Timber workers are fighting the Tasmanian Government’s plan to re-open contentious forests for early logging, saying it will “destroy” the industry it’s trying to save. Source: ABC News
Tasmania’s Upper House is being briefed about the plan to allow logging in 356,000 hectares of land otherwise protected under a moratorium until 2020.
Debate on the Government’s legislation is expected to start in the Upper House this week.
About 500 timber workers from the Construction Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) across the industry met on Monday and voted to campaign against the move.
The union’s Scott McLean said he did not understand why the Government was trying to get the plans through Parliament.
Mr McLean said he would be telling members of the Legislative Council the move would trash Tasmania’s brand within timber markets.
“What will happen here is the very industry they’re trying to help, they will destroy,” he said. “That’s what will happen without the [Forest Stewardship Council] certification and with the harvesting and processing of this timber it will trash the brand ‘Tasmania’.”
He accused the Government of indulging in “cheap politics”.
“It’s probably the Government setting itself up for an election is the only thing I can come up with,” he said. “But the industry clearly does not want it, the workers do not want it but the Government seems hell bent on pushing this through and we’ll do whatever we can to stop it.”
The union will tell members of the Legislative Council the plan will trash Tasmania’s timber markets.
“The problem is that you can produce whatever you like; you can dry timber, harvest it, haul it, dry it, process it,” he said. “But at the end of the day if nobody wants to buy it — and nobody will want to buy it, a number of retail chains have already said that they won’t touch the timber — so you can produce whatever you like but if you can’t sell it it’s not worth anything.”
“I’m sure that the Legislative Council will see sense. I’m sure that’s the case.”
Resources Minister Guy Barnett told Parliament the union was being duplicitous and attempting to return to the forestry peace deal, which his Government scrapped.
“The CFMEU purports to represent the interests of the workers,” he said. “What we’re seeing now is a rerun of the TFA (Tasmanian Forests Agreement), an extraordinarily arrogant proposition which shows no regard for the decision of the people of Tasmania.
“What did they say? In no uncertain terms, no more lock-ups, and Madam Speaker we’ve acted on that and have a mandate to act.
“What we’re seeing is a cosy coalition of self-interest rising again, re-forming, the environment movement that wants to put out of work all those thousands of people in the native forest industry.”
