Ken Jeffreys
ABC Radio is reporting that Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke is furious over reported claims by senior Forestry staffer Ken Jeffreys that green groups are ‘refusing to compromise’ over wood supply guarantees. The report says Burke believes the claims are a breach of confidentiality guaranteed during the IGA process
The original report in The Examiner:
WOOD supplies promised under a $276 million state-federal forests deal could not be guaranteed yesterday.
A senior Forestry Tasmania staffer has claimed that green groups are refusing to compromise, so 265,000 metres of peeler billet will be slashed to 180,000, and 155,000 cubic metres of sawlog could drop as low as 125,000.
Corporation relations manager Ken Jeffreys said this would make the industry unviable, and had led to the government business enterprise questioning its support for peace talks underpinning the deal.
Yesterday, Acting Premier Bryan Green said any changes to guaranteed wood supplies was a matter for signatories.
However, neither industry nor environment groups would comment on their closed-door discussions.
Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley has confirmed that Forestry Tasmania was asked to do new modelling, but is yet to report back to signatories.
Forest Industries Association of Tasmania chief executive Terry Edwards would only say the modelling results were expected later this week.
• David Obendorf: The wounded feral cat of the forest strikes out again!
If Ken Jeffreys was a public servant employed under the Tasmanian State Service Act he would he facing disciplinary action or dismissal for leaking information obtained in the course of his work as a public servant. Apparently for some elite spokespersons in Government Business Authorities there is greater leniency on their ability to go public with such information.
Orchestrated leaking of self-interested information from Tasmania’s public forest manager – [i]Forestry Tasmania [/i] – is not new; in fact it has been their modus operandi.
This wounded angry ‘feral cat’ that has caused such havoc in our State forests for decades is lashing out. This powerful political GBE has been behind the scenes of the roundtable negotiations ever since Nick McKim and David Bartlett put together the amalgam of 10 signatories to talk about peace.
According to leaked information provided to [i]The Examiner[/i] reporter Dinah Arndt a senior Forestry Tasmania spokesperson has claimed that ENGO groups are refusing to compromise, so 265,000 cubic metres per year of peeler billet will be slashed to 180,000, and 155,000 cubic metres of sawlog per year could drop as low as 125,000.
According to the [i]The Examiner[/i], Forestry Tasmania’s public relations manager Ken Jeffreys said these reductions would make the industry unviable, and had led to the government business enterprise questioning the peace talks underpinning the deal.
Of course Forestry Tasmania is the gatekeeper on the additional modelling that Dr Pullinger and Mr Edwards called for many weeks ago but is yet to report back to signatories.
Forest Industries Association of Tasmania chief executive, Terry Edwards would only say the modelling results were expected later this week.
“However, I will say that there are absolute minimum wood supplies below which we will not consider. Those (figures quoted above) are the numbers the government chose to give an absolute guarantee on”, Terry Edward said.
