Resources Minister Guy Barnett says Tasmanian sawmillers and forestry workers are seeking employment interstate because they are unable to access enough timber here.
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Ahead of debate in the upper house around the government’s polarising forest bill, Mr Barnett said he had been advised that several sawmillers had contacted MLCs to “make it clear that Tasmanian jobs are on the line if the legislation isn’t passed”.
The Forestry (Unlocking Production Forests) Bill proposes to open up roughly 356,000 hectares of Tasmanian forest, previously protected under the former Labor-Green government’s 2013 moratorium on old-growth logging.
The bill passed the lower house in March.
There has been significant industry opposition to the legislation, with the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania speaking out against it and Bunnings announcing it would not buy timber from the production forest.
But Mr Barnett said the “little guys” were being left out of the debate - the smaller sawmillers and the specialty timber sector.
“It is absolutely critical that the timber is made available to the small guys, not just the big guys,” he said.
“This is not pristine wilderness, as some would have you believe.
“These are production forests.”
Mr Barnett noted the government had been elected with a mandate to tear up the Tasmanian Forest Agreement signed under the previous government.
If they did not want it, the “big companies” would not have to take timber from the forests the government was proposing to unlock, the Minister said.
Tasmanian Special Timbers Alliance spokesman Andrew Denman said smaller millers and the specialty timbers sector were “still struggling and … recovering” from the TFA.
Furthermore, Lorna van Tilburg of Eyewood Timbers said unlocking Tasmanian forest would allow her business to accept new contracts from the mainland, allowing her to put on more staff.
FIAT chief executive Terry Edwards, meanwhile, said there was sufficient timber available to private enterprise in Tasmania.
He restated his opposition to the bill.
“At this stage, nothing’s changed,” Mr Edwards said.
He said the government was “playing the man, not the ball [by] … setting up Forestry Tasmania to compete with the private sector”.
