Treasurer
Minister for Local Government
Minister for State Growth
Liberal Member for Bass

Forestry funds safe under Abbott
 

I welcome confirmation that Tasmanian communities devastated by the Labor-Green forestry deal will continue to receive compensation funding should the Coalition be elected next Saturday.

This includes not just the $100m so called “economic diversification” funds, but also funds for sawmillers and forest contractors.

In fact, if the Legislative Council had voted down the forest deal yesterday, these funds would still have flowed to workers under the Coalition.

Regional communities, sawmillers and forest contractors have been the pawns in Labor’s disastrous forest deal process and it is shameful that Labor tied support for these funds to forest lock-ups.

Should the Coalition be elected next Saturday, we will work with them to begin rebuilding our forest industry again from the Labor-Green shutdown.