URGENT AND IMPORTANT MESSAGE
TO ALL TASMANIANS
Bob Loone
Deputy Mayor
Meander Valley Council
Fully tax deductible so-called “investments” generate
about $1B profit per year for the MIS Forestry Plantation Corporations
enabling them to purchase thousands of farms.
The “Investor” gets to lease some land with trees
on, for around $10,000 per hectare and pays ongoing costly “maintenance
fees”.
Historically it ends up as a nightmare experience for the “investor”
while the MIS Corporations continue to amass huge land ownership
portfolios.
Governments have deliberately created these
Schemes
to be instrumental in the transfer of the land from farmers
to giant corporations. It is called the corporatisation of Australia’s
farmland.
Competition between MIS forestry plantation corporations for
more land, drives up land prices making it impossible for farmers,
who haven’t any tax free “investments”, to compete.
Even though agricultural production is on average a seven times
more profitable land-use, it is being systematically replaced
with unsustainable, non-agricultural, low value inefficient
pulpwood trees.
As more and more land is bought up by MIS Corporations (about
1000 of the approx 4500 farms in Tasmania have already gone),
there is a subsequent decline in the States economy. Regions
lose economic viability, health and educational services, rural
supply and support business, shopping facilities and social
cohesion.
If it wasn’t for the “tax avoidance” and “heavy
subsidisation” afforded the plantation industry, it would
not survive.
If the plantation industry had to pay a fair price for the excess
groundwater which is depleted from surrounding areas at the
same expense as other users, they would not be viable.
If the Federal Government were to remove the $B subsidisation
given in the form of tax exemptions, this national disaster
would not continue to increase exponentially.
MIS forestry plantations remove excessive quantities of ground
water from surrounding areas causing serious losses for other
land users. MIS forestry plantation corporations should be made
to pay for the huge quantities (about 300% compared to farming)
of extra water they take from catchments.
