Deputy Premier Bryan Green defends the government's decision to split Forestry Tasmania. Pictures: BEN McKAY
The Greens remain confident extra taxpayer funds going to Forestry Tasmania have been necessary for non-commercial functions only, despite new figures revealing the bulk of the money has been used for salaries and unspecified overheads.
A breakdown of the $8.3 million given to Forestry Tasmania this financial year tabled in Parliament yesterday showed $3 million was spent on wages and $2.8 million on overheads.
Greens leader Nick McKim, who has repeatedly said ''not one dollar of the $35 million contingency fund should be used to prop up the ailing business'' said that did not mean the money was not spent on community service obligations such as reserve management.
''The Treasury briefing received by the Greens last year outlined the expenditure criteria. The payments detailed today (Tuesday) are for CSO functions only, including fire management, which the Greens are comfortable with,'' Mr McKim said.
Earlier, Greens MHA Kim Booth said any use of the funds for commercial purposes would be concerning.
''If that's the case then that's actually a very serious matter that further public money might be wasted on an organisation that we know has no future,'' Mr Booth said.
''However, the restructuring of Forestry Tasmania, which has now been announced will prevent that occurring in the future.''
On Monday, the state government announced Forestry Tasmania would be split in two and responsibility for reserves transferred to a new parks authority within the Environment Department.
The Greens will support the major restructure even though it will see Forestry Tasmania retain control of production forests which they have campaigned strongly against.
Mr Booth has been the harshest critic of the ``basket case rogue agency'', but he said yesterday the changes were better than nothing.
He said it would force Forestry Tasmania to be more transparent.
''It will actually expose Forestry Tasmania to a proper commercial accountability and so forth. Whereas when they were a broader organisation they were able to pretend a lot of the money that they were losing on forestry operations was being spent on parks maintenance and other non-core activity.''
