Mining Company Threatens to Sue Bob’s Army

In 2013, forestry company Gunns tried to sue environmental protesters, ultimately unsuccessfully. Earlier this year, the Tasmanian government lost its second bid to enact laws aimed at stopping protesters invading workplaces, including working forests.

So, for the time being, environmental activists retain their almost free reign to disrupt Tasmania’s economy and workplaces. Not content with virtually shutting down the state’s forestry industry, activists have turned their sights on mining, fishing and aquaculture. Anything, basically, that threatens to turn a profit in the state — even, increasingly, so-called “eco tourism”.

Now, another private company is having a go, and taking on environmentalists where Gunns failed.

Environmentalist Bob Brown’s activist foundation faces a potentially crippling $100,000 lawsuit from a mining company over ­protests that have disrupted ore production and shipping.

Venture Minerals [VML] on Friday ­issued a legal demand on the Bob Brown Foundation for $100,359, as damages for delays to produc­tion at its Riley Creek mine in northwest Tasmania and disruption to Burnie ore shipments.

The company, whose operations at multiple sites in the state’s northwest have been plagued by protests, has warned it will take court action unless the damages are paid within weeks.

Where Gunns’ case primarily turned on what it claimed as reputational damage; the sheer scale of the damages claim by Gunns, $20 million, dwarfed the VML claim. Clearly, VML is hoping that a more specific claim and a smaller, though still punishing amount, will see its claim succeed where Gunns failed.

Venture’s lawyers, Davis Advisory, stressed in a letter to the foundation and eight of its activists that it did not oppose peaceful, lawful protest.

“VML does not oppose your legal right to your views and to peaceful protest … rather, its concern is when that protest action unreasonably and illegally interferes with VML’s legal right to conduct its operations and it suffers loss and damage as a result,” the letter reads […]

Venture told The Weekend Australian it hoped its actions against the foundation would “send a clear signal to the BBF that other people and companies should not and will not bear the ­financial consequences of BBF’s unlawful actions”.

Venture claims BBF-organised protests between March and September cost it extra stevedoring and ship berthing charges, freight and trucking costs, and loss of revenue, including from missed mining and processing production.

“VML has a right to conduct its operations pursuant to its statutory approvals, without unreasonable interruption or delay,” the company’s legal letter reads.

The Australian

The letter is a clear warning shot to the BBF, obviously intended to make would-be protesters think twice. History suggests that Brown’s feral army of nosey-nanna boomers, middle-class bludgers and students are unlikely to be deterred.

And so ordinary Tasmanians — fewer than one in ten of whom vote Green — will continue to endure the disruption of a noisy minority, encouraged and financed by Mainlanders who regard Tasmania as little more than their personal national park-cum-retirement village.

Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD