Exports of chips up; imports of pulp and paper up; jobs and trees tumble down, says Brown.

Jobs plan for North-West Coast announced

Labor-Party policies are responsible for destroying both jobs and the environment in north-west Tasmania, according to Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown. However, Burnie and the north-west coast can bounce back if a Green four-point plan for jobs growth is adopted.

Senator Brown was speaking at a colourful Greens / Wilderness Society protest outside the Labor Party"s state conference in Burnie today. The rally featured a portable woodchipper into which were fed pieces of wood with "jobs" writing on them.

"Unlimited woodchip exports and de-regulated pulp-and-paper imports are responsible for the closure of the Burnie pulpmill," Senator Brown said.

"As exports of woodchips and imports of pulp go up, Tasmanian jobs and forests come tumbling down. Labor has put Tasmania in a lose-lose situation."

He said it was previous Labor Governments that put in place the policies responsible for the pulpmill closure and the Regional Forest Agreement.

"It was the Keating Labor Government that initiated the Regional Forest Agreement process and unlimited woodchipping. It was the Hawke Government that began the process of dismantling tariffs on imported pulp and paper.

"As well, the last State Labor Government failed to put any conditions such as downstream processing on its hand-over of the forests to out-of-state woodchip corporations", said Senator Brown.

He said that the Greens would address the employment situation on the North-West Coast with the following four-point plan:

Provide Government assistance to companies wishing to establish a state-of-art closed-loop pulpmill or particleboard mill to process the massive quantities of logs and chips currently exported from Tasmanian plantations; Resurrect the Massey-Greene sawmill which was closed in 1992 so that North could concentrate on exporting logs and chips; Allocate $1 million to developing Burnie"s potential as a world-class exporter of fine-quality foods, furniture and crafts; Establish a Tarkine World Heritage Area, with interpretation centre in Burnie, as the centrepiece of a job-creating tourist strategy. (On Thursday, the ANZ"s Saul Eslake backed tourism as the future for Burnie.) More information

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