Nick McKim MP | Greens Forests spokesperson
Forests Minister Paul Harriss has been exposed by members of his own Ministerial Advisory Council on Forestry as having no plan for Forestry Tasmania.
He has also been exposed as an authoritarian, anti-free speech zealot who is not prepared to tolerate dissenting views.
Both Deputy Chair Sue Smith and the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association believe that the Greens are correct to say that Forestry Tasmania should be abolished. The fact that Mr Harriss is now preventing them from saying so publicly does not mean that they are wrong.
Logging native forests is a loss making enterprise, and there is no prospect of that changing in the foreseeable future. Mr Harriss can shift the subsidies off-budget all he likes, but it is still the long suffering Tasmanian taxpayer who is picking up the tab for this mendicant GBE.
The simple fact is that Forestry Tasmania has been interfering in the markets, to the detriment of private plantation owners in particular, for far too long.
Mr Harriss has no plan, no business case, no cash to cover unfunded superannuation liabilities, no chance of FSC certification, and no idea how to run his portfolio.