Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens' Leader and Forests spokesperson
Forestry Tasmania’s Annual Report shows the subsidies to native forest logging continue.
The Liberals' promise to end the subsidies to Forestry Tasmania has again been exposed as a lie, with the GBE's annual report revealing taxpayers subsidised a $27 million operational loss.
Minister Barnett’s claim he has the forestry GBE back on a sustainable footing is rubbish.
More than 150 FT job losses, government absorbing costs and the firesale of public plantation assets are the reality, yet the Liberal propaganda machine is in overdrive.
In clear defiance of Liberal policy, FT's annual report also confirms the risk involved in logging the 356 000 hectares of high conservation value forest set aside under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.
Those high conservation value, carbon rich forests are regarded by FT as an important part of Tasmania’s Reserve estate, that should be protected.
The growth in the sector is coming from the plantation forestry, not native forest logging.
FT made it clear these forests are part of the Tasmanian Reserve Estate to 'provide security for species that might otherwise be disadvantaged by production forestry.’ That statement flies directly in the face of the Liberals’ divisive, political spin.
Minister Barnett is bull-dusting the people of Tasmania. FT is still running at a $27 million loss, the public subsides continue and the GBE does not want to go into the 356,000 ha of high conservation value forests.
If you look at FT’s Annual Report and listen to the Liberals’ spin, they tell two very different, and conflicting, stories.
The bottom line is the lies and the subsidies continue under the Hodgman Liberals and their own forestry GBE does not want a piece of their political push to log in the reserved forests.