Financial strife for logging family after banks pulls support in environmental stand
‘A logged coupe looks ugly, but it grows back’: The Bennetts have logged their backyard for five generations, but a bank’s stance on native forest logging may topple their fortunes.
Tasmania
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Tammy Price’s family have been logging their backyard for five generations but the decision of a local bank is poised to break that legacy.
The farm at Ranelagh has been in the family since European settlement, and Tammy’s daughter Meeghan Price is now logging in coupes her great-grandfather used to tend.
“We are now harvesting forests that my forefathers harvested,” Mrs Price said.
“We are in natural regrowth forests, we don’t log old growth — we log regrowth forests.
“The fact is we do such a good job that they are now worthy of harvesting again.”
She said native forestry is one of the most “sustainable and regulated” industries in Tasmania, and yet the business can’t get finance from Bendigo Community Bank, the only bank that operates full time in town.
In 2022 Mrs Price started trying to get refinancing from Bendigo Bank for some of the company’s plantation equipment. After a back and forth between the local branch and higher ups, the loan was denied.
“Because our income comes from native forestry they said no, we can’t help you,” Mrs Price said.
She invited Bendigo Bank to come to Tasmania and witness the sustainable industry and learn about the rules and regulations loggers have to abide by.
A Bendigo Bank spokesman said Bendigo and Adelaide Bank does not comment on specific customer matters but assesses each application according to its policies, risk appetite and credit decision process.
“From time to time, the Bank has determined not to proceed with lending applications on the grounds that they fall outside our business writing strategy and balance sheet risk appetite.
“We know not all our stakeholders will be supportive of all our decisions,” he said, adding that decisions are made on balance and in the best interest of the bank and its broader stakeholder group of “customers, investors, or people and the community”.
Resources minister Eric Abetz said he was proud to stand by the logging industry and said the bank’s withdrawal of support was “disappointing and misguided”.
Mrs Price switched the business banking to Bendigo when ANZ shut down its branches in the valley after banking with them for 55 years with no defaults.
Mrs Price still personally banks with Bendigo and said it is doing great things for regional communities, but she can’t understand the environmental policy.
“Bendigo has now lumped us in with coal and gas, how can a renewable industry be lumped in with fossil fuels,” Mrs Price said, adding that plantation forestry is more draining on the land because it is a high yield crop on less land.
“I’m the first to admit a logged coupe looks ugly, but it grows back.”
The business takes its environmental obligations seriously, and Tammy’s brother and director of TP Bennett and Sons, Neil Bennett, is a forest practices officer.
His notifications of rare plants or swift parrots has almost sent the family “broke” as operations are paused while the area is investigated.
“But would we do it again? Of course we would,” she said.
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Originally published as Financial strife for logging family after banks pulls support in environmental stand
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