part of a story by Sally Glaetzer Mercury
The lift is slightly rickety as it ascends the three floors to John Gay’s modest office suite in the heart of Launceston’s central business district. Here, the former woodchip king once considered the most powerful man in Tasmania runs his family’s veneer business. Specialty Veneers and its offshoot Corinna Timbers supply timber and decorative veneers, mostly for kitchen makeovers and shop fit-outs locally and interstate.
Forico chipmill |
Gay is pale and clearly fatigued late on this Friday afternoon when we meet as planned in the company’s tiny, bare-walled conference room. Gone is the bolshie businessman I spoke with earlier in the week by phone when he told me – with good humour – he had no desire to participate in a profile article for TasWeekend.
“If you lose a grand final, that’s it,” Gay had said. “You can’t go back and play it again.”
This is Gay’s admission that the other side has won, referring to what he calls “the extreme green groups” who undermined his plans for a pulp mill and – he says – manoeuvred behind the scenes to have him ousted from Gunns, the once-mighty timber giant he ran for nearly four decades. He similarly blames outside forces for his criminal conviction for insider trading in 2013.
Despite not wanting to be interviewed for a personal profile piece as such, Gay is happy to meet for a “general chat” about the timber industry in Tasmania. He makes it clear he has no interest in defending his legacy. Gay is comfortable in his own skin and content in the knowledge that those who in his mind matter still hold him in high esteem.
The 74-year-old, who was worth $50 million on paper at Gunns’ peak, is still in the industry he loves – albeit on a much smaller scale. Specialty Veneers was once a subsidiary of Gunns and was shut for four years after the company’s collapse, until Gay started it up again. In court, he was granted special leave to run the business, which has a small factory at Somerset and employs 35 people, including Gay’s daughter. He has another two years to go before he can serve as a company director on a larger company.
“If you lose a grand final, that’s it,” Gay had said. “You can’t go back and play it again.”
This is Gay’s admission that the other side has won, referring to what he calls “the extreme green groups” who undermined his plans for a pulp mill and – he says – manoeuvred behind the scenes to have him ousted from Gunns, the once-mighty timber giant he ran for nearly four decades. He similarly blames outside forces for his criminal conviction for insider trading in 2013.
Despite not wanting to be interviewed for a personal profile piece as such, Gay is happy to meet for a “general chat” about the timber industry in Tasmania. He makes it clear he has no interest in defending his legacy. Gay is comfortable in his own skin and content in the knowledge that those who in his mind matter still hold him in high esteem.
The 74-year-old, who was worth $50 million on paper at Gunns’ peak, is still in the industry he loves – albeit on a much smaller scale. Specialty Veneers was once a subsidiary of Gunns and was shut for four years after the company’s collapse, until Gay started it up again. In court, he was granted special leave to run the business, which has a small factory at Somerset and employs 35 people, including Gay’s daughter. He has another two years to go before he can serve as a company director on a larger company.
Gay admits that by the end of a working week he is exhausted. In 2007, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. At the time, his doctor warned him that if radiation therapy did not work, he would have six months to live. The radiation bought him time but now Gay has secondary bone cancer.
The Hobart office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions confirms Gay has paid the $500,000 pecuniary penalty he was slapped with under proceeds of crime laws late last year. “The lawyers have cost me more,” he says.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission pursued the penalty after there was widespread criticism of the relatively minor $50,000 fine Gay copped in court after pleading guilty to insider trading. The criminality related to Gay selling $3 million of Gunns shares in 2009 while privy to price-sensitive information.
Gay reveals he is writing a book about Gunns, but not covering his court case or the period after his forced resignation from the company in 2010. In September 2010, Gunns’ replacement chief Greg L’Estrange declared the company would quit old-growth logging and transition to a plantation-only business in an unsuccessful attempt to shore up pulp mill investors. Two years later, the company went into receivership.
“I’m sure if I had stayed on and been left to carry on, the business would still be there,” Gay says. “It might have been smaller and with no pulp mill, but I’m sure the business would have survived.”
The Hobart office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions confirms Gay has paid the $500,000 pecuniary penalty he was slapped with under proceeds of crime laws late last year. “The lawyers have cost me more,” he says.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission pursued the penalty after there was widespread criticism of the relatively minor $50,000 fine Gay copped in court after pleading guilty to insider trading. The criminality related to Gay selling $3 million of Gunns shares in 2009 while privy to price-sensitive information.
Gay reveals he is writing a book about Gunns, but not covering his court case or the period after his forced resignation from the company in 2010. In September 2010, Gunns’ replacement chief Greg L’Estrange declared the company would quit old-growth logging and transition to a plantation-only business in an unsuccessful attempt to shore up pulp mill investors. Two years later, the company went into receivership.
“I’m sure if I had stayed on and been left to carry on, the business would still be there,” Gay says. “It might have been smaller and with no pulp mill, but I’m sure the business would have survived.”
It has been a turbulent time for Tasmania’s timber sector since Gay’s ignominious downfall and the post-GFC collapse of the woodchip market. Many industry watchers, including conservationists and those who want to see an end to constant taxpayer prop-ups, had hoped the native forestry sector would be allowed to contract naturally. With the state-owned Forestry Tasmania posting a $67 million loss last year Resources Minister Guy Barnett says he has a plan to end subsidies without shrinking the industry.
Barnett’s solution to the woes of FT, which is losing money on more than a quarter of the trees it harvests, is to bring forward the felling of forests previously earmarked for future reserves, but leave it to the private sector to log the contentious areas. He is giving FT the optimistic new name of Sustainable Timber Tasmania, alleviating some of its non-commercial responsibilities such as firefighting and road maintenance, and lifting prices of sawlogs “to offset costly coupes”.