Reproduced by
Discover-Tasmania.com
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ABC NEWS ONLINE
Reproduced from ABC NEWS ONLINE - Thu, 9 Oct 2003 7:01 AEST

Forestry Tasmania criticised at Senate committee

A former Tasmanian forestry employee has given evidence to a Senate Committee in Canberra criticising the state's logging industry.

Bill Manning, a former auditor with the Forest Practices Board, said his old employer is "hopelessly compromised" by an industry riddled with cronyism and corruption.

A forester of 32 years' experience, Mr Manning's explosive evidence to the Senate hearing painted Tasmania's forestry industry as largely unsupervised and unregulated, negligent and subject to corruption.

He told Senators standards were dropping and that the regulatory framework is in "freefall".

He said sources within Forestry Tasmania had told him bonuses were paid in exchange for forest practices plans favourable to loggers.

"Senior staff involved in management of the plantation industry have been paying bonuses relative to maximum areas logged and thus woodchip-generated," he said.

The forestry industry culture he said was one of "bullying, cronyism, secrecy and lies".

He also alleged the chief forest practices officer instructed subordinates not to make him aware of breaches in more than 80 forest practices plans until time had elapsed for their prosecution.

Mr Manning was originally scheduled to appear before the Senate inquiry when it sat in Launceston two months ago.

The hearing was abandoned after protestors staged a sit-in.
AND
"When an exasperated Mr Manning finally tried to prosecute FORESTRY TASMANIA, his charge books were taken from him. He was shifted elsewhere in the public service"...... THE MELBOURNE AGE
The nightmare began when he alleged Forestry Tasmania had breached the Threatened Species Protection Act, the Forest Practices Act and the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act............"Within two weeks, the chief forest practices officer had demanded my notice books withdrawn. My authority to lay complaints under the Forest Practices Act was withdrawn as well." Mr Manning said the person stripping him of his power was FPB [Forest Practices Board] chairman, Ken Fulton. Mr Fulton is an executive director of Forestry Tasmania...... THE SUNDAY TASMANIAN
Senate committee hearings TRANSCRIPT OF ABOVE MATTERS PDF - 450k