A FORMAL fraud investigation has been ordered by the Federal Government into allegations of deliberate rorting of its $17 million exit grant scheme paid to Tasmanian forest contractors.
A fraud team from the federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry visited Tasmania last week to conduct interviews over detailed allegations of corruption and rorts.
The probe is being headed by Edward Stanmore, senior fraud investigator with Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, following multiple complaints made to Canberra.
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown last month called for all payments to Tasmanian forest contractors to be halted until the federal Auditor-General had investigated the probity of the scheme and the widespread allegations of rorts.
The Federal Government is understood to be deeply worried about the potential improper distribution of its $17 million exit assistance package to loggers, contract harvesters and truck drivers working in Tasmania’s native forests announced last December.
It fears any evidence of mismanagement or wrongdoing risks turning the Tasmanian forest contractors’ exit grant scheme into another bungled insulation or Green loans scandal for the Gillard Labor Government.
Coalition forestry spokesman Senator Richard Colbeck last night branded the poorly managed and ill-defined native forest logging grants scheme “pink batts with bark”, referring to the disastrous insulation scheme of last year.
Some 30 forest contracting businesses were told on Christmas Eve by federal Forestry Minister Joe Ludwig that their applications for exit packages of up to $750,000 each had been successful.
Another 53 contractors missed out.
The emergency exit program was promised by the Labor Government in the lead-up to the federal election last August, to help put “bread on the table” of struggling forest contractors and their families.
Many of Tasmania’s 120 forest contractors are in deep financial trouble with mounting large debts on little-used log trucks and harvesting equipment, as contracts from large timber companies such as Gunns evaporate and global demand for native forest woodchips dries up.
The $17 million of federal grants were allocated in reverse order of size, with eligible applicants who had made the smallest financial requests supposed to be ranked ahead of those with demands for larger cash sums.
The size of the native forest logging contracts to be effectively “bought out” by the exit payments also was taken into account, as was the level of business debt.
The investigation is understood to centre on allegations that some successful grant recipients who were not eligible according to the strict government criteria were beneficiaries of exit packages.
There are also claims of favouritism being shown to preferred industry players, as well as allegations some large grants were allocated to logging businesses that were no longer even working in native forests.
Senator Ludwig’s office confirmed yesterday a formal fraud investigation was under way.
…
Suspicion of fraud within the industry has been heightened by the Government’s refusal to publish a full list of grant recipients until successful applicants sign a final deed of agreement.
As of yesterday, details of 24 of the 30 grants, including the business names of recipients, had been published on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website.
Senator Colbeck said the Coalition would be raising the allegations of rorting, ill-defined criteria and eligibility loopholes at a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Monday.
Full Sue Neales Mercury story HERE
Successful applicants
(30 awarded, only 24 as yet identified)
MD Logging (Jones family), Scottsdale $825,000
Watsons Timber (Lane Watson family), Glen Huon $825,000
Orana Enterprises, Riverside $825,000
Orana Transport, Riverside $825,000
Tony Green, Mole Creek $825,000
KJ & B Mahnken Pty Ltd, Hagley $825,000
K-Mac Forestry Systems, Sandy Bay $825,000
North West Development (D&S Templar), Turners Beach $825,000
Templar Contracting (G Templar), Ulverstone $825,000
Kasun Logging (K&M Barker family), Launceston $825,000
C K Forest Management, Launceston $825,000
Halsall Holdings, St Leonards $825,000
Wilson Logging, Triabunna $820,050
Eastern Tiers Logging, Triabunna $819,500
A&B Nominees, Orford $605,000
C&K Green, Mole Creek $550,000
Jones Forest Management, Scottsdale $429,000
J&A Cox, Hadspen $336,820
North East Loggers, Invermay $330,000
James and Margaret Alomes, Buckland $330,000
Cairns Bros, Liffey $277,666
R&S Langridge,Ross $220,000
Davies Excavations, Scottsdale $220,000
Snowtier Investments, Evandale $158,050
Source: DAFF grants website. Includes GST
Dave’s view: HERE
Huon Valley Environment Centre
Friday 18 February 2011
Media Release
Tasmanian conservationists continue forest vigil
Cable loggers sent back to old growth Forest in Picton Valley
“Conservationists have today returned to the threatened Picton Valley, where cable loggers have been sent back to clearfell an old growth forest area just weeks before a crucial moratorium deadline. One conservationist has climbed the cable logger and twenty five people are protesting in the forest. The Huon Valley Environment Centre is calling for the state and federal governments to take action to halt the loss of high conservation value forests,” Huon Valley Environment Centre’s spokesperson Jenny Weber said.
“Why have logging contractors been sent back into a high conservation value (HCV) forest coupe just four weeks before a moratorium on logging in these areas is meant to be in place? Logging in the 80 hectare area (known as coupe PC017C) has taken place in two stages.
Contractors had left at the end of 2010 and returned in January. This is a forest that could have been saved, without the extra cost of returning contractors to a high conservation value area,” Jenny Weber said.
“Both the state and federal governments announced that a moratorium on logging in Tasmania’s HCV forests would be in place by the 15th March.
Yet conservationists continue to witness systematic destruction of these forests on a daily basis.Tasmania’s Premier Lara Giddings and Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke must step in to salvage the situation, and hold Forestry Tasmania to account,” Jenny Weber said.
“In this International Year of the Forest, it is time to act and protect our remaining natural heritage. Tasmania’s ancient temperate tall forests are a unique, rare and precious ecosystem. The forests in the Picton Valley being destroyed today are of global significance. It takes many centuries for these forests to evolve and only a few short months for them to be decimated with the large scale industrial logging practises that we are still witnessing in Tasmania’s southern forests today,” Jenny Weber said.
