Media Release

Will Hodgman MP
Leader of the State Opposition
Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Minister for Forestry

Wednesday 13th July, 2011

Greens blackmail Labor: RIP forestry industry

“Without Triabunna the forestry industry in the South will come to an end” (Lara Giddings, The Mercury, 7 July 2011)

The Greens have held a gun to Labor’s head over the Triabunna mill sale and Labor has surrendered.

Revelations that Labor didn’t even know about the sale of the Triabunna mill until after it was announced shows just how beholden to the Greens Lara Giddings and Bryan Green have become.

The Government has stood aside and allowed the deal to fall over because of the threat of a no confidence motion from the Greens if the deal went ahead.

This is the clearest proof yet that the Green-Labor experiment is failing, and Tasmanians are paying a high price.

This blackmail by the Greens has resulted in the almost certain collapse of the forestry industry in Tasmania with thousands of jobs to go and regional communities to be destroyed, including the Triabunna community.

The Liberals have never supported the Statement of Principles process, because we predicted it would lead to a massive, rapid and economy-destroying collapse of the forestry industry. Sadly, it looks like we are being proved correct.

That’s why in December last year we announced our own 13 point forestry plan that would provide for improved environmental outcomes as well as ensuring a long-term future for the native forestry industry.

Unfortunately, Labor has succumbed to the Greens’ influence and has traded away the long-term future of the forestry industry in the interests of their own short-term political survival.

Our support for the government loan to Aprin to purchase the Triabunna mill and for the mill’s continued operation is a matter of public record.