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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-16 Daily Xml
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FORESTRYSA

Mr PEGLER (Mount Gambier) (15:38): Earlier today I tabled a petition organised by the CFMEU. This petition calls on the government to stop the forestry forward sale of pine logs. The petition also calls on the government, through ForestrySA, to negotiate a fairer log price for Carter Holt Harvey. I fully support the fact that the forward sale should never have gone ahead, and I am sure that generations to come will rue the day that our government made this decision for a short-term gain.

Our present generation does not have the right to sell the assets that previous generations have built up so that future generations could benefit from the profits of these assets. We are basically selling the farm to spend on everyday expenditure. Regarding the call for a fairer log price for Carter Holt Harvey, I do support the fact that the log price in the short term should be more reflective of what the mill owners can get for their finished products.

The importation of framing timber into Australia has increased from a very minimal amount to now being about 24 per cent of the market share. Much of this imported timber is coming in from European mills which receive very large subsidies for producing cogeneration power and carbon credits. The timber that these mills produce is now often regarded as a by-product, and it is hard to sell in Europe due to the global financial crisis and the dramatic downturn in new houses being built. These imports must be stopped.

I would also say that we cannot have a situation where the log price is reduced for one mill owner and not for all the other competing mills. When the people of the South-East protested against the forward sale, they were strongly supported by, and still are, myself, the opposition political parties, the unions, the general populous and the mill owners, with the exception of the owner of Carter Holt Harvey.

I have found it quite disappointing that at the eleventh hour the owner of Carter Holt Harvey has tried to blackmail the government to get a better log buy-in price for himself, and damn the rest. There is also no doubt that if the rumours are true, that he wishes to close the mill in Mount Gambier known as Lakeside and downscale his workforce by 15 per cent, he will lay the blame on the government for not giving in to him.

During the dispute between Carter Holt Harvey and the government, I found the call by the opposition leader for the government to change the legislation around ForestrySA quite ironic because it was a Liberal government that corporatised ForestrySA in the first place to get it ready for sale. I also found the statement by Mayor Steve Perryman quite naive, and I quote:

All ForestrySA needs to do is return a set of balanced books. It doesn't have to return a large profit, it simply has to create the framework for the manufacturing sector.

Whilst the 75,000-hectare pine estate in the Green Triangle owned by ForestrySA is quite significant, it must be remembered that there is a further 100,000 hectares grown by private growers. The forest industry is heavily reliant on private forest growers, and if these private growers have to compete with state-owned timber suppliers who do not have to make a profit they will soon go out of business and the whole industry will collapse.

For the forest industry to survive into the future, the tree growers, the harvesting and haulage contractors, the mill owners and those who work in the industry must get a fair share of the profits in the good times and losses in the bad times. I call on the government and the opposition parties to stop the political pointscoring and work in a collaborative manner with all who are involved in the forest industry—that is, the tree growers, the harvesting and haulage contractors, the mill owners and the workers through their unions—to come together to develop a pathway which will determine the long-term viability of the whole forest industry into the future for us all.

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