TAP in 2024

tapvison.info is going after 17 years. Today, the Tamar Valley is free of a polluting pulp mill that Tasmanian politicians needed so desperately to prop-up their little egos and corrupt economy. Elections today are competions over who manages unpayable debt.

In 2018 and 2019 we experienced record-breaking heatwaves similar to the summer of 2016 that bought drought, bushfires and energy shortages to Tasmania. It's obvious there was not enough water to supply Gunns pulp mill. Later in 2016 drought turned to floods and people asked 'when will politicians stop changing the climate by exporting coal and wood chips'? un-Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) 'sterilise' native forests by burning them every 70 to 80 year rotation to make them easier to log on the next rotation. At least now climate change is universally accepted and people are aware of the corrupt politicians and media manipulators who caused catastrophic climate change. 

 

Wood Chip Exports From Bell Bay Wharf 6 In 2023

Download the 2023 report

The big wood chip event of 2023 was the announcement by Communist China they would only import logs from Australia from now on. Like everything that comes out of the dictatorship this was a lie. There was a slowdown for sure, but probably because the Communists had a cash flow crisis. Few Australians realize the average income of a Chinese is only $US140 per month.'Communism' is a front for 'personality-cult dictatorship'. After COVID people really don't want to buy Chinese anything, yet the dictatorship is dependent on Western democracies to survive.

Yangpu China where most Tasmanian native forest wood chips end-up

For the first time plantation-chipper Smartfibre overtook Artec in export volume. The reason for this was Midway. Midway were invited to Tasmania by Guy Barnett when Dan Andrews closed-down native forest logging in Victoria. This was another blunder for Barnett who promoted the invasion of Iraq because he was convinced they had WMDs back when he was a senator. Later he crippled the Tasmanian Hydro electricity system by selling wind farms to Asian countries and locking us into the national grid. Now Midway is in serious trouble in Tasmania, exporting only 34,800 tonnes to Communist China.

A big part of the Wharf 6 operation is the taxpayer-funded covered conveyor belt system for wood chips. These are owned by TasPorts. The Tasmanian government has these companies over a barrel both selling them native forest logs and loading ships for them.

CHINESE ELECTRIC CARS

The single item saving China's economy right now is electric vehicle sales to countries like Australia. Buyer beware! Chinese products are notoriously unreliable and these vehicles can catch fire while being charged. Batteries catching fire happens continuoisly in China today because they don't have a workable standards system. What about spare parts for your Chinese e-vehicle? They don't have full spare parts inventories because they want you to buy a new one. 

Guy Barnett transferred most of his bungles to Felix Ellis. This is sad for Ellis because Barnett has a long history of inexplicably acting against the Tasmanian interest. Soon these goons will welcome Eric Abetz back as a candidate for Franklin. They do have a policy - a bigger footbal stadium so they can promote concussion as a life style choice.


 


Vale John Day

Sad to read of the passing of TAP committe member and pulp mill opponent John Day. Our condolences to Cathy and John's family.

An Industry They Were Covering-Up Is In Trouble

What we are seeing at the moment is that Tasmanian native forest woodchip exports to Communist China have stopped. The last native forest woodchip export to mainland China was in March 2023. (Pax Silva 7,098 tonnes woodchips). Communist China was Tasmania's biggest buyer of woodchips. Companies selling STT native forest woodchips are ARTEC and Midway at Bell Bay.

Since March China have bought 3 shiploads of plantation woodchips from US-owned Smartfibre at Bell Bay. Forico at Bell Bay South only sells to Japan. Exports to Taiwan of native forest woodchips are unaffected but Taiwan buys a fraction of the tonnage that Communist China was buying.

It's amazing that the Tasmania-China 'woodchip conveyor belt' was always hidden? Nearly everything is covered-up by Communist China but the Tasmanian government was just as enthusiastic about hiding a large export industy. Tasmania is a slavish supplier of anything it can to the hostile, overpopulated dictatorship. A dictatorship that has offered 'unlimited support' for Vladimir Putin.

Burnie was also a big export port for Communist China but it's the same story there. Woodchips were always the lowest cost part of the clear-felled Tasmanian native forests harvest, but the largest component by volume. The expensive timber product like bluegum went to the 'Asian Timber Mafia' owned Ta Ann at Smithton. Next in line were Tasmanian-owned sawmills. Everything else ended-up at the woodchippers.

September 2023 Update

Some woodchip movements have resumed from the 3 chippers at Wharf 6 but nothing like last year. Interesting that the last shipment from US-owned Smatrfibre was sold to Japan. This is where all of Forico's exports go and it means the Tasmanian wood chippers are cannibalising each other's markets.

Tenth Anniversary Of The Passing Of Bob McMahon

Bob died on April 17 2013. That was 10 years ago today. Remembereing Bob's amazing life and how he changed so many people for the better. It's been 11 years since Mike Cassidy passed, they were the same age.

Third Woodchip Mill Exporting From Bell Bay 6 - Midway

When VicForests was unable to supply Midway Victoria with enough pulp wood for wood chips, The Tasmanian Government invited them to set-up shop here. Midway have been exporting woodchips through the Artec chip mill at Bell Bay and the first wood chip carrier for 2023 supplied by Midway Tasmania.

"Midway Managing Director, Tony Price, said the company is internally funding up to $5 million on the project in the current financial year and expects to begin exporting from the facility by December 2021, subject to final environmental approvals.

Mr Price said the project followed an agreement with the TasPorts that will allow additional exports of wood fibre to new and emerging markets from Bell Bay."

Although Mr Price calls the Peoples Republic of China an 'emerging market', the bulk of Tasmania's native forests have been exported there for decades. This should have been fact-checked by Midway. The Tasmanian government has made many millionaires by claiming to represent 'the Crown'. Tasmanian's native forests are actually stolen by opportunists and sold to a dictatorship. The TasPorts assistance is another example of how Tasmanian taxes are re-directed to private interests.

Tasmanian Government Laundering Money From Communist China

 

Left Artec native woodchips 73% to China.   Right Smartfibre plantation woodchips 100% to China

An investigation into Tasmania's woodchip industry reveals it's ahuge money-laundering operation. Here's how it works. 73% of native forest woodchips are exported to Communist China. Revenue from these woodchip exports is used to buy more pulp logs for chipping from the Tasmanian Government front company STT. The main commodity STT produces by volume is pulp logs.

The pulp logs are woodchipped and stored in mounds like the photo above. Chips on the left mound are ex-native forests that once helped maintain the Earth's climate for millenia. Now they maintain three things:

1) Authoritarian Communist dictatorships in China and North Korea. China has an unsustainable population and has already crippled our economy with COVID-19. Communist countries want to systematically destroy democracy.

2) A bankrupt Tasmanian Government. Communist currency is converted into Australian dollars and paid to the Tasmanian Government to fund the next ship load of woodchips. The Tasmanian Government uses 'commie cash' to help maintain it's economy. Essential services in Tasmania are often the worst in Australia and rival the Northen Territory. The Tasmanian Government is continuously drained by inflated salaries and self-serving pension schemes and always operates at a loss.

3) Nightmarish, catastrophic climate events. They keep happening and getting worse. If you are elderly, thank goodness because the planet our childrens children will inherit is not worth living on.

Why Is This Money Laundering?

The woodchip price per tonne is established by supply and demand but sales to Communist China is nothing like exports to other democracies. The Chinese Communist Party blocks all trading in the Chinese Yuan and artificially sets it's value. Almost all other currencies are traded globally and their value is set by the market. It is illegal for Chinese to own shares in any company because everything is owned by the state. The state commits multiple human rights abuses continuually and supports the annihilation of civilians in counties like Tibet and Ukraine. Communist Chinese woodchip revenue is dirty money.

Many people in Tasmania realise the state government is almost entirely self-serving. This money laundering operation reveals a painfull truth about Tasmania. It has a dysfunctional political and economic system that is intergenerational. If you think you can benefit in this envronment you are wrong. Your children can barely read and write when they leave school. Communism has already taken over much of Tasmania such as Grange Resources, MNG Rosebery, Woolnorth and the giant Musselroe Bay wind farms. It's going to get worse. To be self-sufficient, Tasmania needs a functioning local economy, but Tasmania has been morally, ethically and economically bankrupt since the day the colonialists unloaded their convicts on these shores and started annihilating the native population.


Bell Bay Wharf 6 Woodchip Export Report For 2021

Artec exported 206,826 tonnes of wood chips sourced from the Tasmanian Government.

73.2% went to The Peoples Republic of China (151,436 tonnes).

26.8% went to Taiwan (55,390 tonnes).

Smartfibre exported 81,824 tonnes of FSC Controlled Wood. 100% went to The Peoples Republic of China.

The vast majority of TasPorts Bell Bay 6 conveyor loader goes directly to China. The Tasmanian Government is a major supplier of the Communist dictatorship.

TAP Loses Two Dear Friends

 

                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our condolences go out to Jenny Law and to Tina Cundall.

Communist China Using Fake Destinations On Shipping Beacons

The 'woodchip conveyor belt' between Tasmania and China is covered-up by the Tasmanian, Australian and Communist Chinese authorities. Sometimes this produces bizarre results such as a woodchip carrier with 9,473 tonnes of woodchips off the coast of Queensland and both leaving and going to Bell Bay Tasmania. China is manipulating international shipping schedules.

 

Above. You can see the destination port is the same as the last port visited. The ship is off Gladstone Queensland and is in the Great Barrier Reef.

In 2021 Communist China claimed many times it was exporting woodchips from Tasmania to Singapore. China has no jurisdiction in Singapore and Singapore has no pulp mills. The Princess Royal actually delivered wood chips to Yangpu China. China is carrying-out a systematic disinformation strategy concerning woodchip imports from Australia. It is being enabled by the Liberal governments in Hobart and Canberra.

TAP Saddened By The Passing Of Tim Thorne

We were sorry to read of the passing of Tim Thorne yesterday. Tim was TAP's last media spokesperson following the death of Bob McMahon. tapvision.info send their condolences to Stephanie and Tim's family.

Tasmania Exports Swift Parrot Habitat To COVID-Infested Sarawak

Above. The Phoebe Star about to leave Hobart on April 29 2021. The Grassroots  Action Network boarded the ship to highlight the insanity of STT* exporting native specialty timber logs to a Sarawak palm oil cartel owned by the corrupt 'Taib Timber Mafia'.

TasPorts covered-up the Phoebe Star movements and destination at the same time as the Tasmanian government wanted us to comply with contact tracing. No wonder corrupt Malaysia is being hammered by COVID with friends like these? 

The logs will be peeled into veneer and resold by Hamed Sepawi and his cronies. Anybody can buy the German-made peeling machines and do this here in Tasmania. Except the bluegums being veneered will push swift parrots and other species into certain extinction.

But they are only swift parrots, can't we eliminate them like we did the Aborigines, thylacines and Gondwana rainforests? Yes we can, because kissing the feet of Sarawak's palm oil billionaires is something Guy Barnett does extremly well. (what is Guy Barnett's net worth?)

*Sustainable Timber Tasmania lost $1.3billion in the last 20 years, so the pathetic amount they got for this shipload would barely cover drinks at Salamanca on Friday night. None of Tasmania's crippling debt was repayed by destroying the swift parrot habitat. It just got worse. That is the insane part of this export.

Above. The Phoebe Star reached the COVID infested port of Bintulu Sarawak on May 19. Here the swift parrot habitat is unloaded and processed by Ta Ann, the palm oil Neanderthals that essentially wiped-out Orangutans on the island.

But all is not lost. Malaysia is one of the most corrupt nations on Earth and now it's reaping what it sowed. It is being devastated by COVID-19 and it's corrupt government is out of it's depth. We advise Australians not to donate money for Malaysia's Covid recovery because you will only be supporting corruption.

Fortunately, Tasmania is home to a generous and wealthy past director of Forestry Tasmania who can give his friends in Sarawak as much   money as needed to combat the pandemic. Even logging Minister Barnett can afford to finance Sarawak's COVID vaccination program. After all, why should Taib Mahmud and cousin Hamed Sepawi spend any of their billions on a COVID relief program when they have the Tasmanian government in their pocket?

Communist China Covering-Up Native Forest Imports From Tasmania

                                            photo by Dave Logan marinetraffic .com

This rustbucket is the 'Glorius Plumeria'. It carries about 10,000 tonnes of woodchips. It left Bell Bay Tasmania on March 8 2021 telling TasPorts it's destination is Singapore. That was a lie. It's real destination was Dafeng mainland China. This is a new destination port for Tasmanian native forest woodchips. The Dalia which has just left Bell Bay 6 is also going to Dafeng.

Possibly Communist China has opened a new pulp mill in Dafeng or perhaps they are using Tasmanian forest woodchips for some other purpose. For the Tasmanian logging industry to mindlessly supply a hostile foreign power during a meaningless local election is a matter of global concern. Especially when the Tasmanian logging industry is effectively backstabbing Australian primary producers like barley, wine and seafoods. Supplying totalitarian China at this time is criminal.

Pulp Mill Site To Produce Hydrogen?

TAP Research is aware plans are underway to produce hydrogen at Bell Bay. PM Morrison pledged to fund hydrogen production under his 'gasfired COVID' recovery plan. We are aware the pulp mill site and a proposed workers village near George Town went to the same buyer. But why did the buyer remain annonymous? Is the buyer the Federal or State governments or is the buyer one of Morrisons mates in the fuel and energy sector?

Hydrogen is extremly explosive if anything goes wrong. The Feds would assume they will only be killing a few workers at the Forico chip mill and destroying a few vineyards at Rowella if there is an explosion. The Liberals in their permanent slumber think Tasmania is the 'battery of the nation'. As usual Tasmanian residents subsidise this 'battery' because many of them can't afford to heat their homes with electricity. Sadly, Tasmanians think it's normal to be to be exploited by governments and multinational corporations.

COVID-19 Means Woodchip Exports To China Continue As Normal

Since the WHO called COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11 2020, woodchip movements between China and Tasmania have continued. It appears the health of crew is being 'self declared' by the ship's captain and assessed by the harbour pilots, although they have no medical training. We are watching for Corona transmissions in George Town and Burnie as crews stock-up on supplies from the food retailers.