CANBERRA - The retired judge who headed an assessment of the planned $2 billion pulp mill for northern Tasmania says he's surprised a new review process will not include threatened species for which the Commonwealth has responsibility.
Timber giant Gunns last week withdrew the massive project from scrutiny by the independent Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC), saying delays in assessment were costing it $10 million a month.
Premier Paul Lennon quickly moved to rescue the project - Tasmania's biggest ever private sector investment plan - by foreshadowing special legislation to speed up the assessment process without RPDC involvement.
The retired judge who headed the RPDC, Christopher Wright, said Gunns had not raised any complaints about the RPDC assessment process at the outset when given the opportunity at a special hearing.
"The plain fact of the matter is that they were represented at that hearing by a leading Victorian silk who was asked if he had any observations to make concerning the hearing process which I'd outlined," Mr Wright told ABC radio.
"He declined to make any comment or any submissions at all.
"At that stage, we thought the whole thing was back on track and moving forward."
But Mr Wright said the new timeline announced by Mr Lennon would extend the assessment process to the end of August.
"Strangely enough, I also understand him to say that the assessment to be made within that period of time would not include an assessment of those areas in which the Commonwealth has a particular concern in relation to threatened species and possible marine pollution," he said.
"It just surprises me somewhat that a process could be undertaken which did not encompass that aspect of the matter."
He said his own inquiry had been looking at environmental processes from both the Tasmanian and Commonwealth points of view.
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