Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Minister for Forestry

Tuesday 30th August, 2011

Govt flying blind on forestry

The Green-Labor Government is flying blind on its forestry reforms, admitting today that it has not modelled the impact of the forestry deal and they have no idea how many jobs will be lost.

Shutting down even half of the current industry would see $700 million in economic activity disappear and thousands of jobs thrown on the scrapheap.

Given the enormity of the consequences of what the Green-Labor Government is proposing, you would think that they would at least try and understand the impact of what they are doing.

It was also revealed by the Premier today that she had a least one secret meeting with Nick McKim to discuss the forest deal after it had all supposedly been signed off on Thursday night, 4 August.

No wonder the final deal released on Sunday, 7th August shafted the industry and pandered to the Greens.

What we saw in Parliament today was confirmation that Labor has completely sold out to the Greens and abandoned the workers and communities it once stood up for.