The Tasmanian Greens Member for Braddon Paul O’Halloran MP said news of the possible closure of the Ulverstone Simplot factory was extremely disheartening.
“This is extremely disheartening news for the factory workers, the growers and the community of Ulverstone,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“Simplot has been an important employer at Ulverstone for many years, so we hope that a solution can be found to ensure it remains a part of the town for many years to come.”
“Closure of Simplot has been talked about for some years, and the State and Federal Governments have taken considerable steps to help the company bring down its costs, including installing natural gas.”
“The Simplot factory is facing the same international pressures that forced the McCain factory at Smithton to close, in particular the difficulty competing with low cost vegetable imports.”
“It is very disheartening, but we must not lose our focus on developing Tasmania’s agricultural sector in areas where we know we can be price competitive.”
“There are still massive opportunities in Tasmanian agriculture, and our real strengths now and in future are niche, high-value products that benefit from our strong brand.”
• Jan Davis: Only surprise about Simplot announcement was the timing
• Richard Colbeck: Simplot decision should be a reality check for Labor
• John Biggs, in Comments: #1 My thoughts exactly Russell. The question of how well are they doing is in today’s Merc: profits dropped from $45 million on 2011 to $26.8 million today. Poor buggers, my heart bleeds for them. Fancy making only $27 m profit. They are up to the usual corporate scams, no different from HK triads: pay us big tea money or you can say goodbye to 360 jobs and f*** the farmers. Ford’s been doing it for years along with a host of other grasping multinationals and our corporate-bought governments fall for it every time. (Thinks: any more of this and I’ll be talking like Bob Katter).
