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A perfect demonstration of ABC activism

Timber NSW

Key Facts:

• Senator Pauline Hanson criticised the ABC at the National Press Club, alleging the broadcaster  harbours activists within its ranks.
• Timber NSW Chief Executive Maree McCaskill alleged that Four Corners has deliberately misrepresented the forestry industry by ignoring scientific evidence and giving equal weight to opinion from unnamed environmental groups.
• The ABC was accused of making false allegations that parts of the industry received compensation without suffering loss
• McCaskill called for forestry policy to be based on science rather than opinion, and warned there must be limits to what she described as ABC activists' attempts to destroy a viable and sustainable forestry industry in New South Wales.

While Senator Pauline Hanson was telling the National Press Club that, “From its chairman down, the ABC has proven itself to be completely in denial about its profoundly transparent political bias and the activists in its ranks.” The hardworking editors at the ABC were doing their best to prove her correct.

According to Timber NSW Chief Executive Maree McCaskill, “Any pretence that the ABC Four Corners ‘journalists’ are anything more than activists disappears when they describe one of their interviewees, in an email, as a ‘formidable opponent’.

‘This latest stich-up of the sustainable forestry industry which has harvested trees for generations, and re-grown forests for generations is based entirely on a fiction being spread by the national broadcaster.

‘Forestry policy needs to be based on science not opinion and yet, sadly, ABC Four Corners prioritises uneducated opinion over evidence-based science when it comes to the timber industry.

‘Activists at the national broadcaster are working tirelessly to shut down the forestry industry in NSW and the rest of Australia as quickly as they can based on conjecture and opinion expressed by unnamed environmental groups from “down south” to quote the Four Corners journalist during a lengthy interview with Andrew Hurford, the head of a multi-generational timber industry group.

‘Four Corners is attempting to portray the forest products industry as immoral by making false allegations that parts of the industry have been paid compensation when they haven’t suffered loss of contracted timber supply.

‘In addition the ABC activists essentially debunk scientific evidence used by the CSIRO by giving equal weighting to opinion and conjecture from unnamed environmental groups.

‘Four Corners interviewed Andrew Hurford in a part of a forest that had been harvested only two years earlier yet they refused to acknowledge that fact because it didn’t show the devastation that they were looking for. In audio recordings of the interview the bird-song is almost too intrusive to conduct an interview, reflective of a very healthy ecosystem.

‘Their attempt to sway public opinion against the forestry industry even goes as far as showing footage of a timber haulage truck arriving at a mill complete with feigned gasps of horror without acknowledging that the timber was from private land, not a public forest and that it was the only delivery of large logs in an nearly a year.

‘There must be a limit to the lengths that ABC activists will go to in order to destroy a viable, sustainable forestry industry in NSW’, said Maree.

About us:

Timber NSW was established in 1906 as the representative organisation of the timber and forest products industry in NSW. Its mission is to work with members, stakeholders and the broader industry to build an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable timber industry in New South Wales.

Contact details:

Maree McCaskill,  0418 657 453

[email protected]