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Forestry Tasmania has expressed concern about an ongoing Green campaign to misrepresent Forestry Tasmania's financial performance last year.
General Manager Corporate Relations and Tourism Ken Jeffreys said Forestry Tasmania's operating loss last year was $8.5 million before interest and tax - a modest loss given the magnitude of the challenges that have confronted the Tasmanian industry over the past two years.
Mr Jeffreys said Forestry Tasmania was disappointed the Wilderness Society and now Green MP Kim Booth would seek to misrepresent Forest Tasmania's financial performance, without accepting the blame for wiping $100 million off FT's asset base.
"It is a bit rich for Mr Booth and his fellow travellers to blame FT for the fact that more areas of production forests will be reserved as part of the Intergovernmental Forest Agreement process reducing the value of FT's assets by $101 million or 30 percent.
"That $100m could be returned to the balance sheet tomorrow if the Greens gave up their campaign and the proposed areas of reserve were returned to production.
"Under accounting rules, the forests (biological asset) become a liability when they are taken out of productive forests and placed in reserves where there's no opportunity to earn an income from them. The $101 million is a book entry - there's no cash involved and therefore it is quite wrong to suggest, as Mr Booth has, that FT has lost that money."
Mr Jeffreys said it was also a furphy to suggest the government had provided in "indecent haste" a transport subsidy to move pulpwood from the south to the north of the state.
"It's now been eight months since Triabunna was closed, and FT has kept the Minister informed throughout that period about the impact the closure was having on the industry. The Minister was aware of the steadily worsening position, and it would have come as no surprise when FT warned of the industry's dire position in October and the need for transport assistance.
"I would add that this assistance would not have been required if Triabunna had remained open. Mr Booth would have known of these consequences for the industry when he opposed efforts by Aprin to take over and re-open the mill."
ENDS
19 December 2011
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