MIS fallout

Discussion of MIS companies like Timbercorp (which hasn’t invested in Tasmania) as well as the local exploiters like Great Southern, Gunns and Forest Enterprises assumes continued MIS investment in plantation trees.

But MIS investment has shrunk over the last 6 months and the next few months doesn’t look promising. A lot of MIS Companies have stopped spruiking. Some are in serious trouble.

Does this mean that more native forests will have to be sacrificed to the Nine Dragons if the mill is to proceed?

Timbercorp announced on 16th April that ..”unless the Company is able to reach agreement with its financiers to restructure the existing debt facilities debt facilities, or an alternative funding or restructure plan is implemented before 1 May 2009, there is significant uncertainty regarding the ability of the Company to continue as a going concern.” The ASX announcement is at http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20090416/pdf/31h2s6z5blkxvj.pdf.

Timbercorp has called for the last rites, and is just a breath away from voluntary administration.

The Murdoch press via The Weekly Times had a very succinct editorial on 22nd April. It read in part

“The tragedy is rural communities and taxpayers are now going to bear the brunt of the MIS sector’s collapse.

Land values will drop and jobs will be lost. Taxpayers and rural Australia also face losing the millions of dollars they poured into MIS.

As for the politicians who promoted managed investment schemes, they should hang their heads in shame”

The full editorial can be found at http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au//article/2009/04/22/72845_opinion-news.html

What’s Dave Llewellyn doing? Praying? Not a word on private forests for quite a while. He’s presided over a product that has been grown at a huge taxpayer cost, a product that was supply driven because the promoters were making a decent cut.

Not because there was any demand .

But with so many MIS schemes unlikely to be profitable, he should stop handing out Private Timber Reserve status to assist the top end of town to avoid their land tax responsibilities.

I thought we were in a recession?

You’re about to freeze the pay of your constituents, Dave, rather than collect land tax from the carpetbaggers. Where are the Labour ideals, Dave? The light on the hill isn’t exactly illuminating the lives of the True Believers?

Get your hands out of your pockets, Dave, stop wondering what might have been, and get on with the job.