Hundreds of logging jobs are disappearing and sawmills are closing as a result of flaws in the Federal Government's regional forest agreements with the states, the national forestry union claimed yesterday. The union, giving evidence to a Senate inquiry, said the forest agreements process had failed to protect jobs or create a sustainable industry.
The regional forest agreements have been promoted by governments as the best compromise in the intractable forests dispute. Under the agreements, areas of high conservation value are reserved while the industry is guaranteed timber supplies for 20 years.
The agreements include limits on logging for high-grade timber, with all left- over logs in clearfelled areas deemed residual and available for chipping. More than half the timber from native forests is classed residual, and there are no limits on woodchip volumes since federal export controls were lifted as part of the agreements process.
A Senate committee is looking into impending federal legislation to give the forest agreements legal force. As it took evidence yesterday in Melbourne, conservationists and loggers clashed on the steps of Parliament House. The timber workers accused greens of denying them income by continuing to blockade forests, while the conservationists highlighted revelations that the Victorian Government is selling timber from native forests for as little as nine cents a tonne, effectively pricing plantations and recycling out of the paper and pulp market.
The National Association of Forest Industries told the Senate committee that the agreements must have legal force if the industry is to invest in substantial value-adding and jobs. But the assistant national secretary of the CFMEU forestry division, Mr Michael O'Connor, said the union would not support the legislation unless it was amended to include a national watchdog over industry conduct and provisions that would lead to greater job security.
The union's Tasmanian secretary, Mr Michael Grey, said "cartels" were forcing sawmills to chip high-quality timber by refusing to take low-grade logs. Contractors were cowed into silence because the companies had the power in an oversupplied market to put them out of business. In such a climate, there was no incentive for sawmills to invest in the equipment and upgrading necessary for a sustainable, labor-intensive industry based on valueadding, Mr Grey told the hearing.
One international woodchip giant, the Japanese company Harris Daishowa,
which is based at Eden, New South Wales, rejected the union claims. The
general manager, Mr John Sparks, told The Age the company only took waste
from contracted sawmills plus residual,logs from contractors as required.
He said the logs were graded in the forest, overseen by government agencies.
Another company, North Ltd, did not respond.