Forest & Wood Communities Australia has called on Tasmanian Work Health and Safety regulator WorkSafe to investigate continued breaches of the Tasmania Work Health & Safety Act by Bob Brown Foundation members. Source: Timberbiz
This week members of the corporate activist group invaded a harvesting coupe in Tasmania’s Eastern Tiers.
Police attended the site but FWCA Director Kelly Wilton said the safety breaches on these work sites created a much greater issue.
“We support the right to free speech and lawful protest, but these continued and unchecked workplace invasions organised and executed by the BBF are creating risk of serious injury or death,” she said.
“They continue to make a mockery of safety laws and WorkSafe refuses to take any meaningful action.
“WorkSafe is well aware of these issues because their own field officers have witnessed it first-hand, yet they refuse to do their job and protect timber workers lawfully going about their business.”
To promote its activity and encourage donations, the BBF posted photos of the protest action on its Facebook page.
“The photos in the Facebook post of this action alone show that the flagrant safety breaches would total millions of dollars’ worth of fines if they were prosecuted as they should be under the Act,” Ms Wilton said.
Ms Wilton said contractors at the sites were reluctant to pursue the issues with WorkSafe because of direct threats to their businesses by BBF’s eco terrorists.
“I’ve had forest workers call me terrified their personal property and equipment would be destroyed after receiving direct threats from these criminals who have been groomed by the Bob Brown Foundation,” she said.
“The BBF’s own CEO said in a Court affidavit that they train their activist criminals using A Field Guide to Monkey Wrenching which includes instructions on how to conduct deadly eco-terrorism techniques such as tree spiking.
“They are not interested in saving the Swift Parrot or any other species for that matter because they know sustainable timber harvesting, which is carried out small, carefully-monitored sites under the strictest oversight in the world, is not a threat to them.
“They are only interested in creating outrage to raise their profile and hoodwinking people into donating to them so they can continue to pay their executive managers who engineer more ways to flout the law.
“This level corporate activism is organised crime and timber industry workers are tired of WorkSafe’s failures to do its job of bringing them to justice.”
