“The NSW Primary Industries Minister, Ian Macdonald can continue to leak forestry industry rhetoric and reports, but nothing changes the fact that 20,000 hectares of Ramsar listed wetlands have been logged in breach of federal environment laws and continue to be logged without environmental approval,” says Greens MP Ian Cohen.
“It is understandable that where Forests NSW continues to break the law with Ministerial approval, people will start taking actions to stop continuing breaches which lead to the destruction of internationally recognised wetlands.”
“I support these peaceful blockaders who are trying to bring Ian Macdonald to account for his continued encouragement of illegal logging in the River Red Gum.”
“When the Minister starts condemning these people blockading down in the River Red Gums, it would be appropriate for the Minister to consider the illegality of his own actions in supporting of the logging of the River Red Gums.”
“Minister Macdonald’s track record on the River Red Gums is an embarrassment to the Federal and State Labor Party. NSW has had a system of environmental planning laws in place for 30 years and the Minister appears to forget its most basic premise that actions such as logging require environmental assessment.”
“To refute this concept is to take us back to the 1950’s. Instead of trying to correct the errors of his ways, the Minister has sent the media on a merry go round of misinformation. When asked this in Parliament last month the Minister skirted around the fact that logging is occurring without relevant approvals.”
“Minister Macdonald has whipped himself into a frenzy with repeated leaks of misinformation to the media on alleged job losses.“
“A report by the BIS Shrapnel Forestry Group for Forests NSW estimated a total of 314-340 jobs in the Red Gum logging industry across both freehold and public land. Approximately half of the timber industry is based on private land, and half on public land (State Forests), therefore only 160 jobs in total are dependent on State Forest. These figures are significantly different to the 1000 the Minister has quoted.”
“I will be calling upon the Minister to release documents and reports on estimated job losses this week in Parliament so we can all see the true figures.”
More information: Catherine Coorey 0402 315 345 Ian Cohen: 0409 989 466
No comments:
Post a Comment