Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 19 May 2010

Readers continue to voice their opinion on the state of the industry while Andy McCourt shares his thoughts on APP. Write in and let us know what you think on these, or any of our other stories.

Re: Letters, feedback, get it off your chest: 12 May 2010
Yes, Phil Heaton's statement that “due to management’s inability to change and to know what it needs to do to be successful” is broad and sweeping.
 
Certainly, in the last 18 months it would have been very useful to have a crystal ball; if not a crystal ball, the guarantees of the government that were given to the major banks.  Decisions made by some printers prior to the financial tsunami were based on a good outlook to invest and even a move to new premises. These decisions for some printers proved disastrous. The thing about a tsunami is that they often start so far away.
 
Then are the other dramas as outlined in Paul Daley’s reply which makes Australia so lucky; but not lucky enough. The printing industry is one of the most competitive, innovated and technologically driven industries in the world. In Australia the industry is so reliant on the local market and there are too many printers.
 
Even if printing companies have a broad and experience management and know what it needs to be successful there is that element of luck to be on your side as so many financial decisions of high capital expenditure are for five years or more.

John A Murphy

Re: Indonesian unions claim FSC is plot to sabotage industry
I would suggest that APP and their parent Sinar Mas should spend less on translucent PR and more on cleaning up their act. This is not about Indonesia or the Indonesian Pulp and Paper workers Union – whose members are ultimately paid by Sinar Mas, whose behaviour is well documented. It is about Sinar Mas's desire to rapaciously destroy eco-systems in many places for the sole pursuit of profits, gained at the expense of villagers, native wildlife, bio-diversity and perhaps the health of the planet. At a time when the UN has just released a damning report on how we are managing this amazing planet – it says we risk a total collapse of life-supporting systems – this attack by app/Sinar Mas's PR company is all the more ridiculous. FSC, PEFC etc are all about certifying wood fiber products as coming from well managed, sustainable forests and that the chain-of-custody from harvesting to recycling is in place. APP cannot match these standards. When and if they can, their products can receive FSC-type certification like any other responsible forestry industry company.
 
When you are a company that has been caught out so many times, runs a virtual private army to beat and intimidate protesters as it did last March on the streets of Jakarta http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0325-hance_sinarmas.html, and when your own customers drop you because of your bad environmental record: http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/greenpeaceusa_blog?cat=35617 – then no amount of PR will wash away the stain, only a change of policy will reverse negative world opinion.
 
This is not about our Indonesian friends or fellow pulp and paper industry workers. It's about Sinar Mas continuing to make huge profits by destroying important parts of our planet.
 
Andy McCourt