Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 743 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

ACT Forests is a medium sized plantation business. It should be profitable, as are most comparable businesses of this size in Australia. It should not continue to be calling on taxpayers to support its commercial operations. By comparison, Forestry South Australia, which has been recently corporatised by the South Australian government, made a profit of $32.5 million in 1999-2000. Forestry South Australia has five times the area of plantations that our forests have, but if you extrapolate on that basis our forests should be able to make a profit of around $5 million.

Well, why aren't our forests profitable? There are several reasons. One is the fact that our overheads are 100 per cent greater than in comparable forest businesses. Another is that underplanting of trees back in the 1960s and the overcutting of trees in the 1980s is now causing additional costs in operations. Finally, the commercial operations have been subsidising community and recreational use of the forest. All three factors are being directly attacked by the government's restructuring strategy.

The government decided that in order to put the business onto a sustainable footing it was necessary to reduce and restructure its work force. It was also necessary for it to be in a position to diversify its sources of revenue by providing commercial forestry services through things like joint ventures with other forestry companies and investors. Most significantly, the government has decided that the community and recreational use of the forest should be fully and transparently funded through community services obligations.

Ultimately this restructuring will have a very significant benefit to the community. It will enable other jobs in forests and related industries to be created downstream. Investment by the private sector will not occur unless our forests, the anchor supplier of logs, are efficient and sustainable. The restructure will mean that ACT Forests will have the capacity to improve its environmental performance both on the commercial side and public use operations. This will be achieved through a complete restructuring of the organisation and through the appointment of technically qualified staff, either through new recruitment or through re-training, to supervise the forestry operations.

Finally, the increased funding for community use of the forests will be widely supported by the wide range of ACT residents who use our forests for recreation. Each year there are over a million visits to our plantations, and the recreation facilities provided by ACT Forests need to be well managed.

Part of the additional funding provided to ACT Forests for community service obligations will be used to ensure that it continues to maintain its capacity to contribute to fire suppression operations throughout the ACT. This will be achieved by employing casual firefighters each summer to work with the experienced ACT Forests staff. All of these firefighters will have to meet strict fitness and training requirements.

In devising this strategy the government and the management of ACT Forests have been acutely aware of the impact on staff. Many have worked at ACT Forests for many decades. The government realises the difficulty that some of the staff may face in a wider employment market. It is not easy to get a new job when you are 59 and you have been working there for 30 years. That is why the voluntary departure packages have been

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .