Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Minister for Forestry

Friday 21st January 2011

Stop the forestry madness now

The 50 forestry job cuts announced today by Forestry Tasmania are just the first of the thousands of jobs that will be lost if the disastrous Statement of Principles is allowed to proceed.

Forestry Tasmania has confirmed that the job losses are necessary because they believe the Statement of Principles will slash revenue and shrink the size of the industry.

Today’s job losses can be laid directly at the feet of David Bartlett and Bryan Green and make a mockery of their claims that they will stand up for workers

However, what’s more disturbing is that Forestry Tasmania has confirmed that if the Statement of Principles is implemented its revenue will drop by up to 40%.

This confirms what we’ve consistently said, and that is that the Labor-Green Government plans to slash the forestry industry in half, which will cost thousands of jobs all around Tasmania.

Forestry Tasmania would not be sacking workers in anticipation if they didn’t think that the implementation of the Statement of Principles was a foregone conclusion. This madness must stop now.

The principles were predicated on significant funding for a restructure being available which appears less likely by the day as both the State and Federal governments have worsening budget situations and massive costs to meet as a result of the floods.

In a desperate bid to appease Nick McKim, David Bartlett is going to sacrifice the futures of workers, families and entire communities.

The Tasmanian Liberals believe that our balanced, 13 point forestry plan will save thousands of jobs, as well as protecting forests, and we urge the Labor-Green Government to see sense, stop the madness and adopt our plan.