WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT
A few of the miserable pointy heads who craft Australian economic policy – also known as economists – have been rattled by some big news this week.
The Economics Department at the South Betoota Polytechnic’s Sir Joh School Of Business have been shocked to learn that it’s not very lucrative to chop down Australia’s old growth forests.
Not only that, they’ve learnt that it’s actually a burden on the taxpayer.
This comes after the luminaries at Betoota’s thought leading school of economics conducted a study into the viability of native forest logging across the country.
The issue has once again become an election one, with constituents of marginal seats in places like NSW’s Mid-North Coast hotly debating the value of the forestry industry to their future.
Seats like Cowper, where the Great Koala National Park is supposed to be created, is held by the Nationals on a thin 2.4% margin – with many voters concerned about the environmental future of the region.
That has seen some radical proposals offered up, like not losing money logging old growth native forest for woodchips and mulch and instead cashing in on carbon credits.
“That was one of the propositions we studied as part of our analysis,” said one of the economists at the Sir Joh School of Business.
“Yeah, I mean, capturing carbon credits the state could actually sell instead of losing tens of millions of dollars every year is a really interesting idea.”
“Instead of losing money, we make money in places like NSW and Queensland where we still log our native forests. And that can fund jobs like bushfire management and nature repair, you know, jobs that will last decades.”
“Hire people to look after our beautiful bushland instead of logging the shit out of it.”
“It’s so crazy it might just work.”
Both major parties have yet to comment on the proposals, with the Coalition still maintaining its commitment to put a ban on banning the logging of native forests.
More to come.
