The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd

At its peak, Gunns Ltd had a market value of $1 billion, was listed on the ASX 200, and was the largest employer in the state of Tasmania as well as its largest private landowner. Most of its profits came from woodchipping, mainly from clear-felled old-growth forests. A pulp mill was central to its expansion plans. Its collapse in 2012 was a major national news story, as was the arrest of its CEO for insider trading. Quentin Beresford illuminates, for the first time, the dark corners of the Gunns empire. He shows it was built on close relationships with state and federal governments, political donations and use of the law to intimidate and silence its critics. Fearless and forensic in its analysis, the book shows that Tasmania’s decades-long quest to industrialize nature fails every time—but the collapse of Gunns is the most telling of them all.

Quentin Beresford is a professor of politics at Edith Cowan University in Perth and the author or coauthor of 11 books, including The Godfather: The Life of Brian Burke and the award-winning Rob Riley: An Aboriginal Leader’s Quest for Justice.