Burke blasted for MIS support

Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke still supports MIS schemes.

Rural leaders have launched a scathing attack against Federal Government praise for forestry managed investment schemes.

Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke, who is also Forestry Minister, last week told Federal Parliament that MISs attracted a lot of investment to the rural areas.

"While recent MIS failures were ‘rightly' under scrutiny, it should be recognised that forestry MIS has fostered significant investment in regional communities," Mr Burke said.

MIS critic and head of Sustainable Agricultural Communities Australia, Robert Belcher, said Mr Burke's comments were a "national disgrace".

"If trees are so bloody good, why do taxpayers have to prop them up," he said.

Mr Belcher said the Government was a captive of an "unholy alliance" between the forestry industry and the powerful Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, to push for plantation development.

"I'm just appalled with the handling of this issue on both sides of Parliament," he said.

In his ministerial statement Preparing our Forest Industries for the Future, Mr Burke also flagged a Government review of the ‘most appropriate investment model' for forestry, once administration proceedings and two Federal parliamentary inquiries into recent MIS collapses were completed.

He threw his support behind the controversial Gunns pulp mill proposal in Tasmania, pending a Federal environmental tick and said the Government would push for carbon embedded in wood products to be recognised in world carbon trading rules.

Peak timber and paper industry bodies A3P, National Association of Forest Industries and Timber Communities Australia all welcomed Mr Burke's statement.

Australian Agribusiness Group director Tim Lee said MISs had created jobs, boosted regional development and put "quality assets" on the ground.

At a NSW Farm Writers' lunch last week, Mr Lee said MISs were not all about up-front tax breaks and made an overall contribution to tax coffers.

Victorian Farmers Federation president Andrew Broad said Mr Burke had ignored the full impact on the bush.

"He might be technically right about the investment, but the question is: at what cost?" Mr Broad said.

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