How the greenshirts destroyed a man, his business and his reputation

From Mr Bolt: Miranda Devine describes how the lovely new greens destroyed a business, a planned pulp mill and the reputation of John Gay, since dumped as chairman of the Tasmanian timber company Gunns: But the international green movement and the Australian Wilderness Society fought a relentless campaign to bring the company to its knees and destroy Gay. They let loose violent feral protesters who chained themselves to trees and sabotaged logging equipment; protesters with placards picketed the ANZ Bank, which had undertaken to finance Gay’s proposal for a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, but pulled out at the last minute. And they had environmentalists in suits successfully traduce Gay to cowardly institutional investors who earlier this year dumped Gunn’s shares, halving the value of the company in a week. Greenies in suits also went to Japan, destroying Gunn’s markets for its woodchips, threatening - in an oh-so-reasonable way - companies which used pulp sourced from Tasmania’s forests to make paper. Afraid their brands would be trashed, Gunns’ Japanese customers dropped Tasmania like a hot potato. Then there was the personal vilification. Gay describes it as ‘’torture’’ for his wife, Erica, and adult son and daughter, with his home under assault two or three nights a week for years - from smoke bombs under the house, stink bombs at the front door, dead possums in the yard, people rattling the gates late at night and screaming abuse from the street. His wife was spat at in the supermarket and the Tasmanian media sat on the fence as a good man’s reputation was destroyed.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous