GBE hearings: Sustainable Timber Tasmania has been scrutinised by a parliamentary committee

More plantation logs are being released to Tasmanian sawmillers. Meanwhile, the title “Forestry Tasmania” has caused offence. What happened in estimates.

Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff speaks to the media on Parliament Lawns in Hobart on Wednesday, November 22, 2023.

The chair of Tasmania’s state-owned forestry company has accused the Greens of “bullying and harassment” for using the title “Forestry Tasmania” during a government business enterprise hearing.

Forestry Tasmania was renamed Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) in 2017 under a state government restructure.

During Thursday’s GBE session focused on STT, the Greens pursued the entity over its environmental record.

Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff raised the case of a Tasmanian devil apparently burnt in a regeneration burn.

She also brought up a widely publicised picture of a giant tree log being carted through Maydena earlier this year.

“It was shocking for people around the world,” she said.

Photos from the Florentine Valley in Tasmania showing a giant native Eucalyptus on the back of a truck. Picture: Bob Brown Foundation

However it was her use of the title “Forestry Tasmania” that bothered STT chair Rob de Fegley.

“We prefer to be called sustainable Timber Tasmania,” he said.

When Dr Woodruff continued to call the entity Forestry Tasmania, Mr de Fegley accused her of “bullying and harassment” and urged her to withdraw her comments.

“I think you are showing massive disrespect to our staff,” he said.

Dr Woodruff said she did not want to withdraw the term Forestry Tasmania.

“I won’t be doing that, because Forestry Tasmania is a legal entity. Sustainable Timber Tasmania is the trading entity … I'm not going to participate in what has become an exercise in greenwashing,” she said.

Committee chair Simon Wood warned Dr Woodruff if she continued using the term Forestry Tasmania she risked being ejected from the hearing.

“The entity needs to be referred to as they wish,” he said.

“If you can’t do that just stop referring to them in the other way.”

Also during the hearing the state government announced a significant supply of hardwood plantation logs would soon be released to local sawmillers.

Minister Felix Ellis. Final sitting week of parliament for 2023. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Resources Minister Felix Ellis said the supply had been decades in the making, and would amount to 350,000 cubic metres released annually.

Mr Ellis said STT would prioritise Tasmanian processors when allocating the logs.

“This will mean increased opportunity for regional investment and regional jobs in forestry across the state,” Mr Ellis said.

“STT have worked diligently to ensure that the allocation process for plantation logs provides a level playing field and complies with relevant Federal laws relating to competition.”

STT CEO Steve Whiteley said the log supply was part of a long-term transition away from old growth forest.

“This is a structural change from mature and old growth forest, which was the main supply in the nineties, to predominantly regrowth and plantation which is a now what we would expect the future resource to be structured around,” he said.