Ms O'CONNOR - Minister, previous TasPorts annual reports have detailed the top commodities by tonnes and TEUs. Why does the latest annual report not have this data in it?
Mr DONALD - I don't know, actually; that's a good question. I think we've certainly got that data. I think our objective this year was to summarise a lot of the information and to provide important information. If there is a specific question you'd like to know the answer to I would more than happy to provide it.
Ms O'CONNOR - Of course there is. We're interested in finding out the total volumes in tonnes and TEUs of woodchips exported out of Tasmanian ports and whole logs in the 2019 20 financial year. Is there any way this could be broken down by whether it is a plantation resource, which I think would be mostly through the northern ports, and native forest, which is the primary feedstock for the southern port or Macquarie Point?
Mr DONALD - I have a high-level response to that. I don't have the detailed stats as such to that extent but that is something that we can provide.
Ms O'CONNOR - To be clear, because I need to have it confirmed by the minister that he is prepared to take a question on notice, if we asked that specific question on notice, given that it's data that was available in previous years, apart from the back-end of my question?
Mr FERGUSON - We're more than willing and able to do that, I believe, if you would like to place it on notice.
Mr DONALD - I can provide some information. During 2019-20 there were 3.7 million tonnes of forestry product in total through all our ports, which represented a decrease on the previous year of some 11.8 per cent. There was a reduction in log export volumes of 22 per cent based on some challenging market conditions, particularly around China, but log volumes are expected to rebound during this financial year.
Ms O'CONNOR - I'm not sure if we got to this level of precision in the earlier questions that I was asking about volumes, but is it possible to have information on the volumes of the top 20 exports from the state in the past financial year as we've had in previous annual reports? Are you happy for me to put that on notice too? Okay.
Mr DONALD - I might add that we will be happy to ensure that's included in future annual reports. That wasn't a very conscious decision.
Ms O'CONNOR - Thank you, that's great. It's been a very odd year.
Mr BRADFORD - Your feedback is useful because we often wonder in an annual report whether people actually read some of this material. The phones don't run hot but the type of question you're asking we will take into account next time.
Ms O'CONNOR - Thank you. A very small group of people read annual reports and some of them are sitting at this table.
Mr Donald, earlier you said that the whole logs that are being exported out of the southern facility are not being containerised but are going as bulk commodity exports. What's happened to the containerised wood product exports?
Mr DONALD - Some of those have been converted into bulk movements and some would have been moving through the port of Bell Bay.
Ms O'CONNOR - So there are still timber exports in containers that are going out through Bell Bay. Would we be able to obtain some information from you on the volume going out of Bell Bay in containers? Are you happy for me to put that on notice, minister?
Mr FERGUSON - Yes.