Back to the Future – the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement 2012

Picture: Daniel Haley

Regardless of what happens with the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement Bill 2012 in the Legislative Council the continuing decline of the forest industry in Tasmania is 100% guaranteed.

If they pass the TFA Bill the focus of the Forestry Wars may shift but there are still many unresolved issues, and the TFA provides new opportunities for conflict.

If the Bill is rejected or modified to the point of being null and void, then the remaining forest industry will quickly be extinguished in the final battle. This may in fact now be the best remaining option. And then there is what to do about Forestry Tasmania. The Government seems unwilling to make any meaningful changes there.

The TFA as finally drafted basically achieves four objectives:

a) the protection of more public native forest from logging,

b) continued entrenchment of vested industry interests. In fact the TFA 2012 is highly anti-competitive and could well be in breach of the Corporations Act. The TFA 2012 basically continues to support the notion that the forest industry is a Government funded and dominated industry. The Agreement singularly fails to identify the factors necessary to attract private investment. All future investment is assumed to be provided by Governments.

c) the payment (again) of millions of taxpayers dollars to compensate the industry for its continuing failures, and

d) sets the industry up for the next round of “negotiations” and compensation, come the next financial crisis or election.

The TFA is a virtual carbon copy of previous forestry agreements and strategies despite the warnings from Jonathon West about the failures of the past. The forest industry will continue to be politically – rather than commercially-driven. No wonder the MLCs are so frustrated. They can see what is coming next.

As a roadmap towards a brighter, better, more profitable future for the forest industry in Tasmania the TFA is a dismal failure. What the industry needs is a very large dose of commercial steroids; instead it is continuing its addiction to pain-killers and sedatives. Neither the forest industry itself nor the Government are showing any interest at all in developing a new future for the industry. What a waste of an opportunity.

Cocooning the already entrenched vested interests in the forest industry is not the way to a better future. Actually I think it has now reached the stage of mummification. The industry has all but died. The TFA Bill 2012 will just prepare the corpse for burial. Can we raise public funds to build a pyramid? I hear there is a large cleared site at Bell Bay that may be suitable.

As wasters of taxpayers’ money and public resources the forest industry makes the Australian car industry look very competitive and profitable.

One major difference with the TFA 2012 was that for the first time significant ideological differences within the forest industry were exposed as demonstrated by the many submissions from industry players who opposed the TFA.

As Fred Ralph of the Tasmanian Sawmillers Association said in their submission to the TFA LegCo Subcommittee, “Most of the difficulties [the forest industry] now finds itself facing are of its own making. (TSA LC Submission, p. 2)”. Having been in the industry for the past 25 years I agree with Mr Ralph.

Of particular concern to me is the fact that many aspects of the TFA may potentially prevent the establishment of a blackwood growers cooperative. Here we have major international customers wanting to buy sustainable, farm-grown Tasmanian blackwood, and the industry and the Government are doing their utmost to stop this happening. Some of these customers have been here before and gone away disappointed with the way we do business in Tasmania. It appears they may be in for a repeat experience. If so they won’t be back.

Most likely they will head to New Zealand and buy their blackwood from NZ farmers. It will certainly help take the NZ blackwood industry to the next level, while our own blackwood industry will disappear entirely.

Another certain outcome from the failure of the TFA 2012 will be an increase in general community anger, mistrust and despair. The past 3 years have already been some of the most painful in Tasmania’s social, commercial and political history. The failure of the TFA process will aggravate already festering wounds with infection already spreading well beyond the forest industry.

After 30 years the Tasmanian community has every right to be thoroughly disgusted with the inability of our political and business leaders to resolve this conflict.

• Private foresters vindicated in forestry bill turmoil

• David Obendorf Transcripts:

‘Government- initiated’ delay on the Forest Deal

Transcript

Thursday 28 March 7.45 am ABC news – Tasmanian Forest Agreement Bill

The last minute bid to stop MLC from voting for a deal breaking change to the Tasmanian Forests deal has failed.

The legislation has little hope of being finalised before Easter. Late last night Mersey MLC Mike Gaffney proposed to change the reserve agenda, slightly reducing the amount of forests initially protected from logging, but he was forced to pull the amendment after learning he didn’t have enough support. Apsley MLC, Tanya Rattray told Parliament the process has been a mess:

Tanya Rattray: “What an absolute shemozzle! I cannot see how we can continue to deal with this.”

Windermere MLC, Ivan Dean agreed:

Ivan Dean: “It cannot be right, it will not be right. This has turned into a circus.”

Debate will resume this morning, but a third reading and a vote is unlikely to happen before Easter. The Upper House isn’t scheduled to sit again until mid-April.

It is understood a majority of MLCs are lining up to support Rumney MLC, Tony Mulder’s amendment to halve the initial amount of forest to be protected from logging. Environmentalists say that will force them to walk away from the peace agreement. The Huon MLC, Paul Harris says he will no longer try to fix the legislation. [ENDS]

ABC News at 1 pm Thursday 28 March

The Government has taken a shock step of deferring debate on the Forest Peace deal in the Upper House until next month. The Government was struggling to obtain the support it needs to make the peace deal law.

The Leader of the Government’s business in the Upper House, Craig Farrell says he wants to give MLCs more time to consider a raft of proposed changes to the Bill. It comes after a fiery late night debate in which a number of MLCs including those that support the Peace Bill heavily criticised the Government’s handling of the Bill. Mr Farrell says MLCs need time to clear their heads.

Craig Farrell: “It became very clear to me, and, ahh… to the Government, that there were a number of issues relating to the way the Bill was progressing.”

The move heads off a deal-breaking change to the peace deal which would halve the amount of forests listed for protection initially. Mr Farrell says it’s not a delaying tactic but the most sensible thing to do.

Earlier today, the Premier Lara Giddings said she would not withdraw the Bill.

Lara Giddings: “No we won’t. This is an opportunity for the Legislative Council to really take charge of this – in that respect – keeping in mind that the Signatories are important to this process. And what is agreed in the Legislative Council must be agreed by the Signatories, or it means nothing”. [ENDS]

ABC 936 Drive Program Thursday 28 March 2013 – Louise Saunders talks with Environment Tasmania’s Phill Pullinger:

Louise Saunders: Phill, good afternoon.

Phill Pullinger: Gidday Louise.

Louise Saunders: How are you feeling emotionally with all this; it seems to been quite a roller-coaster ride.

Phill Pullinger: [Pause]….. Yeeeeah, ahhm… it’s certainly pretty frustrating. It’s been a long… sorta three years… ahh, the whole, ahh… peace process now. So every time you think you might just be about there … the chance for … ahh … the community at large to … to have a resolution of the forest issue and move on as a community … to get some certainty back for the forest industry … get protection of those areas, ahh… of forests that are outstanding on a global scale and, and move on as a State. Ahhm…every time when you think you’re nearly there, it seems there is another hurdle that needs to be, ahh… worked through.

Louise Saunders: What’s your take on what’s happened this week. As Zoe Edwards [ABC Parliament reporter] was saying that there was an expectation, of course, that they’d be right into the legislation – the nitty gritty of it. There’s been so much discussion about the peripheral issues and, of course, indications of amendments that might not be in keeping with what the Signatories are after.

Phill Pullinger: Yeah, well….(pause)…. I sat through a lot of it last week and this week. And, ahhm… with much of the legislation it was pretty ‘straight bat’ and, you know, most of the legislative councillors were, ahhm… playing a pretty ‘straight bat’ at diligence roles in terms of working through the legislation, ahh, ahh … tightening it up, here and there and, ahhm… trying to strengthen the spirit and intent of the agreement; what it’s trying to achieve.

Ahhm … but then you had, ahhm … all sort of ‘curve balls’ coming in from left, right and centre, in terms of amendments or possible amendments when it came to … I guess the heart of the whole agreement. Which is getting the resolution around the reservation of, ahhm… critically important areas of native forest – which are significant on a national and global scale. And delivering security for the industry via … secure wood supply in terms of, ahhm … where the wood supply is gunna be produced and how its gunna be produced. Ahhm, and so that’s where I think it basically… it sort of got stuck … ahh, ahh … over the last sort of, 48 hours so… I think it was probably pretty sensible to take a bit of time out, ahhm … and for the government and others to do some more work over coming weeks.

Louise Saunders: With the term ‘others’ is there still a role then for the Signatories to have further discussions with individual Legislative Councillors about what their concerns might be.

Phill Pullinger: (Pause) Ahhm … well, certainly I think … I hope so. Well, I mean, ahhm … ahhm, ahh … well… yeah … I mean … ahh … it’s, it’s … ahh … it’s been a long hard process over the last three … years and obviously Tassie’s been riven by this conflict for, ahhm… more than thirty … thirty years. And, and … it’s been, ahh … this process started three years ago. Ahh, there was, you know, a tentative series of talks in the first instance between… sort of warring parties… ahh, ahhm at the heart of the conflict. Ahhm… a Statement of Principles in October 2010 and then that progressed to, you know, Bill Kelty working through more, more detail and further agreement, and then the Governments buying in and investing substantially in providing funding packages, ahhm… to the order, I think, of $100 million so far – to underwrite the program. And then all the due diligence with all the expert reviews on wood supply and conservation reserves. So there’s a hell of a lot of work that’s gone into … to this point in time.

It’s a pretty finely balanced agreement, so…

Louise Saunders: Finely balanced, it certainly is. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes.