Barnaby Drake
If Forestry were to cease operating immediately, we would be saved an enormous fortune in taxes and we would retain our hetirage. Our forests are our most valuable asset and are being totally mismanaged, and which also have a huge future potential for making a large income for the Tasmanian people from carbon trading.

WE ARE ALL aware of the cosy arrangement that Gunns has always had with the Government and Forestry. I think it is now an appropriate time to put the pressure on to bring this arrangement to an end.

The Pulp Mill is totally reliant on this relationship continuing for its very existence. Without this huge subsidy and continuing availability of timber at these under-valued prices, it could not operate.

Through Forestry, every year the long-suffering tax-payer of Tasmania annually subsidises this private company to the tune of many millions of dollars – and for what?

This year the bill presented to us by Forestry was $55,200,000. Last year it was $129,800,000. There were similar amounts for the five previous years.

Without these huge Forestry subsidies, Gunns would cease to exist. If they had to pay the actual worth of the timber, let alone a PROFIT, their balance sheet would have been negative for the last seven years.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg. Other subsidies, many of them secret, are estimated to amount to over $250,000,000 per year. Then we have MIS as well.

Under the RFA, Forestry has been given the task of selling our forestry products for the best possible price and is supposed to return a profit for the people of Tasmania from the assets they manage. They have failed dismally in this task, yet the directors still receive inflated salaries for their efforts. Not only have they not done their duty, but they have returned a continuing loss. If they had got a realistic price for their timber, Gunns would have paid even more than this current loss of $5.2 Million, and as Forestry also runs quite a profitable tourist operation, which ameliorates their balance sheet and hides some of the losses they make. This also ends up as a subsidy for Gunns.

If Forestry were to cease operating immediately, we would be saved an enormous fortune in taxes and we would retain our hetirage. Our forests are our most valuable asset and are being totally mismanaged, and which also have a huge future potential for making a large income for the Tasmanian people from carbon trading.

They are already trying to pin our future into further horrendous losses with the minimal price guarantee of timber for the next thirty years to Gunns, and they have further tried to commit us to a Sovereign Risk Agreement, signed in secret, to further give Gunns $15 million of tax-payers’ money per year if they fail to supply them with sufficient timber at these knockdown prices. This, despite the trumpeting from Gunns itself, that ‘they are not going to process one old-growth tree in their mill and it is solely dependent on plantation timber.’ An obvious lie, as the entire process of carbon bleach is designed to process native timber and in their previous company report they highlight the fact that they will need an extra 4 million tonnes of native forest for the mill. If what they are trying to tell us now is true, why do they need these agreements and why do they keep asking for extensions?

Further, on top of this, a short while ago, Forestry ‘lost’ 1,000 hectares of forested public land, and have never explained where it went. A one-sided ‘swap deal’ where the land simply disappeared off the public record. What happened to the timber, nobody knows. Swept under the carpet.

Forestry are also exporting logs for burning in foreign power stations and have signed a separate agreement with Gunns for a similar purpose. So much for a carbon sink!

Gunns continues to make a huge profit from this cheap timber, and we are subsidising theirshareholders with our taxes, our future and our forests. We, the tax-payers are being milked.

Forestry lies, Gunns lie and the Government lies. It is time to tip them out of this comfortable bed and scrap Forestry altogether. It is of no benefit whatsoever to the people of Tasmania. It is time for them to shut up shop and GO! If we had closed them down two years ago, we would not have had this pulp mill fiasco and we would have saved ourselves not less than $425,000,000 in subsidies.

Barnaby Drake

Golden Valley