Saturday 10 March 2007

And in other news....

Some quite lonely pine logs on the Burnie Wharf - 8 March 2007
This information from FEA doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence that logs won't get exported whole. Surely we could have expected the contractual arrangements to include a requirement to employ Tasmanians in downstream processing. Otherwise of course, we get an extra few million for the resource, and then spend even more propping up the industries left without any work to do. All the time using up more resource for the same economic end result.

Now small sawmillers are upset about Auspine getting cheap timber, paid for by taxpayers. "It is understood the assistance means that Auspine will pay about $12 a tonne for the resource." (Examiner 9 March 2007) While other sawmillers pay a lot more. "One sawmiller said that he paid up to $30 a tonne royalty for good quality pine sawlogs. Harvesting and transport costs are extra, he said." (Examiner 9 March 2007) I think there was more in Friday's Examiner, or Advo-CATE, but I can't find it. Silly Examiner charge people to read online!! If we keep propping up one interest group at the expense of the next, eventually we'll be importing eucalypt logs from Chile, or somewhere, so we can pile them up on clearfells, napalm them, and carry out regeneration burns! My final questions is: If there's so much demand for our pine resource, how come we have to subsidise people to use it? e-weird!!
And this is an interesting article, with an interesting addendum, which explains the later story a little better. Now, it will be interesting to see if our pine sawlogs are sawn up here, or exported for some random use overseas.

No comments: