where has your money gone ...?

Where has your money gone ...

Senator Christine Milne
01.06.10 1:21 am
With forest industry jobs being lost at a great rate and communities clearly suffering, there is little doubt that there will be yet another proposal for a Forest Industry Rescue Package for Tasmania before the federal election.

But how did we reach this parlous state when more than $650 million has been handed out of the pockets of the community to the forestry industry since 1997 on the basis of claims that it would protect jobs?

Were those claims false? Does the industry misunderstand global trends? Was the money wasted? Who decided where it should go and to whom? Who will now take responsibility for the efficient and effective use of public money?

Until these questions are answered, it is hard to see that another round of rescue packages based on business as usual, will do anything other than neutralise the issue for the federal election, buy some time and inject more false hope into an industry that has been awash with it since the mid 1990s.

It should have been clear to everyone at Forestry Tasmania and in both governments that there would be no market for native forest woodchips by the end of the 1990s as the wall of wood from plantations around the world hit the global market. By 1993 plantations had already overtaken native forests as a sawn timber resource. The writing was on the wall, but the ideologues at Forestry Tasmania and in the Tasmanian government persisted in their outdated approach.

To read the full article go to Tasmanian Times