Kim Booth MP Greens Forests Spokesperson Friday, 20 March 2009 Contractors Paying the Price of Major Parties’ Failure to Support Positive Greens’ Solution
THE Tasmanian Greens today called on the Bartlett Labor Government and the Liberal Opposition to explain why both parties rejected the Tasmanian Greens’ proposal for an industry exit package for forest contractors in November last year. (Read motion below)
Greens Forests spokesperson Kim Booth MP said the Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association is now calling for government solutions to the downturn faced by forest contractors, and called on the Liberal Opposition and the Bartlett Labor Government to support the Greens’ proposal which will allow up to 30 percent of contractors to leave the industry with dignity, and without losing their family homes.
“Bartlett Labor and the Liberal Opposition must now explain to the Tasmanian community, and especially Tasmanian forest contractors, why they rejected the Greens’ proposal to pay out excess forest contractors in the industry, and to allow those who remain to earn a decent living,” said Mr Booth.
“At the time there was no good reason to reject the package, and I suspect that it was done simply because the Greens suggested it, rather than for any practical or realistic reason.”
“Forest contractors are now paying the price of the Liberal and Labor Parties’ failure to support good policy when they see it.”
“Labor has long supported excess capacity in the forest sector, which has allowed the big players to set forest contractors against each other, and which has forced contractors to accept increasingly harsh and oppressive contracts that are grinding entire families into the ground, and sending many into bankruptcy.”
“If Liberal and Labor had supported the Greens in November last year, there would have been an opportunity for forest contractors to get out of a declining industry without losing their homes and other assets – this chance has now been lost and Labor and Liberal must explain why that is so,” said Mr Booth.
——————————————————————————–
Attached: Tasmanian Greens’ Forest Contractors’ Exit Package Motion, voted down by Bartlett Labor and the Liberal Opposition 19 November 2008:
18 November 2008
Kim Booth MP on tomorrow to move –
That this House notes with grave concern the financial plight of Tasmanian Forest Contractors, which was identified in the 2005 Paul Cook & Associates report, yet the situation has since worsened:
Further:
1. Gunns and Forestry Tasmania have used their monopoly power to induce contractors to sign harsh and oppressive contracts;
2. Contracted supply is in excess of demand;
3. Contractors face financial ruin when volumes fall below 70% of contracted quota;
4. Gunns has been imposing periodic quota reductions, cut backs on delivery hours and imposed non delivery days in order to manage their over supply issue and shift the risk to their contractors;
5. Forest Contractors have been calling on both State and federal governments for help for many years detailing the intense and tragic circumstances they face but to no avail;
6. Paul Cook and Associates identified in 2005 that 30% of contractors faced financial ruin unless an $18.7 million dollar buy out package was provided;
7. Industry Edge found in an August 2008 consultancy for the Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association that:
a) Constant exploitation of contractors over a prolonged period of time was occurring and that forest contracting would progressively lose its viability
b) The so called Fair contracts Code is ineffectual when there is such an imbalance in market power in the industry and supervening events can be invoked with impunity;
And therefore, the House calls on the Bartlett government to:
8. Immediately fund a financial exit package of a minimum of $20 million dollars that allows those contractors facing financial ruin to leave the industry with dignity;
9. Instruct the Auditor General to assess fair compensation for those contractors leaving the industry;
10. Recover from Gunns and Forestry Tas the total cost of the package by the imposition of a levy on all future woodchip sales; and
11. Place into conservation an area equivalent to that required to provide for the total contracted volumes of wood from those contractors who exit the industry.
