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More than 200 people rallied outside the State ALP conference at the Country Club Casino in Launceston on August 6. Health workers, teachers, child protection workers and police protested against public service budget cuts. TAP into a better Tasmania protested against the pulp mill while Code Green called for the protection of native forests. The premier and other Labor ministers came out to talk to the crowd but did not back away from their plan to make drastic cuts to essential services.

Dressed mainly in black, with black flags and banners to show the death of democracy in Tasmania, 6000 people took to Launceston’s streets on May 14 to oppose Gunns’ proposed $2.3 billion pulp mill, to be built on the banks of the Tamar River.

“We have been betrayed by our members of parliament,” ABC television personality Peter Cundell told a rally of more than 1500 people protesting against the proposed Gunns Ltd pulp mill on March 20. “They have betrayed the very people they are supposed to represent. This is only the beginning ... We are going to defeat this mill, make no mistake about it.”

Award-winning novelist and environmentalist Richard Flanagan gave the speech below at a March 19 rally north of Launceston against the forest giant Gunns’ proposal to build a pulp mill in the nearby Tamar valley. * * * Seven long years ago [then Tasmanian Premier] Paul Lennon and [former Gunns chairperson] John Gay decided they would build their pulp mill. The people did not agree. They tried to silence us, to intimidate us, to threaten us, to break us and destroy us. Lately they’ve even tried to flatter us and to divide us.

Approximately 10,000 people rallied at Launceston City Park on August 23 in opposition to Gunns’ proposed pulp mill.

One year has passed since Gunns Ltd pulled their Tamar Valley pulp mill project out of the independent assessment process, claiming the process was taking too long. On March 14 this anniversary was marked by 300 protesters, who met outside Gunns’ head office in Launceston. The rally was addressed by Dr Warwick Raverty, a scientist who was on the assessment panel for the pulp mill but resigned because of government interference. He encouraged the crowd to keep campaigning against the pulp mill, explaining: “It’s not just a giant pulp mill in the Tamar. It’s global warming, it’s climate change, it’s water shortages, it’s the giant challenge of developing ways of living that are really sustainable and helping those less fortunate than ourselves.”

On March 1, Students Against the Pulp Mill met to discuss the next steps in the campaign against Gunns Ltd's planned $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill. Attended by 40 students from across Tasmania, the meeting decided that SAPM would organise a

On March 1, Students Against the Pulp Mill met to discuss the next steps in the campaign against Gunns Ltd’s planned $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill.

LAUNCESTON — On June 16, 11,000 people joined a rally organised by The Wilderness Society against Gunns’ proposed pulp mill in the West Tamar Valley. The crowd gathered at City Park and was addressed by Gardening Australia’s Peter Cundall, Geoff Law from TWS and Greens Senate candidate Andrew Wilkie, who condemned the plans to pollute the Tamar’s air and water with a kraft-chlorine pulp mill that will feed on Tasmania’s old-growth forests. Cundall warned Paul Lennon’s state Labor government and Gunns that “this is democracy in action” and “we are never going to stop fighting”. Protesters marched to Civic Square chanting “No pulp mill”.

A defiant 300-400 people rallied and marched in Launceston on March 22 against war on Iraq, despite media attempts to portray protesting now the war has begun as futile. United Nations Association President Margaret