MINISTER AGREES TO INVESTIGATE FAILED TEMMA FARM PLANTATION
Once Presented with Photographic Evidence of Dead and Dying Stunted Trees
Kim Booth MP Wednesday, 24th September 2008 For Comment: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233 8300
The Tasmanian Greens today welcomed the commitment made by the Minister responsible for Forestry, David Llewellyn, to investigate circumstances surrounding a failed plantation establishment at Temma in the State's north-west, which has applied for private timber reserve (PTR)status despite the plantation consisting of dead and dying trees.
Greens Shadow Forestry spokesperson Kim Booth MP has also called for the matter to be referred to the Australian Taxation Office as the failed Temma plantation is also a managed investment scheme (MIS), established by Great Southern Ltd in April 2006.
MR Booth also said that the Temma farm is even more tragic as the Temma farm site was good agricultural land that served as the food bowl of Balfour, but which should never have been alienated to benefit the timber industry.
"I welcome Minister Llewellyn's undertaking to investigate the situation at Temma, where a private timber reserve application has been made for a failed plantation site that consists of acre upon acre of stunted, dead, broken and dying Eucalyptus niten trees," Mr Booth said.
"Upon presenting the Minister with photographic evidence of the Temma farm, which depicted a barren wasteland covered in grass and weeds with cattle roaming through the rows of dead and struggling saplings, Mr Llewellyn had no choice but to agree that any application for PTR status would need to be investigated."
"This is clearly a failed plantation located on an unsuitable site in an area that would be too remote for economical harvest even if it grew."
"I have also requested that the Minister refer this matter to the ATO for investigation because as a Managed Investment Scheme (MIS), this plantation appears to be nothing but a bogus tax minimisation scheme that risks ripping off its investors."
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