Industry dismay over job losses

The Australian Forest Products Association has joined the chorus of anger and dismay felt by Tasmania’s community and industry leaders following the news of recent job losses in the forest industry. These lost jobs are a direct result of market sabotage by green groups with a distinct lack of goodwill toward the Forest Agreement process.
It appears that this particular destruction of Australian jobs has resulted from an implicit alliance between the Greens, green protest groups, and environmental signatories to the Tasmanian Statement of Principles who have not shown the goodwill necessary for these agreements.
Chief Executive of AFPA, Dr David Pollard said, ‘We are deeply disappointed in the behaviour of environmental groups such as ‘Markets for Change’ which are supposed to be working co-operatively with industry to deliver peace to the long running issue over Tasmania’s forests.’
‘Environmental groups continue to support the destruction of markets and jobs, despite agreeing to the guarantee of ongoing supply to existing mills.
‘They have ignored repeated calls from industry over recent months which sought to avoid the very circumstances we now face and which now threaten the imminent collapse of the agreement‘, said Dr Pollard.
The cut-backs in these mills should send serious warning signals to both State and Federal Governments. Twelve Tasmanian Legislative Councillors have shown leadership in promising to block further forest reservation until there is an immediate and permanent cessation of market sabotage activities.
AFPA calls on both state and federal governments to follow the lead of these Tasmanian Legislative Councillors, and use Government influence to bring sanity back into the process. The Tasmanian Government must intervene to avoid further job losses and demonstrate leadership in the interests of the Tasmanian economy.