Monday, September 13, 2010

Grab a drink, a ciggy, sit back and read one of the best sprays i have ever seen in Parliament. Liberal Lyons Logging relic Mark Shelton gets his pants pulled down by Greens Kim Booth. Pure Gold

Mr SHELTON (Lyons - Motion) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I move -

That the House:
(1) Notes the Final Negotiating Draft from the forestry talks which, if implemented, would lock up 600 000 hectares of Tasmanian forest and cost more than 3 500 Tasmanian forestry jobs.
(2) Opposes the Statement of Principles as outlined in that document.
(3) Expresses its support for the proposed Bell Bay pulp mill.

A strong and viable forest industry is crucial to the State. According to various estimates it supports somewhere between 6 000 and 10 000 direct and indirect jobs.

Mr Booth - The only job you've ever worried about is yours by using forestry as a political wedge.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order
Mr SHELTON - If I have ever heard a hypocritical statement, that is it. As some people may know, I have been a motor mechanic and a motor mechanic teacher at the TAFE college and I know how important the indirect jobs are from the forest industry. The forest industry supports not only the trades, but also numerous regional communities from Geeveston to Smithton, Branxholm to Triabunna, Lilydale to Mole Creek.
I live at Bracknell and the Bracknell-Liffey area has also been a strong supporter and provider of forest industry jobs. A number of people I know work in that industry. Whilst the Greens promote their side of the argument - and that is okay; we live in a democracy - I represent the people of Lyons in this House.
Ms O'Connor - If you were genuinely concerned for their welfare you would support reform of this industry instead of sticking your head in the sand.
Mr SHELTON - The industry is very important to the whole State and supports somewhere between 6 000 and 10 000 jobs.
Mr Booth - Oh, rubbish.
Mr SHELTON - A strong and viable forest industry is absolutely crucial to the State. If we look at the history of the forest industry, and go back a couple of hundred years when there was no machinery, our forebears cleaned out the best of the forests, took what they needed but left the rest. In the mid-1900s we saw the first holistic operation happening within the forests where they had their milling industry. The Burnie pulp mill started up and used some of the so-called reject timber to go through a pulp mill.
There is only one side of politics that has consistently supported the forest industry and forest industry jobs in Tasmania and that is the Liberal Party. The Greens have made a career out of attacking the forest industry and destroying Tasmanian forest industry jobs. We all remember Mr McKim's predecessor, as Leader of the Tasmanian Greens, Ms Putt, personally travelled to Japan to poison the Tasmanian markets, thereby in large part causing many of the problems facing the Tasmanian forest industry today. Mr Green is not here but I am sure if he were he would agree with those sentiments.
Members interjecting.
Mr SHELTON - As for the ALP, while they pretend to be the forest industry's friend, history shows that they are not. In 1989 they sold out forest industries to the Greens in order to form the Labor-Green accord. They sold it out again in 2004 when Mark Latham wanted to close down the industry for Greens' preferences. Here we are again in 2010, groundhog day, with Labor standing idly by while big business and big conservation team up again to close down our forest industry. As in 1989 and 2004, Labor is beholden to the Greens, so they will not speak out against the deal. Mr Bartlett would not last week in Parliament and today Mr Green, the forests minister, refused to speak out against the deal.
Unlike Labor, we on this side will stand up for forest jobs. We will stand up for regional Tasmanian communities and that is why we oppose the statement of principles from the forest talks as proposed. The simple fact is that ending logging in all public native forests within three months, as proposed in the final negotiating draft by the forestry round table, means the end of Tasmania's veneer sawmilling and specialty timber industries.
Mr Booth - Rubbish.
Ms O'Connor - Mr Shelton, you are obliged to tell the truth in this place.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order.
Mr SHELTON - These industries source almost all their timber from public native forests. If those forests are closed, every veneer plant and sawmill in the State, other than those in pinewood softwoods, would close. The furniture and craft industries will also lose their main timber suppliers. This will be an economic disaster for Tasmania; some 3 000 jobs will go.
Mr Booth interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order.
Mr SHELTON - The responsibility for this disaster will rest solely on the Labor-Greens Government. Despite what environmental groups claim, the Tasmanian plantation estate is not suitable for anything other than pulpwood and would not be available for high-quality sawmilling for at least another 30 years. I have been through a lot of investigation and talked to a lot of people and the plantation estate is not suitable for high-quality sawmilling. Most of the nitens planted over the last 10 or a dozen years have not been pruned to a substantial degree and the quality of the timber is not good enough for sawmilling purposes. The blue gum estate, which I believe is only 6 per cent of the plantation estate, is suitable but will take 30 years to grow. In order for there to be a sustainable amount to take over from native forests it would take 30 years to develop that resource.
David Bartlett has abandoned thousands of Tasmanians whose jobs depend on timber from our public native forests. Instead of providing the leadership the forest industry needs in difficult times, the Labor-Greens Government has washed its hands of its responsibilities because David Bartlett is beholden to Mr McKim to continue in government. Labor has handed the future of Tasmanian forest industries to an unelected gang of big business, Gunns, big conservation, the Wilderness Society and the ACF, big associations from the mainland and big unions such as the CFMEU.
The first thing that should be taken into account, of course, is the Tasmanian interest. These big businesses want the best deal for themselves, not Tasmania. It is the Government's responsibility to look after Tasmanian interests and David Bartlett has wimped it. Labor failed to act when the conservationists and the Greens trashed our markets by threatening our Japanese customers with boycotts unless they bought their woodchips elsewhere. Liberals cannot believe the Government's stupidity and naivety. Tasmanian public forests belong to the Tasmanian people, yet the Government seems prepared to give them away. We have learned in the past that so-called compensation must last for a year or two years, but the jobs are lost forever.
As for the Greens suggesting that they may possibly support a pulp mill, in Tasmania in the future, give me a break. The Greens within this House have obviously stated that they will not support the pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. The lessons from trying to deal with the Greens on forestry are clear. They are never satisfied and they just keep moving the goal posts.
Mr McKim - Look where your policy settings have brought us to.
Mr SHELTON - We all know that the Greens will never accept the pulp mill in Tasmania, no matter what they say, and David Bartlett should face up to that fact. When was the last time that the Greens supported a downstream value-adding forestry proposal in Tasmania? They opposed the Wesley Vale mill, the Bell Bay mill and the Ta Ann rotary veneer mill. We Liberals are nailing our colours to the mast. We will stand up for Tasmania and Tasmanian jobs; we proudly support Tasmanian forestry jobs. We support the Bell Bay pulp mill and that is why we proudly oppose the statement of principles. The question is where is Labor, the so-called friend of the worker?
Mr BOOTH (Bass) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I have to say that is the most appalling contribution that I have ever heard in this place, bar none, and there have been some doozies over the years, I can tell you. What a dinosaur this man has become, and the party he represents is absolutely living in some dim distant past that no longer exists. I said the same about the forestry minister at one stage but I think he has slightly come out of that burrow and moved forward. However, you, my friend, have become entombed in bilious rhetoric that does nothing to progress the debate or create a sustainable industry. You have the bare-faced gall to come in here and talk about jobs when you know that the only job you have ever cared about in the forest industry is your own job as an elected representative. You have used this as a vile wedge against the interests of the workers you purport to represent, against the communities who elected you and who pay you good money to dip your snout into two troughs. You are dipping your snout into two troughs at the moment as the mayor of Meander Valley -
Mr ROCKLIFF - Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The member for Bass should be addressing any comments to the Chair not engaging in personal attacks on Mr Shelton, which I have to say are highly hypocritical in nature.
Mr McKIM - On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Mr Shelton has just made a lengthy contribution, personally attacking me, Mr Booth and the former Leader of the Greens, Ms Putt, so it is entirely reasonable for Mr Booth in a rational, sensible and accurate way to respond to those personal attacks from Mr Shelton. I urge you not to uphold the point of order.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - I do uphold the point of order; Mr Booth should address his comments through the Chair. Other members will have a chance to contribute to the debate.
Mr BOOTH - Mr Deputy Speaker, through the Chair I point out that this man represents a group of absolute dinosaurs who are living in some dim, distant past that no longer exists. Through the Chair I also point out that the only time this gentleman has ever been interested in a single job in the forest industry is to get his own job so he can get that proboscis back into the public purse as the mayor and now a representative.
Mr ROCKLIFF - On the point of order. The member for Bass is continuing to engage in personal attacks on the member for Lyons. It is not out of self-interest that this motion is brought forward. He is there to represent his electorate of Lyons, the most highly regional electorate in Tasmania. A lot of jobs are at stake here in his electorate in the forest industry. I once again point out the hypocrisy of the member for Bass.
Mr McKIM - On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Shelton has just made a lengthy contribution attacking numerous past and present Greens members in this House and you allowed that to occur. That is fair enough, and we did not take a point of order, but the simple fact is Mr Booth, who is the only person in this Parliament who comes from the forest industry, has hands-on experience, unlike Mr Shelton or Mr Rockliff. Mr Booth clearly has the most experience in the forest industry in this Parliament. He represents the Greens and it would be wrong, in my view, for the Chair to rule that he is not able to defend himself and his Greens colleagues after that vile and inaccurate contribution from Mr Shelton.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - I do not uphold the point of order, but would ask all members to calm down and Mr Booth to return to the debate.
Mr BOOTH - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and of course if that was not happening in this jurisdiction, the statements this member has made with regard to what he might describe as the contribution of the forest industry today is so false and a misrepresentation of the industry that they ought to be referred to some other jurisdiction to establish their veracity. It could well be that this matter could be referred to a committee to look at because the matters that you have raised here today are so utterly false and fallacious, I cannot believe that you have the gall to come into this Chamber and raise those matters in this debate. They are demonstrably false. It is rubbish. It is nonsense you are talking. It is almost impossible to get up and speak about it because of the fact that the majority of what you have said today in this Chamber is just complete and utter balderdash and it makes it very difficult to have an intelligent debate with somebody who is not prepared to engage with reality.
The facts of the matter are that there are nowhere near 10 000 workers in the timber industry as you asserted today and as your colleagues continue to falsely assert in this place. Those sorts of falsehoods hold back the community from coming to some sort of decent agreement in terms of providing a sustainable long-term future for the timber industry. What you are doing is absolutely living in the past. I have to congratulate at least the Labor Government on this issue, and Minister Bryan Green, with whom I have had some serious disagreements on many occasions in the past, particularly to do with his policy positions and some other matters that we will not talk about, but at least he has now moved into the twenty-first century. His party has moved into the twenty-first century. I think you are back in about the eighteenth century because you are talking about 200 years ago when the sawmilling industry was sustainable in Tasmania. With the sorts of activities that are occurring in Tasmania, to try to justify that as if it should be a continuum forever into the future is just laughable.
Two hundred years ago there was sparse settlement in Tasmania. People went out, predominantly men, with cross-cut saws and axes and spent all day cutting a tree down. They then split them up into shingles and shakes, posts and rails, and beams for houses and stuff. Yes, there were some sawmills that operated in those days. Do you know what most of them were? Pit sawmills. People with cross-cut saws, with someone standing underneath the sawdust. That is where the term 'the pits' came from, because people like you ended up operating underneath a pit saw because that was the only job they could get. If you were not in Parliament and pit saws were still going I am sure you would be working there. But maybe you would not, because I actually do not think you have a real interest in the forest industries. What you are interested in is perpetuating the division and continuing to prevent a constructive resolution to this. You want to lock all those contractors into a fate where they can hardly pay for their rigs and are working like slaves because the Liberal and Labor parties last year voted against the $20 million buy-out package that the Greens had put up in this Parliament. It was debated and defeated by the Liberal Party because of the same rubbish rhetoric you have gone on with today, and the Labor Party who, at that stage, was still living in an ancient, dim, distant, industrial past.
Opposition members interjecting.
Mr BOOTH - It is on the record that, first, your side of the Parliament does not understand the industry, second, you personally have no interest in it other than securing your own job into the future, and third, you have had nothing to say about it that is constructive. At the moment we have Timber Communities Australia, the CFMEU, the TFCA, NAFI and FIAT all engaged in talks, all wanting to get a resolution, except for the Liberal Party. Yet you have the bare-faced gall to come in here and try to purport that you represent any sector of the industry. Well, you do not represent them and it is about time that you got your fellow Liberal Party members to come into the present.
You also had the audacity to suggest that the Greens have never had a solution to the forest industries. We are the party in this House that in 2002 published a strategy which was put up for peer review and was never critically acclaimed by anybody in that regard. It has stood since 2002 uncontested that there is a better way forward. We then revised that and took it to the 2002 election. Then in 2006 we took a revised version to the election and in 2010 our Forest Transition Strategy was once again out there for peer review and criticism. Nobody in industry said that it would not work. In fact, it mirrors to some degree the even greater quantum leap that is now occurring in terms of industry restructure that is being discussed behind closed doors, out of the parliamentary regime, which people such as the Liberal Party and the Labor Party in the past have used as a political wedge. Those industry players who are actually involved in it are getting together and do you know what they are proposing? Something that is diametrically opposed to what your motion now serves today. So not only are you out of step with the Tasmanian Greens, you are also out of step with every other group that supports the industry. Absolutely every one of them, as well as every single NGO.
Mr Shelton - For a negotiating draft - that's what the motion is about.
Mr BOOTH - The final negotiating draft is a form of words that those groups can get together and discuss. You obviously will not be part of that because you have taken a position that you are simply going to maintain the political wedge. Do you know what people such as yourselves have done by constructing and using so cynically and selfishly the timber workers of this State as a political wedge? You have locked up huge tracts of Tasmania's landscape that ought to be there for ecological services. You have frustrated any private grower who has ever tried to grow timber in this State and make a decent return out of it, because you have simply ladled ladle after ladle of public subsidy and tax deduction into the mix so that there is no rational business model. It is completely unsustainable and the sort of thing you would expect out of the controlled economy in a communist country.
I have used the parallel before of the absurdity of the situation in the Soviet Union where steel was the same price everywhere in Russia. So it meant that it might cost $600 a tonne to transport it from Siberia to build something out of it but it did not matter because it was the one price right around the state. That moral hazard of market intervention that you so slavishly subscribe to is the antithesis of what the Liberal Party claim they stand for, so how can it be that today you are in here interfering in a market, wanting to waste more public money? Why is it that people are queuing up for hospital beds and stuff? Because people like yourselves have stopped the industry getting onto a proper footing and instead diverted scant government resources that should have gone into public hospitals and roads and so forth into propping up an unsustainable industry.
Mr ROCKLIFF - Point of order. The member for Bass really needs to address his comments through the Chair. He is pointing at and verballing the member for Lyons. We have raised this point of order a couple of times and he should be courteous to the House.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - I will remind the member to address his comments through the Chair.
Mr BOOTH - Once again this gentleman has demonstrated that he would rather have a whole lot of forest contractors go broke with harsh and oppressive contracts that he knows they cannot meet. He knows they cannot make any money but he wants that to continue so they all go broke and everybody queues up for a hospital bed because all the public money that should have gone into providing those sorts of services has been consumed setting up an unsustainable business model. I am sure that some members of the Liberal Party agree with me in that you cannot have the Crown interfering in the market. They do not do that with the milk industry, vegetable industry, the pig industry or any other industry. How ridiculous it would be for the Government -
Mr Green - We do own the resource, though.
Mr BOOTH - It does not matter, you are in charge of making the regulations. The Government ought not be in the business of interfering in the market. On a landscape scale there are massive areas -
Mr Green - Yes, but they're run under the GBEs, which they have a responsibility to act commercially.
Mr BOOTH - Well, that is the point. I wish they did have the responsibility to act commercially because they would have gone broke years ago. The reason that people like Gunns, Forest Enterprises, Timber Corp, Enviroinvest, and Great Southern have all gone broke is market interference by the Government. The Government pushed them into an unsustainable business model that could never ever survive or generate any internal rate of returns, let alone a return to the Crown. Instead of a rational business model developing, where 30 or 40 years ago people might have put in plantations to grow timber to get a dollar out of it at the end of the day, we are now faced with this ridiculous spectacle of the Crown selling wood off for $5 a tonne for export woodchips or giving radiata pine away.
Turning my attention back to Mr Green for the moment, there is no greater example of an irrational business model than the export of 30 000 cubic metres of softwood and some hardwood logs, recently organised off the Port of Burnie with the methyl bromide issue which was very contentious. What you have done is given away wood to the Chinese sawmills to compete against Tasmanian sawmills. You gave them the wood but you charged the Tasmanian sawmillers so much that they cannot compete because of the cheap product flown in from overseas. What is the point? You should have supported our motion last year to fund an exit package for the deliberate overcapacity in the industry. It was identified by Paul Cook and Associates in 2005. They found that there were 30 per cent too many contractors in 2005 and they needed an $18.76 million buy-out package then to get the industry to a sustainable level. What has happened since? All you have heard from the Liberal Party and up until latterly from the Labor Government has been this auction for political donations from the big end of town who do very well out of this arrangement, but no support whatsoever for those contractors. I do not know how you can lie straight in bed or look these people in the eye and tell them you care about them when last year Mr Rockliff was one who led the charge in defeating a buy-out package that would have got those contractors out of the industry with dignity and with their homes intact. I think it is appalling that you continue to try to destabilise these talks in the way you do, talks that are between industry and environment groups. That has to be a good thing. It has to be a good thing that the community has come together to try to construct a way forward that will deliver a long-term, sustainable timber industry that not only supports the community but is also supported by the community. I put it to you that the Liberal Party's only reason for bringing this up today is to try to torpedo the talks to maintain that political wedge that has been so successful in delivering two jobs to Mr Shelton, who still draws down on the public purse as a mayor and a member of parliament. That is reprehensible to me, but, particularly when you look at the background, it is astounding that he has the bare-faced gall to come in here and pretend that he represents the timber industry, which he patently does not. If he does, it is like that much of an industry that big -
Mr Brooks - Come on.
Mr BOOTH - because every single other player in the industry, Mr Brooks, as you know, has said, 'We want to actually move this on to a market-driven model that produces a commodity that is competitive \\globally and is what the community wants.' We have to get the marketing right, we have to get the business model right, we have to get the sustainability issues done and hopefully we will have an industry where people come to us and want to buy the timber, just as they come to us because they want to buy our crayfish, abalone, or some of our vegetable products and so forth. If we really want to talk about jobs in rural communities the Liberal Party ought to be interested in a landscape-wide rural and regional rejuvenation program that delivers some opportunity for the growing of our rural industries, both at the producer level and at the processing level. Coupled with a branding program, robust biosecurity, protection of the industry to make sure that it is not damaged by some other untoward event, we can concentrate on making dollars out of it rather than volume, concentrate on jobs rather than logs, which the timber industry has concentrated on in the past, and create a community that has a future for your kids and grandkids. At the end of the day their children will be able to, not only have a job, but also have the hospital to go to if they need to.
Where you interfere in the market you end up with neither. You end up with no money for the public health system and housing and roads and all that stuff, because you have already wasted it on an unsustainable model. Your children will not have access to health and they will not have access to the jobs that you are talking about. I think it is way past time that we let the industry and the other conservation groups and community groups who are interested in creating a future in this industry to get together to talk about it, not try to wedge them out of it. The Greens' position is that we will always continue to support the corruptly approved Longreach pulp mill at Gunns.
Mr Green - You are going to support it?
Mr BOOTH - No, the corruptly -
Mr Green - No, you said, we will continue to support.
Mr BOOTH - To make the record clear, absolutely, that we will continue - sorry - to oppose the corruptly approved Bell Bay pulp mill; absolutely.
Mr Shelton - Even if these negotiations give it a tick?
Mr BOOTH - Absolutely continue to oppose the corruptly approved Bell Bay pulp mill.
Mr Shelton - Even if these negotiations say yes to it?
Mr BOOTH - You do not need to ask me that question. You heard what I said. You have heard what we have put on the record, just like you heard what we thought about supporting the contractors last year when your party voted it down. We absolutely will continue to oppose it and if anybody wants to use that as some brokering point for these negotiations, then they need to think again, because that is non-negotiable as far as the Greens are concerned.
In terms of the negotiating agreement, that document you are talking about, Mr Shelton, is silent on the corruptly approved Longreach pulp mill proposal of Gunns. It simply says that there are a form of words around supporting a hypothetical pulp mill.
It is interesting how the language goes. I do not know of anybody who absolutely opposes per se in totality any form of pulping process or a pulp mill of some sort. What the community absolutely stands against is corruption and if you had a single shred of a democratic bone in your body, you would have to say that the process of approval for that pulp mill, rewarding Gunns for their bad behaviour in not providing information, and recalling Parliament -
Mr GUTWEIN - Point of order. The member for Bass is not implying, in fact he was suggesting very strongly, that both Houses of Parliament are corrupt. He should be asked to withdraw that. Unless you are going to sit in the Chair and allow both Houses of Parliament to be called corrupt, you should ask the member to withdraw that.
Mr BOOTH - Mr Deputy Speaker, what Mr Gutwein just suggested is patently false. I made no such suggestion that anybody in this Chamber was corrupt. I said 'a corruptly approved pulp mill'. The community understands that every other Tasmanian has to go through an exact process when you apply for something. This process was corrupted because it did not go through the proper process and I stand by my words.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - I remind you, Mr Booth, that to reflect on a vote of either House is not appropriate and is contrary to Standing Orders. As long as you are not doing that, you are in order.
Mr BOOTH - Thank you for that very wise ruling.
Mr GUTWEIN - Point of Order, Mr Deputy Speaker. He should withdraw that. To claim that the process was corrupt, when both Houses of Parliament voted on it, directly implies that the vote of this House was conducted in a corrupt manner. That was not the case and he should withdraw it.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Mr Gutwein, I hear what you are saying but I do not believe what he said reflected on the votes of the two Houses. Mr Booth has heard what you said.
Mr Gutwein - If the process is corrupt, who was involved in the process?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - I do not draw the same conclusion.
Mr McKim - He didn't say anything about the vote. It could have been taken out of the RPDC.
Mr Gutwein - Who is responsible for the process?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - The vote of the House, not the process.
Mr BOOTH - Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought that in the Standing Orders you do not continue arguing against the Speaker once he has made his ruling.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - The point of order is concluded and you may proceed.
Mr BOOTH - That brings me to a point that we were not necessarily going to be talking about today in this debate. If you are feeling fragile about the fact that you thought I was saying that any member of this House behaved in a corrupt manner with regard to this, then obviously that is not what I said. But if you are feeling fragile or insecure or somehow self-identify from what I have said -
Mr Gutwein interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order. Can you address the motion please, Mr Booth, and through the Chair.
Mr BOOTH - Moving on from that matter, I do not think there is a lot more I can say on this motion. As I said from the start, it is constructed without good faith. It has no merit whatsoever because there is no truth in the arguments raised. There is nothing persuasive about it in any way. What the Liberal Party are doing in this case is sloughing more votes off their backs, which is probably indicated in the poll that has been released today. They dropped 8 per cent or something like that in support around the community. I suggest this behaviour that the Liberal Party have engaged in today - this wedge politics of Mr Shelton's motion - is a classic example of why people are simply closing their ears to and turning their backs on the Liberal Party. They do not want to be held back in that ancient, dinosaur past, back in the 1950s where most of this thinking has come from. It is way past time that you had a good hard look at what you have been doing to these people, these so-called timber folk and timber communities that you purport to represent. Start talking to the real contractors out there who at the moment are losing their houses as a result of harsh and oppressive contracts that Gunns have saddled them with. You, who claim to support them, have never ever come into this House to advocate for or support them. Your party voted down a $20 million buy-out package that the Greens debated in the House last year. It would have let these families leave the industry with dignity and with enough cash to maintain their homes. But what did the Liberal Party do? They continued on with the vile political wedge and kept on dividing and trying to rule, but it has backfired now. It backfired in March. It backfired again yesterday with an 8 per cent drop. The way you are going you will become so irrelevant to the timber debate, and so irrelevant to the Tasmanian community, that you will become a party of maybe one, two, three or four. If you look at the rapid decline of the Liberal Party, it is people like yourselves and that style of thinking that are dragging you down into the gutter. It is time you stopped playing politics with the lives of these people in the timber industry who are really interested in having a decent future.
Opposition members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order.
Mr BOOTH - Mr Gutwein has self-identified in here that he also has no concern about the matters I raised with regard to assisting contractors to exit this industry with dignity and their homes intact. This is an opportunity, Mr Gutwein, for a landscape-scale change to make this industry a sustainable and acceptable industry. You ought to start being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

3 comments:

  1. Any idea where I can find transcripts of parliamentary proceedings, Pilko?

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/HansardCouncil/isysquery/3ed7432c-4524-4f67-8b6c-86bad97ef5de/1/doc/

    ReplyDelete