Media release – Rebecca White, Labor Leader; Shane Broad MP, Shadow Minister for Resources, 5 March 2024

Putting Tasmanian Timber Workers and Timber Industry First

A Labor Government will act immediately to provide security for the thousands of forest industry employees by ensuring open, transparent and secure access to resource by Tasmanian businesses with investments in Tasmania.

Labor will ensure Tasmanian contractors get a fair go at Tasmanian contracts and that the special species sector can get better access to logs.

Quotes attributable to Labor Leader Rebecca White:

Labor has listened to the timber industry and worked very closely with them over the past few years and this policy reflects our dedication to work together to secure a sustainable future for the industry.

Also, importantly, our policy will not create division and reignite the forest wars which will in fact drive away major customers and put Tasmanian timber jobs and businesses at risk.

The timber industry is a vital part of the Tasmanian economy and crucial to regional Tasmania.

A Labor Government that I lead will put Tasmanian timber workers and companies first, not mainland companies.

Quotes attributable to Shadow Resources Minister Shane Broad:

For the last 10 years the Liberals have taken the Tasmanian timber industry for granted by using them as a political football while failing to address their growing concerns about resource security and transparency.

Under the Liberals’ watch contracted volumes have not been delivered, iconic special species logs have dwindled to almost nothing and local logging contractors have been overlooked for cashed up mainland operators.

Labor will ensure that contracts are extended out to 2040 and include plantation sawlogs, special species are managed independently and that a 25 per cent local benefits test applies to logging and haulage contracts.

Labor agrees that an independent pricing mechanism is needed to ensure contract terms are fair and can be independently audited.

The details:

A Rebecca White Labor Government will:

Stop the current plantation sawlog Expression of Interest process being conducted by Sustainable Timbers Tasmania (STT), a process which could see mills starved of logs, workers thrown on the scrapheap and more logs exported out of Tasmania.

Review the available resources – both native forest and plantation – in an open and transparent process with independent oversight.

Protect existing Tasmanian businesses and their workers to ensure they have the highest priority to obtain long term secure contracts for wood supply. No sawlog or peelers will be exported in whole log form if they can be processed in Tasmania.

Develop a framework for prioritising access to STT’s wood supply capacity that is in the best interests of the state with a particular reference to regional Tasmania.

Provide confidence to existing STT customers by giving them the opportunity to negotiate enforceable contracts on commercial terms for their existing volumes, as a minimum until 2040.

Enforce the local benefits weighting of 25 per cent so that Tasmanian contractors get a fair go.

Ensure the future of the special species sector by the creation of a standalone Special Timbers Authority tasked with managing all aspects of non-blackwood special species timber supply and management.

Establish an independent Forest Products Price Oversight Body to ensure Tasmanians obtain a fair price for their resources.

Allocate $5 million towards developing new ways to process logs on-island.

Provide $350,000 for a heli-harvesting trial of dead Huon pine.

Commit to funding the Tasmanian Timber Promotion Board in future Budgets.

Commit to including private forest estate owners in the TasGRN rollout.

Rewrite the STT Ministerial Charter to reflect our Tasmania First Timber Policy

Media release – Rosalie Woodruff MP, Greens Leader, 5 March 2024

Labor Commit to Native Forest Logging Until 2040

Labor’s decision to extend contracts for native forest logging until 2040 is shocking. We are the midst of a climate crisis with threatened species hurtling towards extinction.

Lutruwita/Tasmania is meant to be the clean and green state, but it’s 2024 and we’re still logging native forests. Now we have Liberal and Labor politicians promising to continue the destruction until 2040.

When native forests are logged, critical habitat for threatened species is destroyed. When the clearfelled remains are burned, millions of tonnes of carbon emissions are released in the infernos.

We’ve all seen the plumes of smoke after hot logging burns. Pictures of the charred remains of Tasmanian devils were a shocking reminder of the wildlife that also get torched in the process.

Threatened species like the swift parrot and masked owl are being pushed to the brink of extinction as we lose these carbon rich forests. Continuing the status quo for another 15 years is a crime against nature.

Today we’ve had it confirmed, Liberal and Labor politicians are in this climate denial together. Any responsible government would be ending native forest logging, not locking it in until 2040.

This is why Tasmanians who care about climate action and protecting Tasmania’s forests need the Greens in Parliament. In a balance of power parliament, the Greens will fight to protect these critical carbon stores and end native forest logging.

Media release – Felix Ellis, Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Management, Minister for Skills, Training and Workforce Growth, Minister for Resources, Minister for Racing, Leader of the House, Member for Braddon

Labor’s Forestry Policy – Not One More Log, Not One More Job

Labor’s so-called forestry policy fails to provide a single extra log, or a single extra job, to Tasmania’s forestry industry.

It is nothing more than a damp Green squib.

Variously, it commits to:

“stop” the current plantation log allocation process – but provides no detail about how Labor plan to reallocate this wood moving forward;
“review” the available timber resources in Tasmania; and
“develop” a process for access to wood.

What is pointedly missing from Labor’s policy is any mention of the Future Potential Production Forest and the estimated 158,000 cubic metres of high-quality sawlog available there.

It is very clear that Labor is still a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Greens and still haven’t learned the lessons of 2010-2014.

In contrast, our forestry policy will secure the supply all Tasmanian sawmillers need by opening the “wood bank” Tasmanians voted for, and extending contracts to 2040.

Unlike Labor, we will always act in the best interests of the state not sectional interests, and we will not be held hostage by the Greens.

Media release – Independent Member for Lyons, John Tucker, 5 March 2024

LABOR WINS ON FORESTRY

Independent Member for Lyons, John Tucker, today welcomed the Labor Party’s forestry policy and challenged the Liberals to match it.

Mr Tucker said that unlike the Government, Labor’s policy was based in the real world and offered genuine resource security to support Tasmanian workers and forestry businesses.

“Importantly, Labor has included the plantation estate in its assurance of resource security – something the Liberal Party has been resisting.

“The Liberal Policy was based on a fantasy-world vision of access to contested forests which will never be delivered in the face of commercial realities.

“The Liberals offered Tasmanian mills nothing except the sell-out of their businesses to cashed-up Victorians flush with Labor’s compensation payments for the shutdown of their local industry. That means it was offering forestry workers nothing except a trip to the dole office.

“It is encouraging that Tasmanian Labor has resisted the environmental takeover of the party and has stood strong for jobs in rural and regional communities.”

Mr Tucker said the Liberal Party should now reverse course and join Labor in backing the industry.

“The Liberals have driven the State Budget into massive debt and are fixated on using every government business as a cash cow to pay the bills.

“They need to wrest back control from the Treasury bean counters who have been dictating policy and instead prioritise support for Tasmanian businesses and jobs.”

Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 5 March 2024

Tasmanian Labor Forest Policy puts wildlife, climate and giant trees last

Bob Brown Foundation has responded to the Tasmanian Labor Forest policy calling it out-of-touch with voters, a plan that endangers the climate and sends wildlife to extinction.

“An out-of-touch, pro-corporations policy that ignores the fact that most Labor voters want native forests protected. A potent vote loser because logging companies prefer the Liberals. In particular, young voters will be turned off by the fact that, in 2024, Labor has a forests policy that doesn’t mention endangered wildlife, giant trees rainforest or tourism,”  Bob Brown said.

“Ending native forest logging, the best climate action that the Tasmanian ALP can take, is missing from their forest policy announcement today. Labor has announced more logging and, worse still, more rainforest logging. The most important step we can take to avoid catastrophic climate change is to protect high carbon ecosystems like forests.  All of Tasmania’s remaining native forests need protection and all those that have been degraded after decades of plunder need restoration.  Enduring employment right now is in creating jobs by protecting native forests and funding restoration of degraded native forests,” said Jenny Weber, Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaigns Manager.

“Labor has followed Tasmanian Liberals commitment to extend native forest logging contracts to 2040, leaving Tasmanian taxpayers saddled with paying for forest plunder instead of much-needed funding for health, hospitals and education,” Jenny Weber said.

“Both Tasmania’s Labor and Liberal parties are misleading the public that local sawmillers are the centre of the Tasmanian native forest logging industry. The overwhelming majority of logging in Tasmania’s native forests is for export woodchipping and export timber for two large Malaysian logging companies,”said Jenny Weber.

Ali Alishah, jailed for forest protesting today called from maximum security prison at Risdon and is on his seventh day of a hunger strike, stated:

“The Tasmanian Liberals and Labor are committing the same mistakes of the past, damning people to a dying, almost dead native forest logging industry.  When they should be moving to protect all our remaining native forests and restoration of degraded forests.”