And this after going through a renaissance led initially by the late Premier Jim Bacon which saw the rest of Australia discover Tasmania: it was inevitable that they would. You can’t have so much varied scenery and lifestyle opportunity in such a relatively small area without envious eyes from afar. Of course it was the ridiculously low property market which started those from Sydney, Melbourne and other mainland centres saying, “Hey, we can sell and buy better in Tassie and have enough to retire – or get closer to retirement.”
People also discovered that with modern communications, and increasingly better air services, they could relocate the family to Tassie and still work in Melbourne or Sydney. Naturally the “discovery” awakened the Tassie house and property market and prices escalated sharply.
It was around then that I began cursing myself for not taking advantage of what I (and many others) had predicted would happen. Houses tripled, land with sea views went ballistic. The well documented population decline was reversed, unemployment, always the nation’s highest, came down dramatically.
Unfond memories
All under the stewardship of a Labor Premier, who some contractors working on the Bowen Bridge across the Derwent River in Hobart, would not remember so fondly. For Jim Bacon was an official of the Builders Labourers Federation, an organisation fairly active in the early 80s, as many would recall….
Such was the turnaround in the state’s fortunes and new found confidence, that even my dear old late Dad – about as Liberal as anyone was – cheerfully admitted that “Bacon was doing a good job”. In the mold of post (and pre) war Labor governments, which had concentrated on developing a vast hydro electric capacity, to lure industry to a state with good natural resources in forests, minerals and rich agricultural land, Bacon encouraged development. Previously these industrial developments, had offered wonderful opportunities for local contractors, particularly those who believed in the adage:“when preparation meets opportunity”.
Such incentives helped attract four large businesses to northern Tasmania. But all are now dead or rapidly dying.
One was Australian Titan Products, makers of titanium dioxide, used predominantly in the production of paint and cosmetics. It was made from a complicated menu of ilmenite sand, and copious quantities of sulphuric acid, among other ingredients.
Poor environmental pedigree
You can imagine that such a process did not have a very good environmental pedigree and the waters for 20km either side of the plant at Heybridge near Burnie, have only returned to clear in the past 10 years after closure in the early 1980s.
I served my apprenticeship there in the early 60s. A good company to work for but with an unsustainable production process
The largest enterprise was Associated Pulp and Paper Mills which established at Burnie in 1938. With a deep water port, vast forest concessions and cheap electricity, it made high grade printing paper – the copy paper we buy.
I worked as a logging contractor supplying pulp logs for its pulp mill and sawlogs for the various sawmills it owned. APPM employed, directly, 3000 people in a town of 15,000. People who would not have gained employment elsewhere were employed as part of the company’s “social conscience”.
A bonus was paid to employees, at all levels, based on the dividend the company paid its shareholders, and the service of the employee. In good years I saw some bonuses as high as 15% of earnings. It changed in the early 70s when the unions wanted “a more equitable system” (read lowest common denominator).
Watery load limit
In the 70s probably 50 trucks carted into the pulp mill. The load limit for a bogey-bogey combination was 35.4t. As a good corporate citizen the company only paid to 36t.The old growth eucalypt, with its varying densities and moisture content, was difficult to estimate. So you could hit the weighbridge with somewhere between 32 and 42t.
After much discussion with the logging association, the company agreed to put this little treasure trove into a rebate, for the purchase of electronic scales for the log trucks. And what a difference these made in the late 70s. It was probably an Australian first.
Of course the various engineering contractors also had good years in these times. Now it’s down to one ageing paper machine, which imports its pulp, when Gunns has a huge woodchip mill 60km away. This mill is destined to follow its Wesley Vale younger brother, which was due to shut down early in the new year, because it is run down and non competitive.
The Burnie Mill now employs around 10% of the number it employed 30 plus years ago. It will have a lot of suppliers and contractors who will soon lose an important income source. It seems ironical that there is a pulp and paper mill heading rapidly to oblivion at Burnie while a pulp mill is about to built at Bell Bay, about 160km away.
Aaagh McCains
Meanwhile, in the far north west at Smithton, vegetable processing multinational McCains, is closing its 50 year old, run down plant. That will put 200 direct employees out of work, not to mention the many, many farmers who supplied potatoes, and the many contractors in the chain. Going to where? New Zealand. Ah the global market place…. As the headline said about a mass protest by 500 growers on August 1: “Ah McCain, you’ve done us again.”
Just some examples of how we are losing our manufacturing base and capability. What do those put out of work – employees and contractors – do now? Move to the cities, as is happening in China and other developing countries perhaps.
