Green jobs, she cried, as she flew to a foreign playground

Gerard Henderson on the green destruction of Tasmania's economy by people rich enough not to care:

In 2010, the timber company Gunns Limited changed its management following pressure from environmentalists to alter its ways. The new managing director, Greg L'Estrange, announced that the company would cease native forestry and only log plantation timber. Gunns hopes to establish a pulp mill at Bell Bay on the Tamar River based on plantation logging. This, too, is opposed by the Greens and environmentalists.

Last week, L'Estrange said that Gunns has decided to sell the Triabunna pulp mill, on Tasmania's east coast, to two millionaires who hail from outside the state - namely, Jan Cameron, who made her fortune after establishing the Kathmandu clothing chain, and Graeme Wood, the founder of travel business Wotif.com. Cameron is semi-retired and lives in Tasmania. Wood donated $1.6 million to the Greens before the 2010 federal election…

The intentions of Cameron and Wood are pretty obvious. They plan to close the Triabunna pulp mill in about three years…

The purchase of the Triabunna pulp mill underlines the developing divide in society. It is essentially between wealthy or well-off people with solid educational qualifications and secure incomes, and less well-off, less well-educated people whose incomes are insecure or relatively low....

In a sympathetic profile of Cameron published in The Australian last August, journalist Matthew Denholm wrote that the "Kathmandu retail chain founder has no taste for jets, yachts or private villas in Tuscany". Maybe not. But, on Friday, Cameron was interviewed by the ABC's 7.30 program at Hobart Airport before jetting out of Tasmania for an overseas holiday....

Logging operator Michael Woods had a different story. He told The Mercury newspaper that the previous uncertainty about the future of the Triabunna mill had forced him to sack his sons. Woods declared his hatred of Gunns for having sold out its loyal employees and contractors. He added that he was seeking psychological help as his small business collapses around him due to the successful tactics of green activists.