hampshire, rather than the Tamar Valley) I think that would probably be a good idea, although I doubt Gunns would consider it. They'd probably just pull the plug on the whole thing rather than try and re-design the whole mill so that it could be done at the Hampshire site. It'd almost be as bad as starting from scratch again.

I can understand why Gunns is frustrated. This project was originally proposed several years ago now, and should have been resolved before this. Now it's got caught up in all the election-year politicking. Since the federal government has to sign off on the assessment before the mill can go ahead, it's become a federal issue. Neither side of politics will want to make a committment before the election because whatever they decide will annoy some voters. And those voters are in a marginal seat which might turn out to be critical to the election result...

So what's going to happen? I've got no idea. What should happen? Everyone should forget about the politics and focus on the actual effects of the mill. I still think the whole approvals process has been a sham so far - maybe the federal government process will be better, but since this is an election year I think the final decision will have more to do with electioneering than an actual assessment of the mill on its merits. Hopefully, I'm just being too cynical here, though...

And I still think the mill is dubious on all sorts of environmental grounds. I don't think the approvals process has taken these fully into consideration.

Basically, the whole thing stinks. The Lennon state government really needs to go, in my opinion. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an opposition. Anyway...

Previous entries: Gunns part 1, Gunns part 2.

Also: An interesting piece in today's Crikey about the politics of the mill and Geoffrey Cousins. Like I said, Tassie only gets national attention when there is an outsider involved...

Update 2: An article by Warwick Raverty in New Matilda lays out the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the mill. And here's a conflicting view from Jennifer Marohasy, pointing out that the mill is supposed to be built in Tasmanias largest industrial estate. It's true that Bell Bay, with the Rio Tinto aluminium smelter is in the same area, along with other industries. I think, though, that the mill will be built further upriver than Bell Bay, away from the rest of the industrial sites. And that doesn't answer the other environmental problems, either. Still, it's an interesting point, and I can't comment much more than that since it's been a long time since I've been through the area.

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South, south, south!

So, I spent the weekend in Hobart. It seems like a long way to go for a weekend, I know, but it's always fun. I love going home to Tassie, even if it is just for a few days.

I flew down from Brisbane on Saturday morning. I love the fact that there are direct flights from Brisbane to Hobart. It's only been possible for a few years, really, and the direct flights just save so much time. I flew Virgin, of course - I don't know why I even bother checking the Qantas prices anymore, as they are always more expensive. There's really not much to pick between them, anyway, except that you have to pay for your own food on Virgin. Thats certainly no big deal when you're talking about saving anything up to $100 on the flight.

Anyway... I love flying. I always get a window seat if I can. On the flight down to Hobart we went right over Sydney, and I had a wonderful view of the western suburbs. Not Sydneys most attractive view, I have to say - suburbs stretching off into the mountains. Victoria was covered in cloud, but that started breaking up as we flew over Bass Strait. We took the normal flight path to Hobart, so I had a lovely view of Flinders Island and the north-east coast of Tassie. I could see the snow on Ben Lomond, just peaking out between the clouds. Everything looked wet, which surprised me. I thought it had been pretty dry in Tassie, just like pretty much everywhere else. But apparently it had been raining all week, something I probably would have known if I'd bothered to watch the news last week. There were floods all over the place, too. I think it's now rained and flooded pretty much everywhere in the country except here in Brisbane. Oh well...

I didn't actually do much over the weekend. The whole point of going down there was to spend some time with my parents, and catch up with all the family. We had a big family dinner on Saturday night, which was great. That doesn't happen often enough, at least for me now that I live so far away from everyone else. Sunday I just hung around with my parents, and grandfather. I braved the cold, briefly, and went for a walk along the beach and around the neighbourhood with dad. Things are changing, of course - more houses going up, people moving on, etc. The place is still home, though, so the good parts haven't changed. Walking along the beach, even when it's freezing cold in the middle of winter, just makes me feel at home. Lying in bed at night, all I could hear was the waves on the beach. That's the sound of home for me, and is something I do miss here in Brisbane.

Unfortunately, it was an early flight out this morning. Monday is always a bad day to fly - too many people, higher prices etc. And I couldn't get the direct flight back to Brisbane so I had to change planes in Sydney. Another window seat for me, of course. For some reason we took a different flight path than I was expecting. Flying out of Tasmania we went right over the top of Ben Lomond. I could see Jacobs Ladder, all covered in snow. Since it was so soon after sunrise, the snow on the mountains looked stunning, but Launceston was still hidden in the shadows.

I also got a fantastic view of the ranges around Mt Kosciuszko. There's an impressive amount of snow on them at the moment, and with fog curling through the surrounding valleys it looked spectacular.

Then we flew right over the top of Canberra - right over the top of Parliament House. I was looking straight down on the flagpole. Can't say I've seen it from that angle before, and wouldn't it be interesting to send John Howard a message from that angle?
Hmmm...

Sydney is always nice to fly into, and this time was no exception. We came in over the western suburbs, circled around, and got a perfect view of the city, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. All the cliches in one short flight!

But that's why I love flying, even when the planes are full of more kids than a daycare centre. I love being able to look down and put a name to places I've never been and probably wont get to see from the ground. Looking down and wondering what people do in all these little towns we fly over. Dreaming about walking on all those beaches, in all those bays, on all those islands...

But it was just one weekend. I can't wait for a real holiday. I need a proper break... soon, soon, soon :)

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Gunns, Part 2

As well as the political concerns I have over the Gunns pulp mill (see previous post), I also have a few environmental concerns. As I mentioned before, the RPDC found holes in the Gunns IIS. They failed to address the environmental issues adequately.

First of all, this is a pulp mill. That means it will be using a lot of wood, turning it into pulp. At the moment, Gunns is a huge exporter of woodchips. These woodchips mostly go to Japan, and are then turned into pulp and paper. When Gunns first put this proposal up, I think they said that the wood supply for the mill would come from the woochips that are now being exported. That would be fantastic – there would be no more wood taken from the forests than is already being harvested. In that case, the mill would definitely be a good thing. After all, if the Japanese can buy our wood chips and turn them into pulp or paper then why can’t we do it? Exporting wood chips just seems silly to me – almost a criminal waste of our forest resources. Logging of old-growth forests for woodchipping just seems so wrong. But since then, I’ve heard that they are not planning to phase out wood chipping in favour of supplying the pulp mill. The latest plans, apparently, are to continue exporting wood chips as well as taking extra wood from the forests to supply the new mill. That would mean that they could potentially double the amount of wood being harvested. If that’s true, I think that would definitely be unsustainable. I’ll have to try and find a reference for that, though – I remember hearing that this was the plan, but can’t remember where I heard it.

Other issues include the treatment of effluent from the mill. The plan is to build a pipeline three kilometers out into Bass Strait. This will have the effect of dumping a lot of waste water into a fairly pristine area, and a prime fishing ground. There’s also been a study done that shows this area of Bass Strait is one of the slowest areas in the strait to be flushed clean, which means that any toxins etc in the effluent will be concentrated here for quite some time. This doesn’t sound like the best possible environmental standard to me.

I’ve been in a few pulp and paper mills over the last few years. They are smelly places. I haven’t yet seen a pulp mill that doesn’t have odour problems. Gunns says that this mill wont have an odour problem because of the technology they will be using. That seems a bit optimistic to me. The best systems can fail, and have weaknesses. This is one of the issues that the IIS given to the RPDC failed to address. There will be leaks, there will be failures, and odour will get out. In a remote area this wouldn’t be a problem, though. The gases aren’t poisonous, or anything like that. They just smell bad. If there was a large distance between the mill and anything else, that would be fine. One of the main concerns here is that the mill is going to be a few kilometers downwind of Launceston – a city that already has air quality issues due to a winter inversion layer. Adding anything else to the air in that part of the world just adds to the problems of the city. I don’t think enough attention has been paid to this – and it’s a real concern to people living in the area.

Then there are concerns about access to the mill site. Many, many log trucks will have to travel to and from the mill every day. Roads in Tassie already feel clogged by log trucks, and this can be a menace. Roads can be narrow, and winding, and adding a lot of trucks to the roads can be dangerous. The mill is being built in an area with no other way for logs to be brought in except by road. It would have made more sense, I think, to build it at a location with rail access, so that the number of log trucks on the access roads could be reduced.

Anyway, on environmental grounds, I think this is the wrong mill in the wrong place. I don’t think the technology they will be using is as good as they claim. I don’t think they’ve chosen the best possible location. And I don’t think they have any plans for a sustainable wood supply – they just plan to keep clearfelling any and all forests they can access to use for wood chips and pulp.

Overall, I think a new pulp and/or paper mill in Tasmania would be a great idea. Forest-based are great industries. If they’re done well, they are sustainable forever – after all, trees do keep growing. Well-managed forest industries would be a great part of Tasmania’s clean and green image. When I first heard of the proposal I was a supporter. But Gunns, and the government, have lost my support. I think this project will be bad for the Tasmanian environment, and will be bad for the image of the state. It’s too big, in the wrong place, doesn’t seem to use the best available technology, and I don’t trust Gunns to have any concern for environmental issues. This pulp mill will go ahead, but I don’t think that’s a good thing anymore.


Links : Wikipedia

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Howards Hospitals

So - John Howard announces that he'll take over a Tasmanian hospital. Why?

Well, it's an election year, it's a marginal electorate that he's trying to save, and it's an issue where the state Labor government has made an unpopular decision. The perfect opportunity for John Howard to gain some votes just where he needs them.

Good politcs, yes. Good policy? Probably not. But who cares about good policy in an election year?

Other links: John Quiggin, Blogocracy, Crikey

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Gunns, Part 1

The Four Corners program last night was a report about the proposed Gunns pulp mill. The proposal is very controversial – as any and all forestry proposals in Tasmania are. Over the last couple of decades, forestry debates have been one of the major issues of Tasmanian politics, and so any proposal like a pulp mill was always going to be controversial.

The program was aired to coincide with the final approvals for the mill, which were due to be passed through parliament today, and it documented the whole sorry saga. Apart from the fact that any proposed mill would annoy the Greens, there has been the mess that is the approvals process. That’s the main heart of the controversy. It looks like the mill has been given an easy run around the proper approvals process, and that there is a political fix in place to make sure the mill goes ahead.

That’s the main concern for me – that the approvals process has been compromised in such a way that it looks like it was fixed. The proposal was supposed to go to the RPDC (Resources Planning and Development Commission) which is an independent body. That independence is supposed to ensure impartiality, and so inspire trust in the general community. The initial Gunns IIS (integrated impact statement) that was presented to the RPDC was sent back as being flawed. The RPDC found holes in the IIS, which was around 10,000 pages long and presented late. Holes included failing to address odour emissions, for example.

Instead of re-doing the IIS and re-presenting it to the RPDC, Gunns went to the government. This is where the political fix came in. Premier Paul Lennon has always been a supporter of Gunns, and the forestry industries. He’s a Labor premier, so supporting industry and union worker is fair enough, but he is seen as being too close to John Gay (CEO of Gunns). Gunns withdrew the pulp mill proposal from the RPDC, saying that the process was too long. Gunns said that if the project wasn’t approved by August 2007, then it would not go ahead.

Paul Lennon then announced that the parliament would pass a special bill allowing the mill to go ahead anyway, despite the fact it was no longer going to go through the regular state planning procedures. The new procedure would allow parliament to approve the project, and hired outside consultants to provide a report on the impacts of the mill. The consultants were allowed six weeks to provide this report, aiming to meet the deadline announced by Gunns. The RPDC had taken over a year to reach the stage it did – partly because of Gunns delay in providing information.

The consultants report was favourable, allowing Paul Lennon to say that it would be a good project for Tasmania. But the terms of reference for the consultants report were much tighter than those given to the RPDC, and so didn’t address all the concerns raised previously. So it is pretty much certain that the mill will be built, after the state parliament allowed it to get around the normal planning approvals.

That whole saga is a disgrace, in my opinion. Now that the planning requirements have been relaxed for this project, how can we really know that it is going to meet the world-best standards? We just have to take the word of Gunns and government that it will be so? On a project the size of this one, we shouldn’t have to take it on trust. Allowing the RPDC to complete its study would have given the proposal much greater credibility.
Gunns should have answered the RPDCs’ criticisms, rather than trying to go around it. They raised valid questions, pointed out holes in Gunns arguments, and gave a voice to community concerns. All of these issues have been side-stepped, which just allows distrust and anger to grow. Personally, I think the government was really stupid to allow this to happen.

There were always going to be political issues around the pulp mill. The Greens got their first foothold in parliament due to an earlier pulp mill proposal in the early 1990s (?). They were always going to protest the new proposal – that was a given. People are used to the Greens protesting by now, since it seems to be their main way of operating and getting attention. But the government has just given the Greens much greater credibility by the way it has handled this proposal. If the government had really wanted to address the environmental concerns, this was definitely not the way to do it. It just gives more ammunition for the Greens to work with in the future. The government should have expressed its support for a pulp mill, but also for its independent planning procedures. That way it would have been pro-industry and workers, but also could have answered the critics who say it doesn’t care about environmental issues. And it would also have looked good in standing up to big industry. But that’s just my opinion…

The mill will go ahead, and will continue to be controversial. And there are still lots of environmental questions that, in my opinion, haven’t been properly answered.


Links : The Dead Roo, 4 Corners

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Pulp mills and politics...

4 Corners, on ABC, tonight had a good overview of the Gunns pulp mill debate. It's been going on for a couple of years now, and is coming up for final approval by the Tasmanian government in a few weeks. It's all very controversial. Too tired now, but will write a bit more about it later.

Here's the 4 Corners website, which has lots of information about it all.

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Forest Fights

Yesterday Kevin Rudd was in Tassie (my home state, even though I live in QLD now). He was talking about forests, of course. Tasmanian politics has largely been about forest management for a long time now. Old growth logging, plantations, pulp mills, wood chipping - all have been on the agenda. It was another pulp mill proposal, back in the early 1990s (? I think ?) that gave the Greens their first entry into the Tasmanian parliament, and set up Bob Browns political career. And now Kevin Rudd has been in Tassie announcing his forest policy for the state.

I guess that makes sense. Mark Lathams' policy at the last election cost him quite a lot, and gave John Howard some wonderful photo opportunities with union members. Labors policy (see here) seems to be exactly the same as John Howards from that election. Although - I don't think that policy was ever implemented by the government? I'll have to check that out, but I think it was another non-core promise once the election was won. Anyway...

Personally, I don't like the way that Tassies forests are being managed. Turning our old growth forests into wood chips and shipping them to Japan seems almost criminal to me. I think the forests are worth much more than what we can get for them as wood chips.

Also - if the Japanese can turn these woodchips into pulp and paper and make a profit, then why can't we do it? But the whole pulp mill story is a saga in itself... some other time.

Is it a good policy? Well, it'll probably win him some votes back in northern tassie. The Greens dont like it, but that was pretty much guaranteed, no matter what he announced. So it's probably good politics.

Is it good for the forests and Tassie in general? Probably not, in the long term. I think we should have a plan to stop clear felling old growth or native forests completely. That should be the aim. Clearfelling plantations, of course, isn't a problem since they were specifically grown for that purpose. But native forests should be managed in such a way that they are not clear felled, but selectively logged for high value timbers. I don't know how practical or economic that would be, but it should be something to look into. As always - to be really informed I need to get a lot more information... oh well...

Other links to this subject.
Blogocracy, The Mercury, Tasmanian Times

More to be added later...

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Lets start with some good news

This story is great. Its a real feel-good story, that makes me just smile when I read it.

Hope you like it.

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