PETER WELS, Examiner, 24/08/2009 12:00:00 AM
FORESTRY Tasmania has taken the unusual step of advertising its financial results for the last financial year, nearly two months before their official release. In an advertisement appearing in Tasmania’s three main newspapers today, the government business enterprise has announced it has posted a before tax profit of just over $9.2 million for the last financial year – compared with just over $8.5 million for the previous year.
Forestry Tasmania general manager of corporate relations Ken Jeffreys yesterday described the result as a “marginally” improved position on the previous financial year.
“It’s a solid but not spectacular result – it shows we can manage through the highs and lows of the international financial market,” he said.
Forestry Tasmania spent about $8000 on the ad in today’s three Tasmanian papers, Mr Jeffreys saying the decision to advertise the result ahead of the annual report release in October was aimed to minimise confusion about the financial performance of the GBE.
Greens
VOODOO ECONOMICS HIDE FORESTRY TASMANIA’S LOSSES
Cash Flow is now Profit, Subsidies are Income, and Costs Become “Contributions to State Economy”
Kim Booth MP
Greens Forests Spokesperson
Monday, 24 August 2009
www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today called accused Forestry Tasmania (FT) of attempting to hoodwink Tasmanians into believing that its business is in profit, when in fact the organisation has made a massive loss for 2008-09, despite paying zero for the public forests that it sells, and despite receiving millions of dollars in government subsidies under the Community Forest Agreement.
Greens Forests spokesperson Kim Booth MP said massive losses to FT’s bottom line this year are being masked by a huge rise in the theoretical value of the biological assets (that is, the forests) under FT’s control, yet the company attributes a value of zero to those same forest assets when it clearfells, firebombs, and destroys them.
“Forestry Tasmania are presiding over a massive loss of public funds and assets, and now they have the gall to come out and claim that cash flow is actually a profit, that government subsidies are income, and that costs are actually ‘contributions to state economy,’” said Mr Booth.
“This is voodoo economics of the worst kind. The Minister should require FT to give an honest annual accounting based on all figures, not just those held above-the-line, but of course this would expose the true extent of the loss-making juggernaut that FT has now become.”
“If a used car salesman adopted the same accounting standards as FT, they would make a profit every time they sold a car, regardless of how much they paid for it because, once sold, the car (apparently) becomes worthless, and any money they make on that sale, even if its only one dollar or one banana, is a profit. That is not real-world accounting – used-car salesmen across the state must be very jealous.”
“If FT are serious about including the value of the forests to prop-up their bottom-line, while giving those same forests a zero value when they clearfell them, then one could quite seriously conclude that FT would have made a much larger profit by simply leaving the trees alone.”
“The only winners out of this are Gunns who are the beneficiaries of FT’s modus operandi, which is to trash public forests while shifting the real profits to Gunns.”
“Premier David Bartlett claims to be data-driven, yet here is a glaring example of voodoo economics masking the true situation. The Premier must require that FT moves to triple-bottom-line accounting and gives an honest financial picture of its activities, including a value for the forests that it trashes,” said Mr Booth.
