‘Bloody dangerous’ sawmill sabotage ‘could have cost lives’

Tasmania’s timber industry is accusing its opponents of threatening lives, after metal spikes or bolts were found in logs.

Wayne Booth of Karanja Timbers in southern Tasmania. Picture: Peter Mathew

Tasmania’s timber industry is accusing opponents of threatening workers’ lives, after metal spikes or bolts were found embedded in logs sourced from controversial harvesting operations.

The spiked logs were supplied to several southern Tasmanian sawmills on Tuesday, destroying saws worth up to $15,000 and, according to the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, threatening lives.

A metal spike found in logs in Tasmania. Picture: Facebook

“The more important matter here is the clear and present danger this poses to workers in the sawmills,” said association chief executive Terry Edwards. “It’s bloody dangerous.

“A circular saw of that type and size would be travelling at something like about 5000 feet per second. When it hits metal, any metal, (the fragment created) is going to be flying at considerable speed. It would go straight through a human.”

He was not accusing the Bob Brown Foundation of responsibility, but said the logs were harvested near Mt Field “fairly close by” an area where the group had protested during February and March.

“To us, it’s quite clear that it’s someone who wishes to do some damage to the forest industry in some way,” Mr Edwards said.

The Bob Brown Foundation strongly denied any of its activists were responsible for the tree spiking, saying it was a non-violent organisation.

Campaign manager Jenny Weber suggested the culprit could be someone setting out to discredit conservationists; a notion rejected by Mr Edwards.

Mr Edwards said it was fortunate no one was injured at either of the sawmills — Karanja Timbers in the Derwent Valley and McKay Timber in Bridgewater.

Tasmania Police said it was investigating.

Sawmiller Wayne Booth, of Karanja Timbers, said his son Chris could have been killed, had a sabotaged log passed through an unmanned initial saw to a secondary saw, where Chris was working.

Fortunately, the spiked log stopped at the first saw, damaging it at a potential cost of $3,500, but saving his son’s life.

“It really makes me sick to the guts, sick to the core – my son was the one working on the next machine and if it hit that, god knows what would have happened,” he said.

The family business had since deployed metal detectors, finding a total of six bolts or spikes in four different logs, forcing it to send the entire 50 tonne log consignment back to supplier Sustainable Timber Tasmania.

He blamed “radical” conservationists and said he hoped the police probe would identify the culprit.