[Greens-Media] Tas Greens_Laborials Defeat Forest Contractors Exit Package Proposal_K Booth MP

[greens at parliament.tas.gov.au]

LABORIALS DEFEAT FOREST CONTRACTORS' EXIT PACKAGE PROPOSAL

Confuses Workers with Big Woodchip Industry

Kim Booth MP
Greens Shadow Forests Spokesperson

Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Contact: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233
8300

www.tas.greens.org.au


The Tasmanian Greens today condemned the Bartlett Labor Government and
the Liberal Opposition for gutting and rejecting a Greens' motion to
assist struggling Tasmanian forest contractors to leave the industry
with dignity through a buy-out exit package for the 30 percent of
contractors currently facing financial ruin. 

Greens Shadow Forestry spokesperson Kim Booth MP said that when
questioned in Parliament today about an exit package for forest
contractors, Labor Forestry Minister David Llewellyn talked up the
future of the woodchip industry, but failed to address the fact that
this is not about the future of the big woodchip companies, but is about
the current situation facing forestry workers and their families.

Mr Booth also said that he has been seeking a buy-out package to allow
struggling forest contractors to leave the industry with dignity since
2006, but that the only response from the Labor Government has been to
heap criticism and ridicule on the Greens while continuing to ignore the
increasingly desperate situation facing Tasmanian forest contractors. 

"I raised this issue in Parliament today, again, after recently
receiving leaked documents which reveal that forest contractors have
been pleading with the Federal Government for exit assistance since
2006, and that now, in 2008, the contracted wood supply capacity far
exceeds market demand," said Mr Booth. 

"The State Labor Government have allowed this situation to occur by
encouraging too many contractors into the industry, so it is now their
responsibility to help 30 percent of the forest contractors to get out
of the industry with dignity, and without losing their homes."

"Within the industry it is recognised that, through no fault of their
own, there are too many forest contractors trying to operate in a
woodchip-driven industry that all forecasts have shown for years is
shifting into plantation and regrowth timber resources."

"Since the Paul Cook and Associates report in 2005, the industry has
known that there are too many contractors for the work available, and it
is recognised this is down to the big squeeze put on operators by the
woodchip industry interests." 

"Deliberately confusing the future of the woodchip industry, which both
Labor and the Liberals did today, with the future facing Tasmanian
forest contractors will not help one forest worker, or save one single
family home from repossession."

"The Greens are not the problem here - in fact, the letters to Senator
Bill Heffernan from struggling Tasmanian forest contractors point the
finger of blame directly at Gunns Limited and Forestry Tasmania, and
this is what neither Labor or Liberals want to face up to."

"The Greens are again bringing forward a positive solution to an
intractable problem, but once again the Bartlett Government is standing
in the way," said Mr Booth.  

Mr Booth said that internal industry sources are saying that assessments
of contract quota viability levels indicate that contractors working
from 70% to 40% of their contract quotas are either unviable or are
borderline unviable.

The Greens' Proposed Forest Contractors Exit package:

- Aims to provide for the 30% of forest contractors identified by the
industry as being unable to survive to leave the industry with dignity
before they face financial ruin;

- Would require the Auditor-General to assess those most unviable under
current and predicted quota conditions and contracts.  This  will keep
it arms length from the government; 

- Would require that the equivalent harvest volumes to the exiting
contractors' tonnage should be transferred into forest conservation
reserves, which would also reduce anxiety surrounding high conservation
value forests that the community identified through the Tasmania
Together process should be protected from logging; and

- The payout package would be funded by an extra $1 woodchip royalty
charged to Gunns Ltd, and Forestry Tasmania on a pro rata basis.




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