The Tasmanian Greens today secured an admission from the Treasurer, Peter Gutwein, that Forestry Tasmania is operating under a Letter of Comfort from the Crown.
“The Greens have asked on numerous occasions over the last few months about ongoing public subsidisation of Forestry Tasmania, and specifically whether the GBE would be provided a letter of comfort to ensure they were not operating insolvent,” Mr Booth said.
“It is very interesting that the day the Treasurer finally provides an answer and confirms the State will be playing sugar-daddy to Forestry Tasmania is the day the Legislative Council is set to pass the flawed Bill to tear up the TFA.”
“The existence of the letter of comfort should have been in the public arena to inform the community and the Legislative Council of the parlous state of forestry’s financials now the Liberals have stripped the transition contingency fund from this government business enterprise.”
“The Liberals have voted down the Greens call for Forestry Tasmania to move to a full cost recovery business model, they are tearing up the framework which could have provided industry certainty and FSC certification, and they are now guaranteeing that the public purse will keep bailing out forestry.”
“This is another blatant broken promise of the Hodgman Liberals.”
“They go through the smoke and mirror moves of pulling the contingency money claiming an end to forestry public subsidies, when in fact they have provided Forestry Tasmania with a blank cheque underwritten by the public purse,” Mr Booth said.