When is a poll not a poll?

Timber NSW

Tiber NSW is calling on the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation to release details of its latest marketing campaign including the opening statement, full list of questions, sample size, and margin of error from its latest push-polling effort to end timber harvesting in NSW.

About Regional, a widely read online news source, reports that Ken Henry’s Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation commissioned a poll which apparently suggests overwhelming support among South Coast voters for converting state forests into national parks and significant support for ending native forest logging in the region.

According to Timber NSW Chief Executive Maree McCaskill, ‘The published headline figures cannot be judged as reliable measures of informed support for the park proposal. This was nothing more than a push poll to support Ken Henry’s campaign to destroy the timber industry in Australia.

‘The skewed polling was released by the National Parks Association to further muddy the waters as to the true intention of this campaign in which respondents were asked about large new protected areas without being given a detailed description of the boundaries, effects on forestry or park-access.

‘An enormous amount of what we do is trying to educate people about forestry. Our job is made much harder when we have to counter the false narratives perpetrated by people and organisations trying to ruin Australian industry by disguising their intent and wilfully ignoring hard facts and proven statistics.

‘The obsession with destroying the timber industry in Australia has already led to bizarre outcomes - Australia now relies on imported hardwood from questionable sources. This includes Merbau, a listed threatened species imported from unregulated forestry operations across Asia’ said Maree.

Some other information the commentators like Ken Henry and numerous politicians ignore is:

90% of publicly owned forests are already in national parks and conservation reserves in NSW (nearly 8M ha)
State forests cost less than a tenth of the cost of managing National Parks
State forests contribute to an industry that generates $1.1b annually in value added to the NSW economy.
State forests that have been well managed for timber over 100 years remain full of native species.

Contact details:

Media Contact: Maree McCaskill, CEO 0418 657 453