Federal Forest Minister’s office gets it wrong!

Federal Forest Minister Joe Ludwig’s office has made a blunder in its comments that “TFCA are promoting a scheme that will result in multi-million dollar payouts to a small number of very large contractors with no guarantees that any sub-contractors will receive any assistance to exit the industry”.
“This is a total misrepresentation.” TFCA CEO Ed Vincent said. “In fact the TFCA formula based proposal, independently verified, will guarantee that every eligible affected contractor and sub-contractor will receive exit assistance, equitably in relation to the size of their business and hence capital loss and employment redundancy obligations.”
The TFCA’s proposed formula was presented to senior Federal Forestry Department officials six weeks ago, by a delegation from the association including an independent professional accountant. We have made every offer to further explain our proposal. These offers have not been taken up.
“That the Minister’s office is making these sort of comments, is evidence that either they do not understand a simple equitable concept and mathematical formula, or they are trying to impose a solution to a different problem.” “Even cursory examination of our proposal shows that it is specifically designed to ensure that all eligible applicants are equitably assisted, within the limits of the available funding.”
“Unlike the TFCA proposal, the Minister’s office has a plan that provides absolutely no guarantee that every eligible business that needs to exit this industry will be assisted. They have not accurately defined the solution before trotting out a discredited, off the shelf plan. This is not an off the shelf problem”. “Inevitably their proposal will guarantee a significant number of contractor business collapses in this state and for that reason this association strongly opposes it.” “There are working families’ lives at stake here.”
“We remain committed to working with the Federal Government to achieve an inclusive and equitable exit assistance program and are awaiting a response to our letter to the Minister of late Monday afternoon, as well as a copy of the draft program promised by the Minister at our meeting with him in Canberra on September 15th ” Mr Vincent said.
For comment:
Ed Vincent CAHRI
Chief Executive Officer
TASMANIAN FOREST CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION
0417 520 591