Assistance to Forestry Contractors

The Liberal Government is backing our forest industry and backing our forest workers.

Today we announced the Public Native Forest Harvest Contractor Assistance Program.

This program will support forest contractors who suffered under the job-destroying forest deal while our strategies to grow the sector can be developed and assessed.

The former Labor-Green Government set aside $20 million in Federal funding primarily to buy-out forest contractors; we are using a portion of the unspent funds from that program to instead support them.

This program is specifically targeting businesses contracted to Forestry Tasmania for the harvest of high quality sawlogs and other timbers from Tasmania’s public native forest.

A total of up to $4 million will be made available through a grants program to help eligible businesses manage their debt and continue operating during a challenging transition period.

The Government is also considering what other assistance may be made available to assist former industry participants who are continuing to suffer hardship as a result of the restructure of the native forest industry.

Our forest industry is one of our greatest strengths and a key part of our long term Plan for Tasmania to grow the economy and create jobs.

We’ve repealed the jobs-destroying forest peace deal and unlocked the 400,000 hectares Labor and the Greens locked-up; we’ve cracked down on workplace protestors with our legislation passing Parliament last week and we are investigating a Southern export port to help grow the industry.

We are now putting this important industry back on a sustainable footing after it was shut down by Labor and the Greens.

The program has strict eligibility requirements. The full criteria can be found at www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/forestry or by emailing forests@stategrowth.tas.gov.au
Paul Harriss, Minister for Resources