The West Australia Minister for Forestry Jackie Jarvis has admitted she was “confused” in providing an error-ridden performance trying to explain the government’s forestry budget.
Faced with an Opposition looking to understand why the state is now heavily subsidising its loss-making forestry business, the minister’s responses only added to the thick fog surrounding the Cook government’s forestry mess.
•Confusion 1: Will the government produce forestry statistics?
Since 1918, the forestry agencies have produced annual statistics covering the timber industry, forest resources and timber production. Previously published in the Annual Report, they are now a separate online document. Under Minister Jarvis these statistics have been released nearly a year later than previously, and last year’s statistics are yet to be posted.
Statistics provide a valuable snapshot of the forest resources, the wood available and quantities produced by species and quality. Of course, it is also a measure of accountability for the government. It’s easy to find statistics for fisheries, agriculture and mining. So why is it so hard for forestry? As an FPC commissioner for five years you’d think the minister would find some idea, a clue.
When asked, the minister first claimed they weren’t being produced, then they were, then then there wasn’t enough resources to produce them. Really? With the FPC being flooded with government money it’s incomprehensible that they can’t produce a simple report requiring a data download from existing files.
Failure to provide this data makes you wonder whether there’s something to hide.
• Confusion 2: How many trees does $350,000,000 buy?
It was originally planned to expand the pine plantations by around 35,000 hectares. However, the red-hot market for agricultural land has diminished the purchasing power of this investment. When asked, the minister first stated that 80% of the investment was being spent on land and the balance on trees. She then corrected herself claiming that 98.5% of the money would be used to purchase land. This is crazy stuff and so obviously incorrect that it’s a wonder the minister’s forestry minders didn’t protect her from this gaffe.
If only 1.5% of $350 million is to be spend on trees (i.e. $5.25 million), this will plant no more than 3000 hectares, meaning the land would cost $115,000 per hectare or $100 per tree. One certainly hopes not.
It’s time the minister found some forestry advisers who can do their sums.
• Confusion 3: Ecological thinning in national parks.
The policy of thinning the forests to improve its resilience to climate change is the cornerstone of closing the forest industry. If you believe the rhetoric, then not only are the state’s forests at risk, but all forests are at risk. When asked whether ecological thinning could occur in national parks, Jackie Jarvis categorically denied it. Yet in the newly published Forest Management Plan, thinning on all lands is clearly allowed, parks included. The minister needs to catch up with the government’s commitments on forests. After all, she is the Minister for Forestry.
• Confusion 4: What happens to the wood from ecological thinning?
No-one seems to want to take responsibility for the wood from the subsidised thinning operations. More than $40 million is being spent each year and massive stockpiles are being built. The FPC’s financial statements don’t include the stockpiles as an asset and wood sales aren’t included in its revenues. It claims the money is passed on to Treasury. Accounting standards would suggest that the FPC controls this process and needs to account for public money.
The minister also stated that the wood from ecological thinning would be sold through competitive processes. However, there don’t seem to have been any sales for such wood on the government tenders’ website, yet there has been a stream of karri logs coming north out of the southern forests. I think the minister needs to check whether or not these were sold by private arrangements and not by competitive processes, as she claimed.
• Confusion 5: Firewood sales.
After previously running the state out of firewood the government is decidedly nervous about ongoing supplies. When asked whether firewood supplies would be adequate this winter the minister deferred to her adviser. He claimed firewood would be OK as wood is now (mid-winter) being delivered to contractors. This obfuscated the point that firewood needs to be cut and dried for at least six months over the summer. There’s no point delivering firewood today – it’s illegal to retail green firewood.
The budget papers have revealed one thing: the Jarvis forestry administration is bumbling its way to becoming more secretive, inwardly focused and detached from the industry.
The McGowan/Cook government has been the first in 50 years to have failed to create conditions for new investment in timber processing, presiding over a massive decline in the industry.
It’s time to clear away the minister’s confusion—the fog—and look to new leadership to rebuild a sustainable industry with the massive renewable resources currently wasting in forestry stockpiles.
