Smoke and mirrors

Cheshire

ANY Tasmanian who wants to see how the current administration blatantly hides and distorts the truth should read the comments from Bob Gordon at:
Forestry axes tourism venture


In brief, it has now been admitted that the “$29 million after-tax profit recorded in the recent [FT] annual report was a “statutory profit” more attributable to changes in accounting standards, unfunded superannuation liability and a re-evaluation of the state’s forests than real profitability”. The article quotes that the true operating profit was instead $589,000, or about 2% of the reported after-tax profit stated above.

Whatever complicated accounting arguments can be used to explain this enormous discrepancy for the taxpayer, the point remains that most people would reasonably expect a reported “after-tax profit” to be exactly that, and something that could be transparently compared between reports and years. They might not expect it to be a hyper-inflated amount that then has to be dramatically pruned, explained and justified with weasel words once appropriate scrutiny is being applied.

The article comments that “Mr Gordon [said] the company’s true operating profit for 2006-07 amounted to “hardly anything” “. Presumably this is marginally higher than FT’s credibility.

Smoke and mirrors indeed.

Cheshire.