📷Photo:
Rushy Lagoon, one of Tasmania's most productive farming properties falls to foriegn ownership paid by Australian Tax payers. File picture.
Tasmanian farmers have reacted with anger and disbelief to confirmation that the Federal Government has ignored community sentiment and waved through the sale of Rushy Lagoon, Tasmania’s largest farm, to UK forestry investor Gresham House, clearing the way for 22,000 hectares of prime dairy and beef country in the state’s north-east to be locked up under a pine plantation.
TasFarmers President Nathan Cox said the decision was a betrayal of Tasmanian agriculture and a breaking of the social contract between government and the Australian people by greenlighting the use of taxpayer money against Australian farmers.
“This is a disgraceful outcome for Tasmania and for Australian food security,” Mr Cox said.
“Rushy Lagoon has fed Australian families for generations".
Today the Federal Government has broken its covenant with the Australian people by agreeing to turn productive farmland into a monoculture pine plantation so a foreign investment fund can tick a carbon abatement box.
“Treasurer Jim Chalmers has allowed the use of taxpayer funds in this deal, and kept quiet on it for months, on a decision which has been delayed through FIRB no fewer than seven times, and then dropped it the moment Parliament rose for a six-week winter break. Tasmanians are entitled to ask what he didn’t want scrutinised,” Mr Cox said.
Rushy Lagoon, together with the neighbouring East Wyambi, spans almost 22,000 hectares between Gladstone and Musselroe Bay and has run dairy and beef cattle at a capacity of around 85,000 DSE, supported by 1,170 hectares of developed irrigation and more than 12,500 megalitres of water entitlements.
Gresham House’s reported offer of more than $100 million sits well above TasFarmers’ own estimate of the property’s $70–80 million market value, a gap the organisation says points squarely to government-backed financing tilting the paddock in favour of a foreign buyer using everyday Australians ' money.
“We have real, unanswered questions about why funding was committed to this deal before the sale and why a foreign forestry fund could outbid every Australian farmer at the table,” Mr Cox said.
“The treasurer’s excuse relating to the classification of farmland holds no water, as highly productive dairies have operated on Rushy for many years; any good farmer knows that cannot happen on poor or second-rate land. These comments are a smoke screen for his poor decision-making.
“TasFarmers has raised the glaring conflict at the heart of this process: the Clean Energy Finance Corporation stands to benefit financially from carbon plantations like this one, and a CEFC director sits on the very Foreign Investment Review Board that was supposed to assess it independently. Tasmanian farmers cannot compete against their own government.
“Our community survey found 99 per cent of respondents opposed this sale. Dorset Council has warned it creates an unfair playing field for local farmers and puts regional dairy pick-up runs and beef processing jobs at risk. Coalition members from Senator Colbeck to Senator Askew to Shadow Agriculture Minister Darren Chester have all raised the alarm. The only people who seem untroubled by any of this are the ones who signed off on it.”
Mr Cox said TasFarmers would now demand the public release of the full FIRB assessment and financing arrangements behind the sale, and called on the Government to explain what safeguards, if any, were applied.
“Tasmanian farmers deserve transparency, not a sneaky decision snuck out the back door during the winter recess. We will be pursuing this through every avenue available, including calling for a parliamentary inquiry into how a foreign carbon-forestry fund was allowed to outbid Australian farmers for our largest and most productive farm.”
“TasFarmers and local interested parties and politicians have reached out over and over again to our federal Agricultural Minister, FIRB, and the Treasurer only to be stonewalled by meaningless responses.
“For something that is so important, these responses and today’s announcement demonstrate the Treasurer did not have the national interest at heart, and that ideology drove this decision”.