Gunns Vs. People

In December 2004 Australia’s biggest logging company GUNNS Ltd used its superior legal and financial resources to restrict the free speech of Tasmanians. Suing 20 people and organizations for their outspoken opposition to old-growth  logging, GUNNS earned the fury of environmental and social justice organizations worldwide. GUNNS targeted this diverse group, known as the "Gunns 20," with a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation), a legal proceedure that is outlawed in many parts of the world on the grounds that it limits free speech. The targets of the massive law suit included two members of parliament (Senator Bob Brown, and local Tasmanian MP Peg Putt), one of Australia’s major environment groups (The Wilderness Society), a doctors’ environment group, a local community group, and a range of ordinary individuals including a dentist, a film-maker, grandmother, a doctor, and a couple of students. GUNNS hopes to silence the public outcry over its actions by burdening them with high legal fees and time-consuming trials.

The Gunns 20

Dubbed, the "Gunns 20", a full list and profile of all defendants can be found at: www.GUNNS20.org/defendants.html  

The law suit sent shock waves through the small Tasmanian community and caused much anxiety for those who found their names on the writ. The costs associated with the defense is more than many defendants can bear. However, the case also hardened the resolve of the Tasmanian Forest campaign. Just as protests started about this aggressive litigation, GUNNS announced their plan to build a pulp mill which would intensify the clearfelling of Tasmania’s forests. Protests about the mill proposal, and about the ongoing destruction of the forests, have continued and grown since the lawsuit, although there remains an atmosphere of intimidation and moral corruption in the Tasmanian public spheres.

Allegations

The law suit claimed over $6m (Australian) dollars for a series of actions taken to protect the forests of Tasmania, including

  1. Protests which disrupted logging operations disruption at Lucaston forest, Hampshire and Triabunna mills, and in the Styx Valley;
  2. “Corporate vilification” relating to the Burnie woodchip site and to GUNNS being dropped from the Banksia environmental awards
  3. Campaigns involving communications with GUNNS’ overseas customers in Belgium and Japan
  4. Corporate campaigns involving meetings of shareholders, investors and Banks.  

GUNNS also claimed that there had been a giant campaign (or conspiracy) against them, and that the actions of the defendants were all linked and “done at the instruction and on behalf of the Wilderness Society”. This claim is particularly concerning because, as Lecturer in Law at the Australian National University, Tim Bonyhady points out “effective political action often requires co-ordination between a range of individuals and organizations. A major national campaign, such as that over Tasmania’s old forests, inevitably involves at least some meetings, phone hook-ups and planning, even if there was no overarching mastermind in the manner suggested by the GUNNS writ.” If these meetings are seen as part of a giant conspiracy, then once somebody went to one of these meetings, from then on every expression of free speech that they engaged in could be linked back to a conspiracy!

Court Proceedings

In mid 2005 GUNNS’ set of claims was challenged in court. GUNNS implicitly conceded that their statement of claim was defective by filing a new, 360 page statement just days before the hearing of the attempt to strike down the claims. However the judge in the Victorian Supreme Court threw out both statements of claim because they did not comply with court rules and were “embarrassing”. He ordered GUNNS to file a new set of claims. Version 3 of the lawsuit was filed in August 2005 and contained a claim for an additional half a million dollars damages.

Tim Bonyhady sums up the importance of the case stating, “The case is significant because of the environment at stake – the great tracts of old growth forests which lay at the heart of the conflict between GUNNS and the defendants prior to the 2004 federal election and to a large extent still do so despite the Howard government’s forest package this year. The extent of the damages claimed by GUNNS – a total of $6.3 million (including over $3.5 million claimed from the Wilderness Society and its employees) - make the case even more important. So do the plethora of novel questions of law in the GUNNS statement of claim ... The company’s action has all the makings of a test case which could set new bounds on political activity in this country.”