Graeme Wood and Jan Cameron have ended hopes of reopening a Tasmanian woodchip mill they bought two years ago and will instead call for interest in developing the site for tourism. Sources: The Australian, the Herald-Sun
The two conservation-minded millionaires said they had begun rehabilitating the mill site at Triabunna on the state’s east coast and would call for expressions of interest in developing it as a marina and tourist precinct.
Tasmania’s struggling timber industry had hoped the mill, sold to the pair by Gunns for $10 million in 2011, would be reopened, at least temporarily, as an export woodchip facility.
Wood and Cameron had left that option open but Wood said it was time to “move on” and generate wealth from the site by transforming it into a tourism precinct.
The Liberal state opposition suggested they had never really intended to reopen the mill and that the Labor minority government had been “played for fools”.
“Reopening Triabunna was a key plank of the forest (peace) deal,” said opposition Treasury spokesman Peter Gutwein.
“The Greens and environmental groups have played Labor for fools.”
The Tasmanian Forest Agreement signed between conservation and timber groups last year included a clause urging state and federal government to help reopen the mill.
Wood said expressions of interest process for a new mill operator had not produced a viable option.
A long-standing critic of the new owners, Glamorgan Spring Bay councillor and Timber Communities Australia member Cheryl Arnol, welcomed the announcement.
Arnol said the community was sceptical when it was first announced the mill would be transformed into a resort, but tough economic times had forced a rethink.
“Regardless of what it is, if it brings jobs back into the community — especially for our young people we have to welcome it,” she said.
Arnol was the first woman to be employed at the Triabunna mill in 1971 and said the community had suffered severe economic hardship since the decline of the forestry industry.
