17 March 2016

Goodhew needs to back local forestry companies

Jo Goodhew needs to come up with new ideas to back local forestry companies, instead of siding with overseas forest owners who simply send unprocessed logs overseas, says Labour’s Forestry spokesman Stuart Nash.

“Overseas companies are buying up forests and selling the logs directly offshore, cutting local sawmills out of the process, even though local sawmills are prepared to pay export-equivalent log prices. That’s not good enough. In Gisborne one sawmill can’t get guaranteed logs, despite being based on the doorstep of a large forest owned by an overseas consortium.

“But National won’t do anything about it. In Parliament today Jo Goodhew just wrote off the problem. She isn’t up to the job.

“The forest industry is a classic example of the market not working. The Government needs to provide direction and guidance to support the domestic industry and jobs,” says Stuart Nash.

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