TAS: Gunns renews legal action against Brown, environmentalists

AAP General News (Australia)
08-16-2005
TAS: Gunns renews legal action against Brown, environmentalists

By Robyn Grace

HOBART, Aug 16 AAP - Timber company Gunns Limited has renewed its legal action against
20 environmentalists including Australian Greens senator Bob Brown.

Gunns' third statement of claim, listed for mention in the Victorian Supreme Court
tomorrow, seeks almost $7 million in damages from a group now know as the Gunns 20.

Gunns has previously sought $6.3 million from defendants including Senator Brown and
The Wilderness Society, claiming it suffered losses as a result of anti-logging campaigns.

Senator Brown today said Gunns "should accept if they want to be in industrial logging
in Tasmania, it's their job to defend it in the public arena".

"It's made me more determined than ever to campaign to save Tasmania's great forests
and wildlife," he said.

Senator Brown's legal team was today preparing an application to strike out the new writ.

But The Wilderness Society suggested the final result may come down to paper work.

Society spokeswoman Virginia Young said the new 221-page statement of claim failed
to meet the judge's requests for a table of contents, glossary and electronic search capability.

Justice Bernard Bongiorno said last month Gunns had failed to provide the court with
a proper, coherent and intelligible statement of claim.

"The statement of claim lodged yesterday has no table of contents, no glossary and
an electronic search won't work in the way intended," Ms Young said.

Senator Brown said the new statement of claim was a failure.

"It does not prove the things it says it's going to prove," he told the ABC.

He said it cited a night in Cygnet, in Tasmania, when he and others allegedly conspired
against the company.

"In fact, it was an evening's entertainment with (the band) Dolly Putin and The Kazakstan
Kowgirls," he told the ABC.

"It was a cabaret on that night. It was absolutely nothing other than a fundraiser."

The claim has been criticised by environmentalists and civil libertarians as having
a chilling effect on free speech and legitimate public protest.

Terry Edwards, chief executive of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, said
the statement of claim now covered each individual, rather than events, and that made
it easier for claims against them to be identified.

The thrust of the claim was otherwise unchanged, he said.

"That is that Gunns allege that the law has been broken as people are allegedly endeavouring
to express their personal opinion about the company and stopping its operations," he told
the ABC.

Gunns spokeswoman Sarah Dent confirmed the statement of claim had been lodged, but
said she could not make further comment while the matter was before the courts.

The writ was originally served in December.

Gunns filed an amended statement of claim last month, but Justice Bongiorno struck
out both, giving the company's lawyers 28 days to redraw their 360-page writ.

The deadline was yesterday.

A decision in relation to costs to date may be handed down tomorrow.

AAP rgr/evt/tnf

KEYWORD: GUNNS 2ND NIGHTLEAD

2005 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.