Ms BADGER question to PREMIER, Mr ROCKLIFF
The Treasurer’s budget speech confirm that you will hold a fire sale of government businesses and public Crown land to service your warped investment priorities such as the new billion-dollar stadium. It appears that Forestry Tasmania is on the chopping block – a heavily subsidised government business, the equivalent of which in other states has been closed. No sensitive private entity would buy or lease Forestry Tasmania without a huge financial incentive, such as taking custodianship of the public forest estate. Forestry Tasmania holds over 800,000 hectares of land on behalf of Tasmanians. This is country of significant Aboriginal value, biodiverse and carbon-rich native forests, and a plantation estate.
In a climate and biodiversity crisis, we should be transitioning Forestry Tasmania, not flogging it off. Will you now rule out selling or leasing Tasmania’s public forests – our environmental and cultural assets – to service your economic debt?
ANSWER
Honourable Speaker, I thank you for the question, member. It is refreshing to hear the Greens support Sustainable Timber Tasmania and extol the virtues thereof. My understanding is that in 2011, Labor and the Greens sold a 50 per cent stake in softwood plantations to new forests for $156 million, with the state maintaining ownership of the land.
Members interjecting.
Dr Broad – It is not as if you did not sell the plantations. Did you sell plantations as well? Did you do that? Hardwood plantations?
The SPEAKER – Thank you, Dr Broad.
Mr ROCKLIFF – I will say to the member that when it comes to this particular matter, I believe we have another conspiracy theory from the Greens when it comes to our sustainable and renewable native forestry sector.
Ms Badger – So you are going to rule it out, then?
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER – Ms Badger does not need to interject just because Dr Woodruff is away.
Mr ROCKLIFF – Our productive native forests are for the benefit of the people of Tasmania – to provide wood and wood fibre for a range of products we use in our everyday lives, including timber for homes and furnishings, wood fibre for paper and cardboard – and to support the phasing out of single-use plastics, and our iconic special species timbers that are celebrated the world over.
Thousands of Tasmanians do rely on our productive native forests for their jobs and their livelihoods. Active forest management increases carbon storage, reduces fire risk, provides employment, and keeps our forests healthy.
To the member’s question: we are going through a careful and methodical process with all our GBEs to ensure they remain fit for purpose and are set up for success. Our forests are not for sale, and to assert otherwise is simply fact-free fearmongering, which is a specialty of the Greens.
Ms Badger – So you are ruling it out?
Mr Bayley – Are you ruling it out?
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER – Members of the Greens will cease their interjecting.
