Your comments and imagery at the start of the Peter Garrett “interview” — “Out of his Garrett: Labor spokesman speaks. Shock” (Friday, item 4) — are highly misleading. They create both a wrong impression and a sense of bias.

Crikey submitted questions about the proposed Tasmanian pulp mill to me on Wednesday 29 August, and put a deadline of around 12 noon Thursday on the answers.

I spent the Thursday morning on a flight to Perth for a policy announcement coinciding with the deadline. My office contacted Crikey ahead of the likelihood of me missing the deadline.

As the deadline for good reason could not be extended just for my answers, it was agreed my answers would be submitted and published on Friday, which they duly were.

Your comments about the Labor caucus “giving the nod” for me to speak are 100 per cent inaccurate.

Your suggestion that I have not spoken out about the pulp mill issue is also wrong. I have given more than a dozen interviews and press conferences on the subject, in addition to spending last weekend in Tasmania doing local and national media engagements.

My views have been clear and public for several months. Just because my views do not match the pre-determined boxes media outlets want me to tick, it does not mean I have not openly expressed my views, and of my own accord.

I have not lost my passion for the environment and I am not missing. The only thing missing on Friday was Crikey’s objectivity.