I bring Greetings to you from the farm at the end of the lane !
Did any locals read the hilarious article in the paper today, the Mercury actually, where the delightful John Gay was interviewed and made to come across as a dear old fatherly type ? Hilarious, what shite ! He even said that he and Paul Lennon wanted to buy a poor unfortunate family a bike after a tragedy that brought them together...you know, I'd love to think Gay was THAT altruistic and really cared, but what was so evident was that he was actually going for the " American Teen USA angle " of " I help old ladies across the road ".
See the interview below, priceless. One can't help wondering if the journalist was serious with the line of questioning or if they were actually being very devious and bringing out the obvious us-them/rich-poor snobbery divide that Gay appears to have. I don't know but this really was the funniest and also most frightening thing I have read in ages. Let's ditch Dracula, John Gay is far more scary !
THIS MAN IS SUCH A SNOB IF I WORKED FOR HIM I WOULD BE VERY PISSED AT BEING CALLED UNEDUCATED, LOWER CLASS AND LIKELY TO HAVE ASHLEY DETENTIONED CHILDREN.
Gay:The interview
SUE NEALES
August 27, 2007 12:00am
JOHN Gay admits to often feeling puzzled and more than a little misunderstood as the controversy surrounding his proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley swirls and deepens around him.
Why, the Gunns executive chairman asks, is the multi-million-dollar Tasmanian company he has built up from a mere timber yard 30 years ago to potentially a $2.5 billion behemoth so on the nose to locals?
Why is Gunns so hated?
Why can't the Tasmanian public understand the benefits of the pulp mill? And why is he so personally loathed?
A genuinely well-meaning man -- despite the almost satanic persona bestowed on him by his opponents -- Mr Gay, 64, shakes his head in frustration and disbelief.
"I get to the stage where I really feel people are too cruel," he said in an interview with the Mercury on Friday at Gunns' humble Launceston head office.
"The bullying that is done to me is unbelievable, utter filth -- they say we are the clean, green state, but we've also got the worst personal abuse and attack in the world."
But Mr Gay is not asking for sympathy.
Simply he wants to understand what the pulp-mill debate -- and the way it has divided Tasmania -- is about.
Because, from where he sits, he is convinced he has done nothing wrong, that the pulp mill is ideally suited to the Tamar Valley and Tasmania, and all the fuss is nothing more than an extension of the old anti-logging protest.
"If there was something wrong (about the pulp mill) and what (my opponents) said was the truth, I'd most certainly fix it straight away and they would never see it again," Mr Gay promised during the course of a 90-minute, free-flowing interview.
"But what keeps me going is that I believe what the scientists have done, and what this project will do for Tasmania, is good for our economic base, good for the forest industries, good for Gunns and good for its workers.
"This pulp mill is a very, very good process -- it hasn't got any real environmental issues that will change the clean, green image of Tasmania at all. In fact it will enhance tourism long-term."
Spend time with him and it is clear he has been shielded from much of the heat -- and almost all the details -- of the current mill controversy.
Mr Gay admits to not having read any of the pulp mill's 1100-page operating permits and conditions currently being debated in State Parliament.
But he has been told by advisers Jaakko Poyry the permits imposed by the State Government are tougher than the environmental limits set by the Resource Planning and Development Commission.
"But I'll have to leave it general because I haven't gone into it," he said. "I must admit I have not yet read the guidelines (although) Jaakko Poyry said they were more stringent, a tightening across the board."
The Gunns chairman also appears convinced that the public crisis over the pulp mill in Tasmania -- with several opinion polls showing two-thirds of Tasmanians do not want a pulp mill in the Tamar valley -- is nothing more than a continuation of the decades-old anti-logging movement.
The fierce community-wide antagonism to both the risks of the pulp mill smelling and polluting and to the subvert-and such vitriol
The bullying that is done to me is unbelievable, utter filthing of proper processes by Premier Paul Lennon to get the project approved appear to have passed Mr Gay by.
It seems to be part of the almost-surreal parallel universe he inhabits, where the dreaded Greens are dedicated to "getting" Gunns and where his own motives are twisted, targeted and misunderstood.
"The pulp mill controversy is really about forestry, it's not about the pulp mill," Mr Gay said.
"The anti-mill sentiment has grown out of anti-forestry sentiment; I think it's solely to do with a group of people in Tasmania that don't want trees touched and they have chosen to pick on Gunns.
"Every day you read in the paper something ugly about Gunns -- it's always this bad thing, this giant, this rapist of forests (at this, Mr Gay throws back his head and laughs).
"I never read anything, any time, that says that Gunns are doing a good job in the community for Tasmania, employing people, helping people.
"I mean, in Bordeaux there are three pulp mills and it's reputed to be the world capital of the wine industry -- yet this pulp mill here, if you believe these people, is going to destroy Gunns' own wine business."
From Mr Gay's perspective, the planned pulp mill at Long Reach is not only environmentally safe, a state-of-the-art technological project and an economic boon for the state, it is also almost akin to a social welfare scheme.
He is passionate about the prospect of the pulp mill providing work for Tasmania's less fortunate citizens.
He is reluctant to call them an underclass, because of the obvious connotations of snobbery, but Mr Gay admits he feels both an empathy with and commitment to the lowest rung of Tasmania's society that continues to be offered the fewest educational and advancement opportunities.
It is these families and individuals -- many of whom work at Gunns and whom Mr Gay credits with the success of his company -- that the Gunns chief fears will miss out in a Tasmania which only focuses on the so-called new economy.
It is also why he is prepared to take such a risk -- and earn so much personal flak and abuse -- to get a pulp mill built on the Tamar River just 26km north of Launceston.
"Forest industries in Tasmania employ the lower end of the market. There's not many industries anywhere today that can take on virtually uneducated people, but we can -- and do -- because they only have to work with their hands," Mr Gay said.
"It's easily forgotten, when you are at the top of society, what is happening at the bottom of society -- but I know in this town there are people who don't have homes to go home to at night, and kiddies that will finish up at (youth detention centre) Ashley.
'But I think people who are in government and business have an obligation to make sure we continue to find industries that fit these people.
"Over the last 30 years, I've got attached to those people -- I've never been let down by them, and I've built an industry working with them, and I just feel that if we don't keep on putting industry together that employs these people they will steal and do all the things that society doesn't like because we are not prepared to find them jobs."
It was their common empathy for less fortunate workers that first brought Mr Gay and Premier Paul Lennon together.
Mr Gay recalls how 20 years ago, when Mr Lennon was with the Storemen and Packers Union, being approached by the gruff union official who was looking for someone to help him out with a Christmas present.
Mr Lennon said there was a Launceston family whose father had just died and he was wondering if Mr Gay and Gunns were prepared to put in half the money to help him buy a couple of bikes for the kids' Christmas.
Mr Gay did, and it was the start of a working relationship between the two men built on respect for each other's values.
But the Gunns chief denies that Mr Lennon has ever done him or Gunns any favours since he became premier, or that they are even close. He says the perception that the pulp-mill process has been a fast track for Gunns is wrong.
Mr Gay maintains the pair have met only three times in the past four years and that they are not friends who are likely to catch up with each other in future over family barbecues.
And what about claims that Mr Gay is about to offer Mr Lennon a coveted spot on the Gunns board once he quits as premier -- rumoured to be early next year -- in return for services rendered?
"No one has ever spoken to me about that (but) most certainly not, I can guarantee you that," he said.
"Quite frankly, I don't think (he) has had enough commercial experience -- Gunns is now a major publicly listed financial company and when we look at directors we have to look at people who have had (corporate) experience."
As to Mr Gay's future, he is looking forward to the pulp mill being completed in two years and being operational within a three-year timeframe.
By then he will be 67 and looking to reduce his involvement with Gunns a little, though staying on the board.
"Of course this mill is safe -- what's this issue about the Tamar (being special)?" Mr Gay said. "We are not bringing anything new to Launceston or the Tamar Valley that has not been built already overseas -- if there are no issues with mills there, why should there be in Tasmania?"
