[Greens-Media] Tas Greens_Premier Abandons Scottdale Feasibility Study_K Booth MP

[greens at parliament.tas.gov.au]

WHERE'S THE PREMIER'S PROMISED $100K FEASIBILITY STUDY???

Wood Processing and Training Centre Option Evaporates?

Kim Booth MP
Greens Shadow Forestry spokesperson
 
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Contact: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233
8300

www.tas.greens.org.au


The Tasmanian Greens today called on Premier Bartlett to explain to the
people of north east Tasmania why the $100 000 promised for a
feasibility study into a wood processing and training centre appears to
have been abandoned and instead recycled money and rebadged projects
have been wheeled out leaving the north east community unimpressed.

Greens Shadow Forestry spokesperson Kim Booth MP said it was a slap in
the face for timber workers and their families, and also for innovative
stakeholders in the timber processing and training sector, who had been
waiting for the terms of reference for the promised feasibility study to
be announced so that innovative and practical ideas could come forward
looking at the retention, retooling and reopening of a working mill and
training centre in the north east.

"Yesterday Premier Bartlett made no mention in his announcement of the
$100 000 feasibility study he promised to north east workers and their
families, would be funded to look at a diversified wood processing and
training centre being re-opened in the Scottsdale area," Mr Booth said.

"If this means he has backed out of that pledge then he has betrayed the
people of Scottsdale and denied them the opportunity for the jobs,
skills, products and innovation that would have flowed from such a
project." 

"Remember this is the same Labor Government who oversaw the softwood
resource being taken away from Auspine and supported the sell-off of the
public pine forests in the 90s." 

"It's Labor who got Scottsdale into this mess and now Premier Bartlett
is backing away from any real chance to get them out of it."

"For a Premier who talks up his commitment to ideas and innovation the
recycled package announced yesterday is devoid of both and the one real
opportunity for a community driven solution based on skills and
innovation has been snuffed out before it's even begun." 

 


"Premier Bartlett is talking up furniture making in the north east but
if he had kept his work and explored the timber processing and training
centre option we could have seen a dozen different downstream processing
options and product lines developed for this area."

"The Premier needs to come clean on why the feasibility study has been
killed off."

"Perhaps if people realised how much timber can be milled and recovered
from clear fell operations then the whole woodchipping industry would be
called into question and people would realise the amount of work and
profit in efficient use of our timber resource, rather than the pulping
and chipping industry that has taken over during the last 20 years."

"The Greens will pursue the Premier for an answer on this issue as we
believe a jobs rich and skills based wood processing and training centre
is a real possibility and opportunity for Scottsdale, and I'm not
prepared to see it killed off so quickly," Mr Booth said.



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