Gunns was once the pride of Tasmania.
I know many who worked for them and some that still do, and they feel shamed to mention the fact.

It saddens me that this once great company now travels the path it does.
Yes it has grown and now boasts many assets, but at what cost?

Recent fund raising to reduce debt was a monumental flop and its share price reflects the company’s steadfast attitude.

They continue down a rocky road when a wide and smooth path lies nearby.
What has changed to make this south bound company worth investing in?

To the layman they appear little more than MIS brokers and for that who could blame them?
When our governments are keen to hand over taxpayers monies to support conversion of native forest to plantation monoculture and give our native forests away for a song then they would have to be crazy as a business not to take the opportunity and laugh all the way to the bank.

Problem is that a corporation built on subsidies is no way to run a business.
Now they continue to flog the dead horse that is the still proposed and still languishing pulp mill.

Perhaps if the company was where it is now and the date was 1970, then the pulp mill may have gone ahead.
Times have changed and unequivocally has the world.

We now understand the value of our forests if not from a social and spiritual view, then at least from its value as a carbon repository.

In my view if Gunns had moved or would move from a position of the massive wood chipping corporation to a multitude of community based small volume high return businesses they would lock themselves into not only the Tasmanian psyche as “good guys”, but into a sustainable and core business that would enable them to stand unaided and expand through diversification into a plethora of activities that would help encompass, not divide, the Tasmanian community.

Words reported from the Gunns AGM hold little hope of any change of mindset or to the business model that has led them to their current situation, so we now have no choice but to watch this once revered company “carry on regardless”.

Hope lies that sanity, reason or perhaps financial constraint may be the catalyst for change.
The show will roll on……..