The Gunns 20: Looking Back
It’s 2004—a young woman named Mary from Hobart marries the crown prince of Denmark; Jetstar takes its maiden flight from Newcastle to Launceston; Jennifer Hawkins becomes a household name after she wins Miss Universe; and John Howard is elected to his fourth term as Prime Minister.
But something more insidious was also on foot that year. On 13 December, woodchipping giant Gunns Limited filed a case in the Supreme Court of Victoria, naming 17 individuals and three conservation organisations as defendants.
The claim? $6.3 million (nearly $11 million in today’s terms, adjusted for inflation) in damages over efforts to protect Tasmania’s old growth forests. Threading through the entire claim was an accusation of conspiracy to injure Gunns Limited.
These 20 defendants became known in the media as the Gunns 20. What followed was five years of tireless and unwavering effort from the defendants—and those around them—to beat the case, safeguard Lutruwita's forests and stand up for the community’s right to free speech.
Whether by coincidence or not, a few days after launching the case, Gunns announced its intention to build a $2.2 billion pulp mill—the largest in the southern hemisphere—in northern Lutruwita / Tasmania, at Tamar Valley on unceded Palawa / Pakana Country.
Who were the Gunns 20?
The Wilderness Society was named as a defendant and, according to Gunns, something of a ringleader of this conspiracy.
But it did not stop there, five individual Wilderness Society staff were also served: Alec Marr (National Campaign Director for the Wilderness Society at the time), Geoff Law, Russell Hanson, Leanne Minshull and Heidi Douglas.
The Huon Valley Environment Centre Inc was also named as a defendant. Bob Brown, who was a Senator for the Greens at the time, and Greens MHA Peg Putt were served, along with a number of students, filmmakers, and activists: Louise Morris, Adam Burling, Simon Brown, Helen Gee, Lou Geraghty, Ben Morrow, Neal Funnell and Brian Dimmick.
A group named Doctors For Native Forests was also sued, along with two individuals associated with the organisation, Dr Peter Pullinger and Dr Frank Nicklason, for a health warning they issued regarding the Burnie woodchip pile.
Can you imagine the prospect of being personally sued, out of the blue, for hundreds of thousands of dollars by the biggest woodchipping company in the southern hemisphere—all for speaking out against the destruction of Lutruwita / Tasmania’s spectacular forests?
The 17 individual defendants feared for their homes, families, and livelihoods. The organisations feared they would not survive.
Heidi Douglas—defendant five in the Gunns lawsuit—was a part time Audio Visual Producer for the Wilderness Society. Heidi was about to buy her first home when she was served, putting her at risk of losing everything she had worked so hard for. She reflected, “We had so much positive traction that year, there was a lot of movement at the federal level for Tasmania’s forests. Prime Minister John Howard had promised earlier that year to expand protected forest in Tasmania, and the opposition leader, Mark Latham, was out visiting old growth forests with Senator Bob Brown."
"When this case happened, it was a really negative thing. It had a huge impact on the Wilderness Society and our operations, we really did come close to losing all that legacy. Many people said that was the intention of the case.” - Heidi Douglas, defendant number five
What was at stake for the environment movement?
It wasn’t just a financial threat. Greg Ogle was the South Australian Campaigns Coordinator for the Wilderness Society at the time. He took up the mantle of becoming the Legal Coordinator for the Wilderness Society once Gunns case was filed. Of the claims set out by Gunns in the case, Greg reflected, “All the things that we thought made good campaigning, Gunns was claiming was a conspiracy. They were trying to make us responsible for any forest action taken by anyone.”
A similar sentiment has been reflected by renowned author Richard Flanagan, who said, “Gunns had launched an action that would, if successful, have redefined the practice of democracy as the crime of conspiracy.”
And that is really the heart of why the Gunns case is still talked about across the globe, today and indeed 20 years on. Yes—the case threatened to weaken the Wilderness Society and have a “chilling effect” on the whole forest protection movement, but more than that, it was a significant threat to freedom of speech and right to protest in Australia.
"We're fielding a lot of inquiries from ordinary people, just asking, 'What can we say? Can we say this to protect our forests? That's the implication of this case.” - Greg Ogle, ABC News 2007
The 'Forests and Free Speech' national tour
In 2005, two long-time forest advocates set out across Australia to spread awareness of the significant concerns raised by the Gunns case, and share information about how those within the environment movement could continue to campaign while staying safe from legal action.
Forests and Free Speech (known as “The Treedomfighters”) was a community organisation formed in response to the Gunns case. Louise Morris (who was also defendant number eight in the Gunns case) and forest campaigner Luke Chamberlain coordinated a Forests and Free Speech national tour that would begin in Queensland and end in Perth.
"This speaking tour is a call to action for all Australians to show their support for Tasmania's old growth forests and those who have tried to defend them..." - Louise Morris, Forests and Free Speech Tour organiser and Gunns 20 defendant, September 2005
They set out in August 2005, starting in Noosa QLD, working their way down the east coast through Newcastle, Canberra, and Melbourne. They headed west to Adelaide and finished the tour three months later at Perth Town Hall on the one year anniversary of the case—December 13. The Tour took them to six states and territories, where they held a whopping 36 public meetings with community members and activists.
The Tour welcomed a variety of guest speakers, like Alec Marr, the Wilderness Society’s Campaigns Director at the time, Peter Cundall (host of Gardening Australia), and theologian and historian, Paul Collins.
Even those who had previously been the victims of similarly destabilising legal action attended some of the tour stops. Greg Ogle, in his book Gagged, describes the emotional Forests and Free Speech meeting in Adelaide: “When the tour came to Adelaide we organised for all the victims of the Hindmarsh Island and Animal Liberation cases to get up on stage. It was a nice moment, and, since the Friends of Goolwa and Kumarangk was closing down, they wished to present a donation to the Gunns 20 defendants…I realised that with the Hindmarsh Island cases petering out in the way they did, this was the real moment of closure for those who had suffered the debilitating effects of this civil litigation.”
We did not let Gunns silence us
Even whilst facing the immense pressure of a lawsuit intended to weaken the entire organisation, the Wilderness Society jumped into action with an international campaign to protect Tasmania’s environment and community from this destructive pulp mill.
Saving the organisation and saving Lutruwita / Tasmania’s forests meant endless hours in courtrooms, dozens of big rallies around the country, and countless hours informing politicians, bankers, corporate stakeholders, and the public about the devastation that this pulp mill would have caused if it went ahead.
After several iterations of its suit, and the substance of its claim shrinking by the day, Gunns and the defendants were ordered to mediate in 2009—nearly five years after the case was first filed. It was during this time that Gunns agreed to settle with the Wilderness Society by paying them $350,000, in return for a damages payment of just $25,000 from the Wilderness Society.
Virginia Young, who as the Strategic Campaign Coordinator for the Wilderness Society at the time, and who spent untold amounts of time and energy supporting the organisation through this attack, told media at the time “After spending probably $3m of shareholders’ money claiming that The Wilderness Society organised a grand conspiracy against them, Gunns has now had to drop the claims against The Wilderness Society and pay us money. The legal action was rubbish from the start, and we are proud not only to have won the case today, but also to have continued to campaign for the protection of forests and against Gunns’ environmentally destructive pulp mill.”
Over time, Gunns dropped its case against a few of the defendants, and settled with others. In February 2010, just days before the case was due to go to trial, Gunns settled with the remaining four defendants and dropped the case entirely.
For Gunns Limited, the blowback did not end there. The mounting community pressure for change resulted in so much damage being done to the company’s brand and markets that Gunns went into receivership in 2013.
The Gunns case left a notable mark on the Australian environment movement that is visible even still in the determined yet cautious way that organisations stand up to corporate interests.
While the case raised significant concerns about the implications for free speech in Australia and the right to protest, there is still a lack of suitable legislated protection against lawsuits like these. Cases like this can, and do, happen still.
