3 July 2009
DAFF09/289B

Some questions have been raised in recent days over the statistics included in my Ministerial Statement on ‘Preparing our forest industries for the future’ on 24 June 2009.

In relation to the proposal for Gunns’ Bell Bay Pulp Mill, the employment figures used in that statement form part of a report which was prepared in 2004 by the Centre of Policy Studies at Monash University.

These statistics have subsequently been used by the Tasmanian Government, the Australian Government and, unsurprisingly, also by Gunns Ltd.